Posted on 07/23/2008 12:50:32 PM PDT by IonImplantGuru
Mexican officials say a concrete barrier constructed by the U.S. Border Patrol in a storm-water tunnel beneath Nogales appears to be on Mexican soil and was the main cause of serious flooding July 12 in Nogales, Sonora.
The flooding caused about $8 million in damage in Nogales, Sonora, the officials say.
The 5-foot-high wall on the floor of the tunnel in front of a gate was put in without notifying the International Boundary and Water Commission, said Sally Spener, spokeswoman for the U.S. section of the commission. The commission requests that any agency doing work on the border that could affect storm drainage send it plans.
"We do have concerns about structures that are placed on the international boundary that could affect storm-water flow," Spener said.
The U.S. side of the commission hasn't yet determined if the barrier caused the flooding, Spener said. It's important to remember the Mexican side of the tunnel was old and in poor condition, she said.
[Snip]
... But on July 12, when heavy rains fell in the border region, the new concrete barrier served as a bottleneck, causing the water to fill up on the Mexican side of the channel and pressure the aging structure, Quintanar said.
[Snip]
A concrete aboveground border wall east of the wash further escalated the damage by stopping the water that spilled onto Calle Internacional and Calle Elias from flowing into the United States. The barrier in the wash, however, was the catalyst for the flood, he said.
The $8 million in damage caused by the flood includes damage to 578 homes and 45 cars, Mexican officials say. State officials have declared the damaged part of the city a disaster zone.
[Snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at azstarnet.com ...
Maybe this problem wouldn’t have arisen if the Mexicans didn’t regularly use the tunnel for drug and people smuggling. That was my first thought, and the article confirms it.
“Although built in the 1930s to channel storm runoff and prevent flooding, the tunnel beneath Nogales has been used for decades by smugglers as an avenue into the United States.”
Cry me a river Mexico. Pun intended.
You mean the unintended consequences of Mexico aggressively encouraging and assisting its people to illegally invade our country, thus requiring us to put up barriers to keep them out?
Maybe if Mexico would have put strong bars on the entrances, we wouldn't have found it necessary to put up the wall.
That filthy town needed a good cleaning!
I demand Mexico repay me my taxes used for the free US health care given their citizens!
Just tell 'em it was global warming, that should cover it.
“State officials have declared the damaged part of the city a disaster zone.”
Oxymoron: Mexican border towns are by definition disaster zones.
oxymoron=redundancy
Cleaning up the town the Mexicans won’t clean.
However, it's only being good neighbors to let them know that the new wall was built so they could evaluate it's effects on their precautions to deal with flood waters.
If we didn't notify them, I wouldn't bother apologizing at this point, because that might be seen as accepting blame where none exists. However, it would be good to try and notify them of such things in the future.
Why Mexican illegals are driving America "cuckoo":
Why doesn't Mexico take care of its own people? Why do they instead encourage their poor to leave Mexico and invade the United States? Nature provides a parallel that is instructive.
Some species of birds thrive not by carefully rearing their own young, but by pawning that task off on adults of other species. The European Cuckoo, whose distinctive call is immortalized in the sound of the "cuckoo clock," is the bird in which this habit has been most thoroughly studied. Female European Cuckoos lay their eggs only in the nests of other species of birds. A cuckoo egg usually closely mimics the eggs of the host (one of whose eggs is often removed by the cuckoo).
The host may recognize the intruding egg and abandon the nest, or it may incubate and hatch the cuckoo egg. Shortly after hatching, the young European Cuckoo, using a scoop-like depression on its back, instinctively shoves over the edge of the nest any solid object that it contacts. With the disappearance of their eggs and rightful young, the foster parents are free to devote all of their care to the young cuckoo. Frequently this is an awesome task, since the cuckoo chick often grows much larger than the host adults long before it can care for itself. One of the tragicomic scenes in nature is a pair of small foster parents working like Sisyphus to keep up with the voracious appetite of an outsized young cuckoo.
Oh PUUULLEEZE. There is nothing even collectively worth 8 million in all of Mexico let alone in Nogales.
ping
All of Nogales isn't worth $8 million
Is this a flood of water or a flood of wannabe illegals backing up in the Mexican countryside now that the US has plugged up a hole through our border?
/S
It is on the Mexican side by about 10 feet. Tucson’s Channel 13 ran video last night. They said, when asked about construction of the wall, that the Border Patrol did not answer their questions.
This article’s statement of fact regarding construction should probably be taken with a grain of salt...
Last night’s video made it look like the wall was built parallel to a locked gate (vertical steel bars) directly beneath the border fence.
Is that consistent with what you’re saying? I did I misinterpret what Channel 13 showed us?
I did I = Or did I
OK, Mehico, just deduct the $8 million from the money you owe us for the medical care for the millions and millions of your citizens who are illegally in our country.
More correctly, 'The flooding caused about $8 million in improvements...'
This cannot be. Senator DiFi, came to san diego a couple of years ago and proclaimed tunnels to be illegal....
“Although built in the 1930s to channel storm runoff and prevent flooding, the tunnel beneath Nogales has been used for decades by smugglers as an avenue into the United States.”
Yes, and it is not a good idea for Mexico's storm drains to empty into the U.S. in any case; sometimes the floodwaters contain sewage due to the bad plumbing in Mexico.
Mexico needs to figure out how to drain their storm runoff in their own country- they also need to figure out how to do a lot of other things without depending on us.
That is consistent with what I am saying, although it looked to me like there were several different kinds of fence there. The Mexicans are claiming that grate caused the flood. They are not mentioning their tunneling efforts through the drainage culvert, which caused it to collapse way before the rain, or the fact that their drainage culvert was built without rebar to reinforce it! It is all our fault. There was a story in one of the Spanish newspapers where they were claiming our grate is on Mexican soil. And I am sure, using Aztec surveying equipment and techniques, they can prove it.
Forgot to say, for a good look at what goes on underneath Nogales, see: http://subtopia.blogspot.com/2006/12/orwellian-wormholes.html
I can’t tell you how many times I was there and saw holes cut through the chain link fence. That concrete work is on both sides if I’m not mistaken. The work on the Nogales side is some of the worst I have ever seen. Granted it’s been a while since I crossed that border but things rarely change there.
I delivered appliances in Nogales once a week and visited there all the time, my bro-in-law lived there.
I’ll wait for the US version instead of Mexico’s. To hear them tell it, everything that is wrong with Mexico is our fault. Even acts of God.
“Just tell ‘em it was global warming, that should cover it. “
Mexico will blame that on us too.
” Well, if we didn’t notify them that we were building the wall, then we probably should have done so. I’m not buying that it is on Mexican soil, nor do I think that any flooding is our fault.
However, it’s only being good neighbors to let them know that the new wall was built so they could evaluate it’s effects on their precautions to deal with flood waters.
If we didn’t notify them, I wouldn’t bother apologizing at this point, because that might be seen as accepting blame where none exists. However, it would be good to try and notify them of such things in the future.”
________________
I can’t believe Mexico wasn’t consulted. That’s what half the fuss was over when this was passed, that DHS insisted on consulting Mexico over everything. I think Mexico is doing what they do best, whining.
Even they can't defy gravity, Tammy. Water (and sewage) flow downhill; from Nogales any flow goes NORTH (across the border into the US), because that's downhill, and goes into the Santa Cruz River channel. The Santa Cruz flows north past Tucson and eventually joins the Gila River, which flows west and eventually joins the Colorado R. which drains to the Gulf of California. With the exception of the Colorado of course, I don't know if that entire system has ever actually had flowing water for the entire length in the last century or more ... but local portions do flood during our 'monsoon' season, which is upon us this time of year.
Bottom line: there's no way Mexico can engineer it to do other than flow across the border into the US. At best they could redirect the 'point of entry'.
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