Val Verde officials warn Vega Verde residents: ‘Get ready to evacuate’

September 24, 2008
By Bill Sontag
Feature Writer

Sheriff A. D’Wayne Jernigan spent a sultry afternoon, Tuesday (Sept. 23), in the Vega Verde subdivision along stretches of the Rio Grande west of Del Rio, urging residents to prepare to abandon their properties.   

“Well, it could come to that,” Jernigan responded to Rhonda Vick, asking if a mandatory evacuation order is forthcoming because of rising flood waters on the river encroaching on her property, 5323 Vega Verde Road.  After a 15-minute, front-porch counseling session with Vick and her friend, Jeanie Deitrick, Jernigan and Val Verde County Judge Mike L. Fernandez searched for anyone they could talk to until they reached water’s edge where the swollen Rio Grande halted most vehicle passage. 

The river’s riparian tranquility, enjoyed by most residents for a couple of decades, is threatened by prolific rain, compromised levees, and weakening dams in the northern reaches of the Rio Conchos, Coahuila, Mexico.  The storms thrust upon the area in the last two weeks beckoned top officials from the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) to take to the air, surveying the extent of flooding into Luis Leon Reservoir, west of the Mexican border town, Ojinaga. 

Their Cessna 410 slammed into the side of a mountain in the Sierra Madre range, killing U.S. Commissioner Carlos Marin and Mexico Commissioner Arturo Herrera, as well as the pilot, Mathew Peter Juneau, and Jake Brisbin Jr., executive director, Rio Grande Council of Governments.  The tragedy and the funeral of Marin in El Paso, Monday, only focused more vexation on IBWC officials left to grapple with increasing, not  – as hoped – decreasing floodwaters heading into the Rio Grande from the Rio Conchos. 

Tuesday, Ben Garcia, acting area IBWC operations manager at the Amistad Dam, described substantial increases in release from the Amistad reservoir within the past week.  A week ago, Sept. 16, the release stood at 286 CMS (cubic meters-per-second, or 75,553 gallons-per-second).  By Monday (Sept. 22) the release was raised to 400 CMS, and Tuesday (Sept. 23) Garcia was ordered to increase the flow from the dam’s gates to 503 CMS. (or 132,000 gallons-per-second). 

Tuesday (Sept. 16), IBWC Public Affairs Specialist Jim Leiman said, “We’ve decided that we will not allow Lake Amistad to go above the conservation pool level.”  Leiman referred to the arbitrary elevation – 1,117 above mean sea level – set as the conservation pool by international agreement with Mexico.  The same agreement stipulates that if conservation pool elevations are achieved in Lake Amistad and Falcon Reservoir, any “water debt” owed to the other country will be expunged, a diplomatic assumption that neither country needs replenishment beyond water available in the reservoirs. 

If 1,117 is reached in Amistad – and if Falcon Reservoir follows, filling its conservation pool – a substantial, nearly historic water debt owed the United States by Mexico will expire.  So U.S. officials seem determined to curb that windfall, and the releases rose this week.   

Further complicating the matter, the releases are under the control of the state of Texas Water Master (acting since July), Moe Yarrito, a gubernatorial appointee of Gov. Rick Perry.  If the lake level exceeds the conservation pool elevation, Rubenstein loses control of the release authority, and it reverts to IBWC officials.  So Yarrito and his predecessor, Carlos Rubinstein have played the pivotal role in the increased releases now threatening homes, ranches and farms in the Vega Verde subdivision.   

As if the matrix of decision-making for releases was not sufficiently complex, enter the results of preliminary research into possible leaks from the dam through subterranean limestone “karst,” the porous, sometimes cavernous, sinkhole-pocked bedrock upon which the dam was built.  Revealed in October 2007 as a possible threat, the dam was labeled “potentially unsafe” by IBWC officials.   

Experts arrived to study the issue, and are due to provide their report and recommendation in the next few months, according to Garcia.  Asked if the weight of rapidly deepening water in the reservoir places added stress upon sinkholes and leaks below the dam, Garcia said, “That’s a factor.  In fact, that’s a big factor.”   

But the overarching factor is the huge volume of water coming into Lake Amistad from the Rio Grande and the tributaries feeding it, most notably the Rio Conchos.  The inflow from the Rio Grande, Garcia explained, is roughly twice the outflow being released though hydroelectric power plant turbines and the opened gates.  Amistad National Recreation Area Superintendent Alan Cox said Tuesday that, despite the rising releases, the lake is gaining an average of 12 inches in depth per day.     

Garcia explained that releases demanded by the Texas Water Master above 240 CMS are more than the turbines in the two power plants – one on the Mexican side of the dam, the other on the U.S. side – can handle, compelling IBWC to open a formula-driven number and span of up to 16 gates.  Six gates released water, Tuesday.  And a projection that the release may soon be doubled to 1,000 CMS (264,000 gallons-per-second) sent Jernigan, Fernandez and the state's assistant water master, Jose Lupe Luna, Eagle Pass, into the Vega Verde to talk to residents. 

Jernigan explained to Vick that the doubling of flow in the Rio Grande, already creeping into buildings in many residential lots, “could happen in the next three to five days.” 

“I just don’t know what I should do,” lamented Vick.  “First, I lose my husband [Tommy Vick died July 4], and now am I going to lose my house?”  Fernandez sympathized with Vick’s plight, but urged her to make plans to leave quickly. 

“They [IBWC] promised us they’d give us at least 12 hours notice so we can come down here and let you know if they’re going to increase to 1,000 CMS,” said Jernigan.  “When that happens,” Jernigan said, “it may stay high down here for a couple of weeks.” Jernigan said there are no downstream warning sirens to alert Vega residents or visitors of the pending release.  As Jernigan and Fernandez moved down the road to the next group of residents, Vick was left pondering whether to contract to have her house moved. 

At water’s edge, where the Rio Grande has rendered the Vega Verde Road impassable to most vehicles, Jernigan and Fernandez stopped to join Assistant Texas Water Master Luna talking to more Vega residents.  Luna explained that a large glut of water is enroute to Lake Amistad from the Rio Conchos.  “When it gets here,” Luna warned, “we know for a fact that we’re going to have nine days of water coming in.” 

Vega resident Kurt Lemp held out hope that he and his family would be safe and dry through the ordeal, but Tuesday night he capitulated.  “We decided to pack,” said Lemp.  “I can’t say that 1,000 [CMS] will be in here or won’t, but I don’t need to take that chance ... A thousand may still not make the river come up to my place, but I’m not taking any chances.”