SIMMER DOWN WHIPPERNAPPERS! ONE RIOT, ONE RANGER

 By Juan Montoya

It was the early 1980s and in those days each commissioner ran their own Road and Bridge crews in Cameron County.

Local attorney D.J. Lerma had been appointed county judge after Jack Goolsby passed away. Lerma served as an interim county judge before a special election was called and Tony Garza was elected to office.

At that time I was an administrative assistant with Precinct 1 and oversaw the road crews. One day we received word that a farm tractor had run over a PVC water pipe belonging to El Jardin Water District. 

The pipe was buried just a few inches below the dirt on Florida Road and the operator of the tractor had not even seen it when he drove over it and broke it. The pipe ran at the top of packed dirt covering  30-foot corrugated metal culvert below on a ditch belonging to the Cameron County Drainage and Irrigation District #1.

The four-inch PVC pipe broke just under the surface of the road, spilled water onto the dirt, soaked it, and then the combined weight of wet dirt and water caused the culvert to collapse. We quickly sent a crew to place barriers on either side of the ditch to prevent some motorist from falling in the canal.

So now we had a situation where Precinct 1 owned the right-of-way, the water pipe belonged to the El Jardin Water District, and the culvert belonged to the irrigation district. No one wanted to take responsibility for paying for the repairs. Each blamed the other and the county engineer disputed the version of events of the drainage and water districts that would place the responsibility and blame on the county and demanding that it pay for the repairs to the road, the culvert, and the broken pipe.

The water district capped off the pipe at either end of the ditch and supplied the few resident there with water diverted from other mains nearby. The road, however, remained closed for months  and school buses had to make a long detour to pick up kids on either side of the closed off section.

Things came to a stalemate and soon I was directed to go confer with the board of the irrigation district. Armed with blueprints and engineer drawings that depicted the origin of the pipe break and collapsed culvert, I dove to the district office. At that time the office was off Coffeeport Road near the intersection with FM 802.

I recall that Jimmy Webb, a short polite man, was the manager of the district. He met me at the front office and told me that the board was discussing some things in executive session and that he would call me when the item came up on their agenda. I reviewed the drawings and prepared to make the case for the precinct absolving us of any obligation.

In a short time, Jimmy emerged from the door and beckoned me over. I went in and saw the five board members sitting – some lounging – on their swivel chairs looking me over. The preferred attire appeared to be faded jeans, western shirts and Justin Roper boots. The majority were local ranchers.

Jimmy introduced me and said something like, "Well, here's the county man."
One of the rancher board members looked me over up and down and said in a drawl with a touch of disdain: "Is that it?, pronouncing the last word like "eeaat?"

An awkward silence followed. I couldn't help myself.

"One riot, one Ranger," I explained.

Well, as was to be expected, nothing was fixed that day. Over time the precinct - through Frank Bejarano's Planning and Management Department - was able to secure a grant from the state and instead of a corrugated metal culvert we obtained a concrete section of road and bridge with boxes  costing upwards of $100,000. 

But I'll never forget the day when the local ranchers met up with a Mexican-American rinche.