SATIRE: This is parody. Not a real news report.
HARLINGEN — Calling it “the most forward-thinking drainage decision since we paved the resaca,” the City of Harlingen announced plans this week to let a massive AI data center discharge 175 cubic feet per second of stormwater into the 90-foot canal that already failed to keep Valley International Airport dry during the March 2025 floods — and to fix the problem by making the failed ditch bigger.
“People see a canal that overflowed and put a runway underwater and think, ‘that canal is full,'” said a city drainage consultant, gesturing at a whiteboard covered in arrows pointing at a drawing of a larger canal. “We see 190 feet of opportunity. A ditch that failed at 90 feet is mathematically incapable of failing at 190 feet. That’s just physics, or possibly the other one.”
The proposed Fluidstack campus, spanning hundreds of acres along FM 106 roughly a mile from the Arroyo Colorado, would plug into the four-mile city canal that drains the airport. City engineers rate the ditch at 320 cubic feet per second; the data center would add another 175 on top of existing flow, a number officials describe as “a rounding error” and Rio Hondo residents describe as “our living rooms.”
Commissioners Vote to Move Approval From Engineer to Dais, Then Discuss It Behind Closed Doors
In a related move billed as a triumph of public oversight, commissioners will consider stripping stormwater connection approval from the city engineer and handing it to elected officials — before immediately retreating into closed session to discuss the actual agreement.
“The people deserve transparency,” said one commissioner, closing the door. “Which is why the public comment on this item is a mailbox three counties over.”
The county has confirmed no building permits can move forward until Harlingen signs off on the discharge deal, a leverage position the city compared to “holding the whole Valley’s Wi-Fi hostage with a shovel.”
Construction fencing along FM 106 is already up, a detail officials say should not be read as presumptuous. “That fencing is purely decorative,” a spokesperson said. “Like the canal.”
At press time, the city had unveiled a contingency plan: if the widened ditch also fails, officials propose widening it again, a strategy known locally as the Harlingen Stretch.
