In a classic case of a misnomer, the low-income residents of a subdivision called Laguna Seca in Cameron County Precinct 2 have been pumping weeks after after the recent storms when the development turns it into a very wet lake.
Officially, the subdivision is recorded with the county as the Hacienda Del Norte Subdivision.
In fact, the subdivision floods just about every time there's a heavy downpour.
And the developer, who has installed a permanent tractor with a pump for that very purpose, has now washed his hands of the whole messy affair leaving the residents to fend off on their own.
Commissioner Alex Dominguez, who never imagined he'd be involved doing the work of a drainage district, now has his hands full answering the complaints of the irate property owners who bought their lots from Quinta-Anita Inc.. The president of Quinta-Anita is Rick Cardenas. According to the records on file, the original owners of Quinta-Anita were Cardenas and the late Raul Tijerina.
"Some of them didn't even know they had deeds," Dominguez said. "The county is really not responsible for pumping water from their lots. But we are trying to help them out as much as we can."
The problems begin soon after the subdivision was filed with the county
City ordinance require that:
"The closest corner of the proposed subdivision shall be at a distance of more than 500 feet, as measured along the proposed sewer line, from a public gravity sanitary sewer system, and the proposed subdivision shall contain no more than one parcel for each 50-foot length of such distance beyond 500 feet including any fractions of such 50-foot lengths."
The subdivision is in the City of Brownsville's Extra-Territorial Jurisdiction and there is no public sanitary sewer service available. Accordingly, on-site sanitary systems (septic tanks) are used by the residents. Half of the subdivision is located in Flood Zone A O:
Zone AO is defined as an area inundated by 1 percent annual chance flooding (usually sheet flow on sloping terrain), for which average depths have been determined; flood depths range from 1 to 3 feet. According to FEMA guidelines, "Some Zone AO have been designated in areas with high flood velocities such as alluvial fans and washes. Communities are encouraged to adopt more restrictive requirements for these areas."
When the subdivision plat was submitted to the county in the early 1990s, it included a large lot to be used as a retention pond (see top graphic at bottom center of the subdivision). The deeds sold to residents state that they were to form a home owners' association with lien-assessing authority to maintain the pond. Some residents have told Dominguez and his assistants that they didn't even know the covenant existed. With lots selling between $17,000 to $24,000, it is doubtful that many would even understand what the covenant was.
"Some didn't even know that that meant," he said. "They didn't know they were supposed to maintain the pond."When the flooding began way back when, the county asked Cardenas about maintenance of the pump he had provided for the pond and on April 1996, he wrote the county engineer "Please be advised that a homeowners association (is responsible) for the maintenance of s service pump to be used in the detention pond located in Section II of the (subdivision)."
Since the site is more than two miles into the city's ETJ, subdivision rules passed at the time did not require Cardenas to provide sidewalks, curb and gutter or city-grade streets. Residents soon faced the daunting task of getting rid of flood waters that often rose to house level.
That pump, however, proved to be too little to remove the standing water that literally created a lake. The problem was compounded with the health hazard created when on-site sewer systems (septic tanks) overflowed.
Dominguez and the county crews spent the better part of three days with the Gator (pump) 24 hours. For five days they used two 2,000 gallon tanker trucks from Pct. 2 Public Works.
Former Cameron County Pct. 2 commissioner John Wood remembers the subdivision well. He said that the flooding has been chronic and that the pump at the subdivision often broke down and couldn't handle the volume of water that flooded it periodically.
"The developer basically washed his hands of the problem and didn't want anything to do with it," he said.
To add to the problem, the landowners adjacent to the subdivision at first allowed the residents to pump the water into their fields, but with the potential contamination from the septic and other detritus, they were no longer willing to continue the practice.
Since the subdivision is located outside of any drainage district, the water has to be carried in pipes and through bar ditches to the nearest irrigation ditch.
With hurricane season under way, it the problems associated with flooding and health hazards from overflowing septic tanks is not going to go away. The way the city is growing, it may not be long before annexation and may require a huge outlay to bring it up to city specifications.
And with Cardenas basically saying it is the residents' baby, and with no easy solution in sight, it is unlikely that Dominguez, the current tenant at the Pct. 2 helm, has heard the last of it.
10 comments:
The Kardenas Klan continues to take advantage of this community and its poorer ctizens. As Ricky Kardenas has demonstrated, the Kardenas Klan will take advantage of the living and the dead. They have made themselves rich by taking developing colonias and then pulling out to let the city or county fix the problems. The Kardenas Klan often names streets or projects after the matriarch of the klan. Mary Rose Kardenas....... So maybe this new colonia could be called "Stinky Rose" or just "Shitty Rose". Alex Dominguez now has to clean up yet another Kardenas Klan "development", this one on land likely stolen from the widow of Mr. Tijerina.
Doesn't anybody go to jail in Cameron Co. For Con-Operations ?
Pinches Cardenas hijos de la Chin%$%$!
Shit, is this in the Rancho Viejo area?
Danny Villanueva, a former professional football player who as a founder of the Univision network built a Spanish-language broadcasting empire spanning the United States, died on Thursday in Ventura, Calif. He was 77.
His death, after a stroke, was announced by his alma mater, New Mexico State University.
One of the first Hispanic-Americans in the National Football League, Mr. Villanueva was a kicker for the Los Angeles Rams from 1960 to 1964, and for the Dallas Cowboys from 1965 to 1967. He was also a television sportscaster and an executive of the Spanish International Communications Corporation, a forerunner of Univision. Based in New York, Univision is today the leading Spanish-language television network in the United States, serving nearly 30 million viewers in 57 markets.
One of 12 children of itinerant Mexican missionaries, Daniel Dario Villanueva was born in a two-room earthen hut in Tucumcari, N.M., on Nov. 5, 1937. His father was a Methodist minister, and Danny, as he was known, was reared wherever the elder Mr. Villanueva took a pulpit, including Phoenix and Calexico, Calif. As a boy, he helped support the family by picking asparagus, watermelon and cantaloupe.
After studying at what is now Reedley College in Reedley, Calif., the young Mr. Villanueva entered New Mexico State on a football scholarship. He earned a bachelor’s degree in English, edited the campus newspaper and was a member of the team that won the 1959 Sun Bowl, beating North Texas State 28-8.
In 1960, after a Rams scout saw him kick a 49-yard field goal, the team signed him to a $5,500-a-year contract. Mr. Villanueva was savvy enough to request a signing bonus.
“They gave me $200,” he told The Los Angeles Times in 1985. “They took it out of my last check.”
He is survived by his wife, the former Mexican acrobat, Elaine Melendez, and two sons, Herbert and Phil.
Wrong forum....
Wrong surviving wife!
This looks like a map from the Manhatten Project .
No you ignoramus ignorant Nac, it's a map of the Kardenas Fuck Project.
I stand corrected . Even Nacos make mistakes and errors .
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