By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
County and city elected officials need to educate themselves about the region’s ongoing drought, which may last for decades, a local activist leader said.
Sandra Fuentes, a co-chair of The Border Organization, spoke to the Del Rio City Council about regional water issues during the citizen comments portion of Tuesday’s meeting.
Fuentes told the council, “This evening, I would like to give notice to this council that The Border Organization will be joining forces with other organizations on the issue of water or the lack of water.
“Contrary to what a lot of people in this community, the city of Del Rio, the county of Val Verde, might think, our number one most pressing issue is not immigration. It’s not even lack of parks. It’s not even, believe it or not, that our city mayor forgot to take off his cap during the (Pledge of Allegiance).
“The most pressing issue is water, the lack of water, and the reason I say that is because last week, I attended a water workshop that was hosted by the Casa de la Cultura, and the general manager for the Edwards Aquifer Authority spoke, and he said a lot of important things,” Fuentes said.
“The most important thing, the one sentence that jumped out at me anyway, was that this drought that we’ve been having for the last few years – and here she pointed to the windows and an ongoing downpour and said, “I know that this belies what I’ve, what’s happening right now, the rain – but he said that we’re supposed to expect this kind of drought for the next 30 years.
“So, our efforts in The Border Organization will be to form a coalition of different organizations in this community, not to just to see what the county and city are going to do, but to work with you and partner up with you and form a partnership as to how we can be proactive,” she added.
“Obviously we can’t make it rain, but let’s be proactive. What can we do in this community? Can we go to a xeriscape mandate, should we be in Stage 3 (drought water restrictions) since the summer begins? Things like that.
“But we need to get educated, so we are hopefully going to bring in some water authorities from Austin and San Antonio to educate this community, but more importantly, to educate the elected officials for the city and the county,” Fuentes said.
She then spoke directly to Councilwoman Carmen Gutierrez, who had made comments during a meeting the previous day about a proposed increase in city fees, including those for disposing of old tires.
Gutierrez opined that raising the fee to dispose of tires properly will simply lead to more illegal dumping of tires around the city.
“I think you are right on about the tires. I think one way to combat that, because that hits home to our business, is maybe we should increase the amount of the citations for people who are caught red-handed dumping tires illegally,” Fuentes said.
The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com
