SATIRE: This is parody. Not a real news report.
WESLACO — Celebrating what it called the project’s most productive stretch since the Reagan administration, Hidalgo County Drainage District No. 1 announced Tuesday that the Raymondville Drain has cleared two more federal reviews, edging the 40-year-old flood plan closer than ever to the conceptual milestone of being a physical object.
“These reviews passed with flying colors,” said district spokesperson Gerald Peña, gesturing at a wall of framed approval letters that officials confirmed is currently the largest completed component of the drain. “The paperwork is moving beautifully. Honestly, it’s the only part of this project that has never backed up.”
Officials also confirmed that the project’s cost estimate remains in an extended courtship between a locally sourced $500 million and a federal figure now flirting with $1 billion, and asked the community for patience and privacy while the two numbers get to know each other.
“We’re shopping,” Peña said. “You don’t just grab the first price off the rack. Sometimes a billion looks great in the dressing room, and then Congress sends it back.”
Drain Awaits Third Act In Washington
The next step requires Congress to tuck the project into the 2026 Water Resources Development Act, allowing Washington to cover 65 percent of the bill — a maneuver officials described as the drain’s best shot at existing since it was first drawn up by an engineer who has since retired, moved away, and drawn up three other drains.
The finished design calls for nearly 14 miles of new channels, upgrades to another 43 miles, and a 270-acre detention basin capable of handling water from roughly 60 percent of Hidalgo County plus several Willacy County communities — water that officials gently noted has been “detaining itself” across the Valley since the plan was a gleam in a draftsman’s eye.
Construction is already underway west of I-69C, which the district described as a “soft launch” proving that dirt can, in fact, be moved by authorized personnel, and which sources confirmed remains the only stretch of the drain with a working relationship to the calendar.
Asked when the rest of the project might be finished, officials said they were not prepared to commit to a number that specific.
“We have a decade, possibly a season, and a minimum of two more reviews,” Peña said. “Naming a year would be irresponsible. Naming a price would be reckless. We cleared two reviews — let us have this.”
Reaction across the Valley was largely celebratory, though the owner of a downtown film shop that lost 10,000 rolls of undeveloped memories to floodwater the drain is not yet authorized to manage said she was “thrilled for the reviews” and had framed a copy for the lobby, “since that’s the only part of the drain anyone will get to see for a while.”
At press time, the district had reportedly begun pursuing a third review, with a source close to the project calling it “the healthiest relationship the Raymondville Drain has ever had.”
