Drainage pipe draws complaint

To the editor:

The folks at Cameron County Precinct 3 have succumbed to political pressure that needs to be exposed.

In early June, the county embarked on the Dilworth Road Drainage Project. I have to assume that extensive surveying and analysis by the Engineering Department produced a set of plans and specifications for the project.

The crew began by placing concrete pipes across Dilworth Road near large drain ditches that run alongside farmland on the east side of the road directly behind the city of Palm Valley. They also replaced several pipes under driveways along the west side (Palm Valley side) of the road and cut the bar ditches deeper and wider for better drainage.

My driveway was the farthest north and is the highest point in elevation. Once the pipes were placed and the affected driveways repaired, the crew left with their equipment.

Then we had a 6-inch rain. The freshly dug ditches and the pipes along the west side of the road all seemed to drain as planned, except that the ditches were all dirt and the mud filled some of the pipes under the driveways, but that can be cleaned out (they say).

A few days after the rain, I came home from work and surprise! There was a new pipe running under Dilworth Road about 10 feet north of my driveway! I called the CC engineer and asked him about the new pipe and he said that there was no pipe in the plans for that area. I told him it sure looked like "someone" made a call and asked that additional pipe be laid. I protested the presence of the pipe as it appeared to be placed specifically to drain the neighbor’s yard across the road into the bar ditch next to my driveway.

I pointed out to the engineer that the properties on the east side of Dilworth Road had no bar ditches and no pipes under the driveways and the newly laid pipe was going to drain the east side of the road into the bar ditch next to my driveway.

In the 40 years I have lived in the house it has never flooded, but this unplanned additional pipe was going to cause my house to flood if we have a hurricane with 10-15 inches of rain. I wanted to know why the pipe was put there.

The engineer told me a few days later that the pipe was put there after "they" noticed some "pooling" on the east side of the road after the heavy rain. Well, yes, there is "pooling" all along that side of the road because there are no bar ditches or pipes under the driveways, but the water has never crossed over the road onto the east side behind my house. Their actions now changed that scenario and have put my house in jeopardy of flooding.

I want to know who authorized laying that pipe. The engineer who surveyed the land and prepared the plans didn’t even know the pipe had been laid! He wrote me a polite letter telling me "re-evaluation of the drainage shows that there is very little affect in the flow. ..." What else could he say? That they succumbed to pressure from the property owner on the east side of the road?

Well, the property owner recently flooded a small area of the yard (which is a frequent occurrence) and the overflow from that small amount of water drained into the bar ditch and the level of the water was to the top of the pipe going under my driveway!

What will 10-15 inches of rain do? It is crystal clear that the sole purpose of that pipe is to drain the water from the property across the road to the west side.

Some easy calculations reveal that 4 inches of water on 5 acres will result in 72,593 cubic feet of water draining under Dilworth Road via that unplanned pipe, which was not included in the drainage project plans that were approved. And 72,593 cubic feet times 7.48 gallons per cubic foot is 543,000 gallons of water. That’s a lot of water! I am concerned!

I have emailed and faxed letters of concern and complaint to Precinct 3 Commissioner David Garza, Precinct Foreman Robert Garza, the engineering department and the city of Palm Valley. The only response I get is that when the road is completed, I won’t have any problem.

The solution to the drainage on Dilworth Road behind Palm Valley is to install bar ditches along the east side of the road and put pipes under the driveways. That way the water will drain to the south into the large drain ditches next to the fields on the east side of the road.

Instead, they are draining water from the "higher" east side over to the west side, and then back to the east side a little closer to the large drain ditches. That makes no sense to me. Does it make sense to you?

Dana Minor
Palm Valley
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