Hidalgo, Willacy County officials break ground on Raymondville Drain project

RAYMONDVILLE — Rio Grande Valley leaders are leveraging regional thinking to combat regional problems.

Nowhere is that more clear than along an isolated stretch of State Highway 186 about 18 miles east of Raymondville, where satellite maps show an overgrown, twisting waterway wending its way across the land.

The site is the original location of the Raymondville Drain — a channel meant to mitigate storm runoff from the more populated west as it flows toward its final destination, the Laguna Madre.

TCEQ Executive Director Toby Baker looks on during a groundbreaking ceremony for the Raymondville Drain in eastern Willacy County on Friday, Aug. 12, 2022. Behind him, maps and photographs depict the project area. (Dina Arévalo | [email protected])

And Friday morning, it was also the site of hopeful celebration as leaders from Hidalgo and Willacy counties broke ground on a project meant to restore the channel to its original capacity.

“This is the foundation of the Raymondville Drain,” Raul Sesin, regional planning director for Hidalgo County, said to the crowd of local and state dignitaries.

“This is the restoring of the original footprint of the drain, which predominantly covers most of Willacy and a portion of northeast Hidalgo (County). But it is the starting work that we need to continue to develop the full Raymondville Drain, which is a… major regional drainage project for our area,” Sesin said.

For decades, local leaders have touted the cross-Valley Raymondville Drain as a critical component of infrastructure necessary to mitigating catastrophic flood damage amid historic storms that seem to hit with an ever-increasing frequency just as urbanization has accelerated.

Friday’s groundbreaking represents Phase 2 of a collaborative effort to bring the drain one step closer to reality.

“Starting Phase 2 is a big deal,” state Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa said in his opening remarks.

The senator recalled returning from the Vietnam War to find the Valley ravaged by the devastating inundation of 1967’s Hurricane Beulah. He and others quickly set to work filling sandbags in a near-futile attempt to shore up overtaxed earthen levees.

“While we cannot control rain, we cannot control storms, what we can do is control and mitigate and manage our waters, our flooding,” Hinojosa said.

The project aims to restore about 62 miles of the channel, which has become “overtaken” by plant growth, sedimentation and debris, according to Hidalgo County Precinct 4 Commissioner Ellie Torres.

“While today we are not announcing an expansion of the project, we are engaging in the restoration or maintenance of a segment,” Torres said.

Willacy County Judge Aurelio “Keter” Guerra, far right, turns to address TCEQ Executive Director Toby Baker, far left, during a groundbreaking ceremony for the Raymondville Drain in eastern Willacy County on Friday, Aug. 12, 2022. (Dina Arévalo | [email protected])

The channel drains just over 130 square miles of land across both counties, officials said.

The project is divided into six segments with crews restoring some three miles of the channel per month. About 70% of that 62-mile length winds through rural Willacy County, while the remaining 30% stretches across northeastern Hidalgo County affecting Lasara and Hargill.

Once completed, capacity should increase by 40-50%, Sesin said. If that pace keeps up, the project should be completed well before its two-year timeline, he said.

It should also help relieve pressure on Hidalgo County’s primary drainage system, known as the Main Drain. The system consists of a series of canals that crisscross through some of the county’s most densely populated areas.

Diverting water northward toward the Raymondville Drain will increase capacity in the Main Drain system, Hidalgo County Precinct 1 Commissioner David Fuentes said.

“It’s a critical component directly and indirectly, not just to our county residents on the north side, but everybody that’s going to be impacted because of that redirection of that water,” Fuentes said.

“So, that’s where it’s super critical.”

The project’s $7 million price tag is being funded through the RESTORE Act, which is a federal bill designed to distribute the billions in civil penalties paid by BP in the wake of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

“In the broader context of this region in the state of Texas, this is $7 million, but as of now, we have spent — or will have spent — over $20 million of RESTORE funds in this region,” said Toby Baker, executive director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

Hidalgo County Precinct 4 Commissioner Ellie Torres addresses the crowd during a groundbreaking for the Raymondville Drain project in eastern Willacy County on Friday, Aug. 12, 2022. To the right, state Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa looks on. (Dina Arévalo | [email protected])

Baker said the Valley’s ability to speak with a unified, regional voice lends weight when officials lobby at the state level for infrastructure funding for projects like the Raymondville Drain.

But it’s more than just a mutually beneficial financial deal that has prompted local leaders to work together. For Willacy County Judge Aurelio “Keter” Guerra, what impacts one community inevitably impacts its neighbors.

“These types of projects, as the senator alluded to, is one of those needs that really is the whole region’s issue,” Guerra said.

“There has never been, that I know of, a much more closely related effort by not only Willacy and Hidalgo (counties), but also our good neighbors, Cameron and Starr County. These efforts affect all of us,” he said.

Hidalgo County Judge Richard F. Cortez agreed, referring to the Valley as “one big family together,” especially since floodwaters flow from west to east at various outfalls that spill into the Laguna Madre.

“We had to consider everything that we do — that whatever helps us cannot hurt someone else. So, working together… is extremely important,” Cortez said.