AT PASO REAL, A LONG ROAD TO A BEAUTIFUL DESTINATION: $1.5 MILLION DRAINAGE PROJECT WILL END FLOODING, PESTS

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

It has been said that difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations. 

And in the case of relieving the chronic flooding of homes in Cameron County Pct. 1's Paso Real Subdivision, it has been a journey that started way back in 2015 when an opportunity arose to apply to the Texas Department of Public Safety Division (TDPS) of Emergency Management and the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) to assist residents plagued by a resaca that bred mosquitoes, pests, and other rodents that inhabited the stagnant waterway.

Now, eight years since the initial application was made to mitigate the silted-over and vegetation-overgrown waterway, the roar of heavy equipment echoes through the area roughly bounded by N. Minnesota Road on the west, N. Dakota Road on the west, Travis Road on the north and Houston Road to the south. 

According to the county's panning department, the drainage improvements will benefit population of some 2,415 residents and about 400 homes.  

The resaca which surrounds the subdivision is a section of  the Brownsville Irrigation and Drainage District #1, and is not part of the road and bridge duties of the county. Nonetheless, Pct. 1 commissioner Sofia Benavides said that when the opportunity arose to help the residents with the drainage and health hazards caused by the stagnant and silted-over waterway, she jumped at the chance. 

"Precinct 1 is not a drainage district, but the residents have long complained of the stagnant water coming into their back yards and homes when it rained," she said. "As if that wasn't bad enough, you had swarms of mosquitoes, snakes, bats, tlaquaches, and other animals crawling all over. It was really dangerous for the families who live here." 

For the past month or so, the roar of heavy equipment has echoed through the subdivision as workers constructed a berm to allow them to dredge the silted over resaca which stretches some 1,000 feet to the east and another 2,000 feet to the west and north ringing the subdivision.  (At right, Benavides is given a progress report by County Road Engineer Carlos Sanchez, who grew up in the Southmost area.) 

But the road to a solution has been long and arduous.

The initial application was submitted by the county's Program Management and Development Department back in December 2015, required an archeological survey that was completed by the University of Texas-San Antonio in 2017, the approval by the Texas General Land Office's Disaster Recovery, and the completion of a Hydrologic and Hydraulic Study. 

Only after all these technical studies had been completed did Benavides and the county get the long-awaited  news that FEMA and TDPS Emergency Management Division had approved funding of the project.

"We also got funding from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to help with the county's match, " said Grace Salinas, the county's planner. "It's been a long road, and we've gotten a few extensions from the state, but we're finally getting there."    

"We were awarded $1,459,872 grant from FEMA that was matched by the county at 75 to percent 25 percent match of about $365,000," Benavides said. "Part of that grant included money to rent the heavy equipment that the county does not have. To save money, we are using the county's Public Works crews and workers from Precinct 1. They have been busy operating the equipment to dredge the resaca and clear it so that rain water can flow into the city's drainage system across Minnesota Road."

Pct. 1 Foreman Ruben Rios said that the silt in the overgrown resaca accumulated over the time that it had been neglected so that the drainage pipes were below the silt level, effectively plugging them and bottling the runoff back into the subdivision.

"We had to dredge the sides of the banks and look at the subdivision's plats to find where they were located," Rios said. "We're in the process of clearing the overgrown brush and trees, and even stands of palm trees that grew wild in the middle of the dry water bed. First we clear the overgrown trees and then we come in and dredge the resaca to allow the water to flow when we finish." 

Benavides and road engineer Sanchez said that weather permitting, it should take another six to eight weeks to finish clearing and dredging the length of the resaca on both sides of Paso Real Street. After that is finished, the project will enter into Phase Two and bids will be let out to a private contractor who will install large concrete boxes below the street, the berm will be removed, and the water from the resaca will flow freely into the city's drainage ditch across Minnesota Road.

"We are grading the elevation so that the water will flow from both ends to the middle and into the city ditch," Sanchez said. "We are using some of the dirt and chips from the trees we cut down to  to help the city's landfill to cover their mounds of garbage. Everything is used."

On a recent inspection tour, Sanchez and Rios showed Benavides a stand of palm trees and other trees that have sprouted along the remaining channel carved out by water runoff from the subdivision.

"There were even some hardwoods along the edge,"  Sanchez said. "We had to use power saws to remove them. We might be able to save some of the palm trees by leaving a small island in the resaca. But our main goal is to allow the rain runoff to flow out of the subdivision."

To residents, the clearing of the silted over resaca is something they never thought they would live to see. One woman living along Paso Real Street having a garage sale said residents had resigned themselves to put up with the hazardous conditions of the plugged up drainage.

"When we were told that there was a plan to clear it and make the rain water flow, we thought it was just another false promise," she said. "But now we are seeing that the promises made by commissioner Sofie and the county's officials are coming true. We had been forgotten for so long we found it hard to believe. But you can see the crews working and doing it and realize it is true."