Posted on 07/14/2009 3:33:55 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
State Trooper Mike Franklin circled the water-logged Jeep Grand Cherokee, puzzling over a way to get inside. Freshly plucked Monday morning from the bottom of the Rio Grande, the vehicle likely held cargo lost years ago by the river’s flow.
So far, though, all efforts to crack open the twisted hunk of steel had failed.
The rusted trunk door lock barely budged even with the keys found in the ignition. A crowbar offered little help in removing the years of accumulated sludge caked on the hinges.
“And this isn’t the only one,” said State Trooper Johnny Hernandez, spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, looking on at his fellow officer’s efforts. “There’s so many down there it’s going to take a lot longer than a day.”
To hear authorities tell it, drug smugglers have turned the Rio Grande’s bed into a veritable underwater parking lot.
Dozens of SUVs, sedans and pickup trucks lie upended, on their sides or crushed under the weight of river detritus — each one abandoned by traffickers hoping to avoid capture by U.S. law enforcement by deserting their loads and swimming back to Mexico.
In the 10-mile stretch of river between Peñitas and southern Mission alone, officials have identified more than 30 submerged vehicles — some as much as 20 years old.
The junked cars pose both environmental and safety risks, but up until now little has been done to fish them out.
Starting last week, area law enforcement agencies began their first coordinated effort to pull some of those sunken wrecks from the water and send a message that leaving them there will no longer be tolerated.
Monday morning, the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Dive Recovery Team deployed divers to comb the river’s bed, while the U.S. Border Patrol, the Mission Police Department, and Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office stepped up patrols along the counties southernmost roads in hopes of deterring smuggling efforts.
“Those vehicles may still have dope in them, or there may be a body” Sheriff Lupe Treviño said. “We don’t know what’s down there. But I want the smugglers to know that we’re going to be out there in force.”
CONSTANT PROBLEM
Margarito Trujillo, owner of the popular riverside restaurant Pepe’s on the River, looked at out the DPS boats swishing past his business’ outdoor patio Monday.
“It’s about time,” he said. “Those cars — it’s getting more and more prevalent.”
Pepe’s has spent hundreds of dollars over the past several years repairing destroyed fence lines and other property damage done by traffickers hurtling toward the river’s waters. Residents at the nearby Chimney Park Recreational Vehicle Resort have counted at least 10 plunges over their banks in the last eight years.
Law enforcement agencies typically report vehicles submerged in the river to state environmental regulators, but there is often little they can do to get them out, said John Lopez, local spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol.
Few police departments have personnel trained in diving and recovery. And Lopez’s agency, which used to aid area departments in river retrieval efforts, lost their lone local diving technician several years ago.
Monday’s efforts were only made possible by low water levels in the river and the availability of the state’s only DPS dive team, Trooper Hernandez said.
But authorities can’t shoulder all of the blame for the underwater auto graveyard. While observing the DPS diving effort, Pepe de la Fuente — the namesake of Trujillo’s restaurant — copped to sinking more than 50 vehicles in the stretch of river that cuts through his property during the 1960s.
He loaded the junked clunkers with bricks after several failed efforts to stop the river erosion from taking acres of his land and pushed them into the water with a tractor to create an artificial reef.
“I don’t know how many I eventually put in there,” he said. “But there’s no way those are coming out after all these years.”
RISKY DECISIONS
No matter how the cars ended up in the river’s bottom, vehicles left there to rot can pose serious risks to area residents.
As time passes, they begin to release harmful chemicals such as fuel, grease and transmission and hydraulic fluids into the region’s primary water source, said Dave Bary, a spokesman for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Submerged vehicles can also pose a risk to boaters during periods of low water, said Treviño, the Hidalgo County sheriff.
“We as law enforcement community members must be responsible to make every effort to fish those cars out,” he said. “You just cannot arbitrarily say, ‘OK, the guy jumped in the river. It’s time to go home.’” But if the sealed up Cherokee authorities puzzled over Monday was any indication, someone had done exactly that.
Authorities eventually wrenched the trunk door off the vehicle by attaching the SUV to a nearby post on one end and a tow truck on the other, leaving a crumpled hole for Trooper Franklin to crawl inside.
He re-emerged 20 minutes later, carrying several bales of rotten, sodden marijuana under his arms.
“You just have to get in there,” he said, looking down at the pungent sludge that had caked his wetsuit during his time inside. “I guess I knew what I was in for when I signed up for this job.”
Before Lake Amistad was made, we could drive across the Rio Grande during the Summer, go to Boystown, and get back without undergoing the scrutiny of the Border Patrol. All we smuggled was alcohol because we were only 14 years old at the time.There were several places between Comstock and Del Rio that one could cross the River with a jeep and not even get the cab wet.
Call the Fire Department Rescue Squad. The jaws of life will open those cars up like they were made of tin.
Rio Grande Region ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
“You just have to get in there,” he said, looking down at the pungent sludge that had caked his wetsuit during his time inside. “I guess I knew what I was in for when I signed up for this job.”
Now this is the kind of guy you have to respect! We need more of them serving the nation.
Colonel, USAFR
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