Posted on July 20, 2017
By Algernon D'Ammassa, Deming Headlight
What if we built an $86 million Port of Entry, only to let it flood during the next rainy season?
Columbus Mayor Phillip Skinner thinks such fears may be exaggerated. “The whole port is elevated several feet,” he told the Headlight. However, the New Mexico Border Authority has been at work on a $10 million flood diversion project at the site since 2014, securing funds for environmental reviews and rights-of-way, and on to the actual design and construction. Per the Border Authority, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers agreed to budget $7.7 million. Yet several months into construction of the new Port of Entry, the funding has not been approved.
At a hearing of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee last month, New Mexico Senator Tom Udall expressed his concern about the berms to ACOE commanding general Todd T. Semonite. “As I understand it,” said the Senator, “the Albuquerque district office submitted this project as its top priority.” He asked Semonite for an assurance that “we’re not leaving an $86 million investment in our national security infrastructure unprotected from flooding.”
Flooding has been a recurring problem at the current Port of Entry, with runoff flowing from the Tres Hermanas Mountains across the village and into Palomas on the other side of the border. During the disastrous floods of 2006, unidentified parties in Palomas took matters into their own hands, bulldozing a mile-long berm near the crossing, knocking over some border fencing and creating a wall that aided illegal entry.
Construction on the new Port of Entry began in February, and in April Udall participated in a groundbreaking ceremony along with Senator Martin Heinrich and Rep. Steve Pearce. All three gave speeches heralding the project as an improved gateway between the two countries for expanded trade and improved security at the border.
Responding to an inquiry by the Headlight, ACOE spokeswoman Lisa Lockyear offered an explanation that boiled down to budget cuts. “The…project that is associated with the overall Columbus Port of Entry would be funded through the Environmental Infrastructure program.” She explained that Congress approves funding for these projects in a lump sum, which was $55 million nationwide in the 2017 fiscal year, of which New Mexico was allocated just $1,000,000. Lockyear added, “This specific project will be considered for funding in Fiscal Year 2018 if Congress includes funds for Environmental Infrastructure projects in a final Appropriations Act.”
Mario Juarez-Infante, Vice-President of the engineering firm Wilson & Company, which is already building new flood diversion berms in the Village of Columbus, told the Headlight his firm has been advised that the Corps is trying again: “The funding is in the Congressional Budget request for Fiscal Year 2018 and is the number-one priority project” for the Albuquerque district office.
Senator Udall, who sits on the Appropriations Committee, indicated he will pursue those funds. “We need to make sure this investment is built right,” Udall said in a statement for the Headlight. “I will continue to fight for funding in fiscal year 2018 to build these badly-needed berms to protect the port against flooding.”
Meanwhile, construction work on the Port of Entry continues. It is on schedule for completion in 2019 with or without the berms.
Source: Deming Headlight
