By Juan Montoya
It's like a friend told the the guy who had been married seven times and was going for an eighth try,: "One of these days you're going to get it right."
In today's front page of the Brownsville Herald, the two main stories remind us of the nuptials addict. We have the main story of the recent flooding after two days of intermittent storms and the aftermath, and a sidebar on the Supreme Court striking down plastic bag bans.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 go back to the piecemeal systems in place with floodways, retention ponds, and cleaning 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 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 because 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.
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.
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 the systems (resacas, ditches, etc.) that make it almost impossible for the watershed to function naturally as when the water flowed to the Rio Grande. The territorial nature of these entities to protect their turf has long stopped the runoff of rain water and the cooperation to let it flow.
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. 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 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 Supreme Court has outlawed plastic bag bans, it will be up to the local grocers to decide whether to maintain the illegal ban imposed by the city upon the residents, or to allow them to give customers single-use plastic bags again. We have said it time and time again.There will always be a 10 percent who throw away the bags and create litter. But should the other 90 percent be penalized by having to buy the bags to satisfy the nanny-state instincts of folks like city commissioner Rose Gowen and her ilk?
(The photo at right was taken about a year ago, about ix years after Bownsville’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 were illegal.)
How many years did it take for us to realize that the 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.
If anything, it's job security for these city workers and the city's administrations literally washing city money down the drains by not addressing the implementation of a real drainage scheme.
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?