by Michael Seifert
September 7, 2011
Hidalgo County, Texas -- This past
Thursday, the strong women of ARISE gathered neighbors together in the colonia
neighborhood of Hidalgo Park. The
oppressive heat was no match for the spirit of some thirty members of this neighborhood
in south Hidalgo County who had gathered to meet with local government
officials and engineers. The meeting was held, appropriately, on the
property of one of the hundreds of families that had suffered devastating
damage from Hurricane Dolly’s flooding.
 |
| Martha Herrera, neighbor |
A sofa
and an easy chair, victims of the water damage from the floods of more than three years’ ago,
were piled up behind the group, stewing in the morning heat, and adding visible
support to the testimony of the neighbors who, one after another, offered
their views of the infrastructure failures.
Martha
Herrera, one of the neighbors, noted, “We pay taxes, we are citizens, and it makes me so angry to
see raw sewage running through our streets after a heavy rainfall. Our children
deserve better than this, and so do we.”
The Texas
Organizing Project, LUPE, the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service and
other members of the Equal Voice Housing Working Group were present at the
meeting. Ramona Casas, of ARISE, led the meeting, one of a series of such
gatherings called to establish for county officials the gravity of the drainage
troubles that have afflicted colonia residents for decades.
Raul
Sesin (Hidalgo County Planning Department, Mario Garcia (Program Administrator
for the Lower Rio Grande Valley Development Council) and several engineers
listened as the women laid out their concerns.
In the end,
Mr. Sesin agreed to a number of commitments on behalf of the county. Apart from
officially certifying the area as one which in fact suffers significant
flooding, Mr. Sesin agreed to do a study of the area, work to make the drainage
ditch wider, add some gates on the canal and install a system of pumps. In
addition, the county official said that he would work with engineers so that
during a flood event, sewage would not back up into the streets of the area.
Mr. Sesin
and his team will be meeting with Hidalgo County Judge Ramon Garcia to work out
a plan for informing the public about the next steps.
The
neighborhood meeting is one of a serious of steps organized by Equal Voice
Housing organizers and Mr. Mario Garcia, the Economic Development Program
Director for the Lower Rio Grande Valley Development Council.
As the
meeting wound up, a Pharr police patrol stopped by, wondering what all of the
commotion was about. “Just doing our job,” the patrolman was assured, “we are
all just doing our job.”
