AFTER A BIG DOG PEES, ONCE MORE TO LAKE BROWNTOWN

By Juan Montoya


Former City of Brownsville Mayor Henry Gonzalez used to quip (he was a jock in school) that if a dog peed at Four Corners, the whole of Boca Chica Blvd. would flood.

That is not entirely incorrect. After each "flood event" FEMA would come down to Cameron County and tell officials that the county needed a countywide drainage system to prevent such occurrences.

Of course, everyone nodded their head in agreement until they got their disaster relief and then returned to the piecemeal systems in place: floodways, retention ponds, and the cleaning of drainage ditches until the next big dog came around and relieved himself at Four Corners again.

And there we remain.

Drainage District No. 1, which has the same board members who were appointed when the district was created back in the days when the late Pete Benavides was Cameron County Pct. 1 commissioner, has refined the task of cleaning ditches to a fine art, but the flooding still occurs despite its massive annexations of city properties,

It is still a piecemeal design that does not incorporate all the areas of the city. In fact, the same board members appointed by the county commissioners court remain in office with no elections held by the district in all those years. When its director retired, one of the board members took over the task.

Despite the obvious need for a wholesale restructuring of the system, the district is now delving into recreation uses for its land, creating a water park on Robindale Road across the street from the Robindale Sewage Treatment Plant. It is named after the district board chairman Ernesto Gamez, a sort of monument to himself. Gamez, a short man, has even had a small hill created for the park. Mount Gamez, perhaps?

Its engineer has pointed out that neither the city Public Works nor the Brownsville Public Utilities Board coordinate flood responses with the district and we end up with bottlenecks at the juncture of these systems (resacas, ditches, etc.) that make it almost impossible for the watershed to function naturally as when the water flowed to the Rio Grande.

During a recent visit, he showed us a computerized hydrology map showing the areas where water bottlenecks and flooding occurs. Using this basic information as a base for a drainage system design, it would seem that it shouldn't be too difficult for these entities to coordinate a response.

The territorial nature of these entities to protect their turf has long stopped the management of the runoff of rain water and the cooperation to handle its flow away from populated areas.

The flow of the water in the river has been greatly diminished with the construction of dams upstream and in northern Mexico. The levee system that was constructed to keep the annual spring rains upstream from flooding downtown now keeps runoff from flowing naturally into the river.

We really can't remember the last time the levees were threatened by the water coming from upstream unless it was the runoff from a hurricane that had struck northern Mexico from the gulf. Now, instead of protecting the city, the levees act to hold the flow of runoff into the river and create a reservoir of southeast Cameron County.

We have long advocated the creation of multiple outfalls to the river from San Pedro to Oklahoma Road divert the flood waters to the river instead of waiting for it to drain naturally up the main drains to the Port of Brownsville channel. If the tide is high, it will take that much longer. Instead, we spend millions on silk stocking pet projects like hike and bike trails which do nothing to address the most basic of municipal functions: good drainage.

Now that the Texas Supreme Court has outlawed plastic bag bans, the bags will be blamed for clogging up drains and cause flooding, instead of taking the bulls by the horns and create bona fide drainage system.

There will always be a 10 percent who throw away the bags and other litter. But should the other 90 percent should have never been penalized?

(The photo at right was taken about a year ago, about six years after Brownsville’s plastic bag ban was put into effect in 2011. The Texas Attorney General charged that the $1 environmental fee paid by Brownsville residents who chose to use plastic bags at checkouts was illegal.)

How many years did it take for us to realize that the Works Projectgress Administration irrigation-designed system of ditches we relabeled as a drainage system isn't going to do? After each "flood event," Public Works crews set about to patch the potholes washed away by the runoff.

We know.

Fixing a drainage system is not as sexy as riding around in an expensive bike wearing the latest designer cyclist outfit. But how long must our neighborhoods and street continue to be inundated and torn up by rain waters because we never addressed the most basic of municipal services, drainage?