Fuentes: Unused flood repair monies should be used for flood mitigation

MONTE ALTO, Texas - Hidalgo County Commissioner David Fuentes says if federal money sent to the Rio Grande Valley to repair homes after a flooding event is not claimed, it should be made available for flood mitigation work.

“We're not going to minimize that people need assistance when they encounter or endure catastrophic flooding. That's not what we're saying. But what we found was, 70% of that mitigation money (that was supposed to be spent) on rebuilding wasn't used. It was returned back to HUD, it was given back to the federal government as unused grant monies,” Fuentes said.

"And what we were arguing was, don't send it back, repurpose it and award mitigation projects that would help in preventing loss. So we weren’t trying to take money away from people. What we were trying to do is minimize the amount of money that was being sent back to the federal government as unused grant monies and saying, instead of sending it back, allow us to apply for programs that we think will help the affected area so that we don't go through flooding.”

Fuentes made his comments in an interview with Ron Whitlock Reports. He gave the interview at the end of a ribbon cutting ceremony held in Monte Alto to celebrate the Main Floodwater Channel Expansion Project.

The Main Floodwater Channel Expansion Project involves 7.5 miles of improvements costing $20 million. The infrastructure serves 70% of the county and provides a vital foundation for future water management projects as development continues. These improvements ensure the community is better prepared and protected when future rain events occur, Fuentes explained.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This is Commissioner David Flintis, Precinct One, and Holland County Commissioner. Welcome to the program.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Thank you. Appreciate you being here.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Tell us about your ribbon cutting here this morning. Seven miles of new floodway system, providing a lot of help, not only for this particular area of your precinct, but also understanding that all the water that's coming out of McCallan and Mission and Farr and all those other communities are going to come through here. And if they're swinging through here, I'm going to back up and flood the western part of the county.

unknown 0:36

Right.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

So we received$20 million roughly from the General Land Office in 2015 and 2016 mitigation monies. This northern part of Hidalgo County, everything that's basically north of the expressway, for almost all of Hidalgo County flows up to this north main drain. We've made a lot of improvements with other laterals, and the cities have made, you know, done some improvements in their cities. But this main drain really receives most of the water of that comes down in any sort of rainfall or even surface water runoff. So these$20 million were put into seven and a half million, I mean seven miles of ditch widening. In some places doubling the capacity, in other places tripling the capacity. So we used as much of the right-of-way as we could to try to increase that capacity. So it's going to hopefully be a big improvement north of the expressway any dollar cap.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

You know, Commissioner, it was an awful lot of people, collaborators from various agencies that had it happen, made it happen, worked hard for it to happen, spent time away from their families in Austin and Washington, D.C. to get to that$20 million. But at the very end of the program, you mentioned one individual in particular, and you thought maybe his wife might have come from the Rio Grande Valley, and really, in fact, made the difference. Who's that individual and what's happened to him?

SPEAKER_00 1:56

You know, he he served in the first Trump administration and he was the Deputy Director of Housing and Urban Development in DC. His name was Brian Montgomery. And uh through Vicenta's office, we were able to schedule a meeting with him a couple of times that we went up to Washington. We were expressing our or we were putting our best foot forward and trying to justify that monies through these programs really should be allocated to mitigation projects and not just rebuilding. The majority of the monies had in the past been designated more for rebuilding, but not really addressing the problem. So he was willing to listen to us. He listened to our arguments as to how you know if you if you mitigate, you don't have to rebuild. You know, we're we're fixing the problem as opposed to repairing the problem. Uh so he was very open to that dialogue. He had, I believe his wife was from the Brownsville area here in the Valley. Uh so he very well knew what the real Brandy Valley was all about. He understood what we were trying to get to, and he was open to that dialogue. So we don't feel like without those conversations with him that this would have happened. So we want to make just we don't know where he's at. I don't think he's part of this administration uh this time around. But we were very, very thankful that he was there for us and willing to listen to us and helping us along the way. You know, it did take a lot of people. It was a big collaboration, you know, starting from Raul Sasim and his Dreamers District staff, Omar Omar Ansabu, who designed uh all of this work. But the fact that we can develop these projects in-house means that a lot more money goes towards construction and not to uh you know other agencies or entities. So whenever we're able to do that in a responsible and meaningful way, you know, we're willing to do that. Obviously, the Urban County program for administering the funds, the General Land Office, Housing and Urban Development. Um, it's just it's it's a team effort. And every time that we can unify and put our heads together and try to figure out these problems, we make a positive difference for the for our communities and for everybody in the River and Development.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

You know, Commissioner Fuentes, uh, you hit on a pure pure uh gold marketing opportunity, and that is if we have flooding mitigation and the water hurriedly gets to the Gulf of Mexico and the Laguna Laundry, then you don't have to rebuild. So you're you're better you're better advised as a bureaucrat to make sure that we get the water to the Gulf of Mexico and don't have to rebuild after hurricanes and and flooding events.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Let me explain why that was an important argument for us, is because a lot of times more money was allocated to rebuilding. We're not going to minimize that people need assistance when they uh encounter or endure catastrophic flooding. That's not what we're saying. But what we found was if 70% of that mitigation money was spent on rebuilding, and then it wasn't used, it was returned back to HUD. It was given back to the federal government as unused grant monies. And what we were arguing was don't send it back, repurpose it and award mitigation projects that would help in preventing loss. So we weren't actually trying to take money away from people. What we were trying to do is minimize the amount of money that was being sent back to the federal government as unused grant monies and saying instead of sending it back, allow us to apply for programs that we think will help the affected area so that we don't go through flooding again.