A regional approach to transportation projects has proven beneficial to the Rio Grande Valley in recent years, and officials with Cameron, Hidalgo and Willacy counties hope to use the same approach to better manage water in terms of flood control and conservation.
Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino Jr. on Dec. 12 signed a cost-sharing agreement with the U.S. Army of Corps of Engineers for the Lower RGV Watershed Assessment. Hidalgo and Willacy are partners on the project through interlocal agreements with Cameron County, the lead agency.
The purpose of the study is so counties can present hard data when asking the state or federal government for water-project funding, to show that funding certain projects is more cost-effective for state and federal agencies than not doing so.
That’s according Cameron County District 3 Commissioner David Garza, who has been spearheading the push to regionalize drainage and conservation projects.
“The most important thing that they ask for is data,” he said. “Every investment (funding agencies) make has to be substantiated with data. … Basically we want to try to get ahead of the curve and have a plan that we can sell to the folks that will do the majority of the funding. That’s what it’s all about.”
Cameron and Hidalgo will contribute $350,000 apiece, and Willacy $50,000, to the $3 million study, with USACE covering the rest, Garza said, noting that water is something that few people pay attention to until the reservoirs are low and water becomes scarce, such as now.
“And then as soon as we get a little water in there everybody forgets and we don’t do much about it,” Garza said. “It’s kind of the same way with flooding. We have flooding issues and then the flooding’s over, and everybody forgets that we flood almost on a yearly basis in different areas of the South Texas region.”
A federal water bill passed “some years back” includes an allocation to the USACE Galveston District to start the assessment, however, and the signing of the cost-sharing agreement is the first step to getting underway, he said.
Persistent lobbying by the three counties led USACE to agree to a “holistic study” of the Lower Valley focusing on flood mitigation, resilience and environmental aspects, with the additional aim of conserving at least some portion of the water that falls on the region during extreme rain events rather than losing it all to the Gulf, Garza said.
Water studies undertaken by municipalities in the Lower Valley are largely concerned with “pushing the water away from the low-lying areas of the cities where they have flooding” but not necessarily saving it, he said.
The rainfall ends up in the Arroyo Colorado, Brownsville Ship Channel, or International Boundary and Water Commission canal, or drains elsewhere through parts of Cameron or Willacy on its way to the Laguna Madre, Garza said.
One project that has already been proposed to USACE, and which the current water bill contains funding for, involves using 500 miles of empty resaca beds in Cameron and Hidalgo counties for water detention, he said.
“We’re digging detention ponds every time we build subdivisions in most of our cities,” Garza said. “Why can’t we use these old resaca beds that are dry, non-productive, not doing anything, as the reservoirs for retaining some of this water? … Also you’re creating an environmental ecosystem that is nonexistent today. Five-hundreds miles of old resaca beds is a lot of capacity.”
Cameron County partnered with Drainage Dist. No. 3 and the Federal Emergency Management Agency on a similar project, to relieve a flood-prone colonia in San Benito by creating a water diversion, he said.
“The diversion ended up pushing water into old resaca beds that were dry,” Garza said. “Every time that we have a major (rain) event, about 80 to 85 percent of the water that used to flood this colonia ends up in old resaca beds. It’s a very ecologically friendly way to solve a problem.”
With the Valley’s population set to double at least by 2050 and steadily increasing demand on the region’s water resources, everyone needs to understand the importance of water conservation, he said. Economic growth isn’t sustainable without water, Garza noted.
The Lower RGV Watershed Assessment will get underway in the first quarter of 2023 and should take two to three years to complete, he said, expressing gratitude to the Cameron County Commission and Judge Trevino for supporting his efforts to work the other counties and push the watershed assessment forward.
“There’s a lot of opportunity,” Garza said. “We just need to have somebody that knows what the heck they’re doing lead the process. Usually it’s the Army Corps of Engineers.”
