The city-owned floodplain just south of Brown Farm is cursed. Public Works cannot do any job right on its first or even second try to deal with stormwater run-off.
Under Bob Garza’s management approach, Public Works walked away from two failed projects, left the mess, disregarded the money wasted, and held no one accountable. By good luck, the two failures were small potatoes: no big jobs, no big budgets, no big and visible effects. The first failure was its inability to properly dredge two channels in which stormwater flowed downhill, from south to north. First try, the dredged channels tried to run water uphill; second try, the re-dredged channels still tried to run water uphill; no third try, the city left bad enough alone. The second failure was its inability to install and secure a concrete pad over a mosquito-breeding splash pool. Stormwater from the first heavy rain lifted the pad, broke it in half, and shoved one half over the other half. The city left the pad in two overlapping pieces Under Garza’s leadership, it was hit-or-miss whether projects would get done right the first time, on budget, and on schedule.
Public Works created a much larger, more destructive, and more expensive failure which will challenge Ifo Pili’s management approach (if he can tear himself away from his assigned priority mission: end poverty in Las Cruces!). This first of three project phases wants to move stormwater from three large conduits to a holding pond a quarter mile away. It has graded the site; at the far boundary, it has built five rock breakwaters; and it plans to seed the site with grass to slow stormwater between conduits and breakwaters, and to prevent erosion. Two weeks ago, the first-phase work was nearly complete, and its $500,000 phase-one budget nearly spent. The first heavy rain made a mockery of the design. Stormwater did not flow gently and smoothly, avoided all breakwaters, left them high and dry, and cut deep gullies next to them. The result: complete failure, environmental degradation, wasted money, and a very visible eyesore.
The question is how does Public Works respond under Pili’s management approach. Does it walk away from failure or try a fix? Does the fix involve quick, easy, and cheap tweaking: filling in gullies, regrading part of the site, and planting grass ground cover? Does it believe that stormwater which can lift and break a concrete pad will not rip its way through disturbed soil, however hard-packed? Does it believe that even drought- and heat-resistant grass (ornamentals? artificial turf?) can survive an almost total lack of water and triple-digit temperatures for many months before the “monsoon season,” and still slow stormwater? Does it think that the site would not need regular and occasional maintenance? This approach appeals to Public Works; it sticks with the design to imply near success on its first try. But, when stormwater surges onto the site, will this fix work?
Public Works knows of at least one other design alternative. It uses rock barriers to break the force of the stormwater where it leaves the three conduits. It uses those barriers to funnel stormwater to the head of a long, straight, rock-lined channel to the destination pond. It uses the rocks from the five useless breakwaters to build the barriers and line the channel. It uses native vegetation to prevent wind erosion and reduce rainwater erosion. It requires little maintenance. But it is more expensive.
Public Works is embarrassed by this monument to incompetence. It approved the consultant’s design without seeking alternative designs, and analyzing and evaluating them in a this-way-or-no-way decision-making process. The city does not need another monument, one to the results of a face-saving, hurry-up-and-waste, price-of-everything-value-of-nothing decision to tweak a failure. In deciding which alternative offers the better chance of success at a reasonable cost, it needs to consider the consequences and costs of failure. A second failure would be a [fill in the blank]. Still, Pili’s management approach, with City Council’s acquiescence, may be to shrug off the waste of a half-million-dollars and walk away from a site which seems cursed.
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