SATIRE: This is parody. Not a real news report.
RIO HONDO — Officials confirmed Monday that the City of Rio Hondo was never notified about the 1,800-acre artificial-intelligence campus under construction along FM 106, because the project’s developers reportedly could not find a phone number for a city that the campus is technically not in.
“We found out the same way everybody else did — the fence,” said Rio Hondo City Administrator Clara Zuniga-Hinojosa, gesturing toward a chain-link horizon that now stretches past where the horizon used to be. “Usually a project this size sends a letter, makes a call, maybe waves. Nothing. The fence just showed up one morning wearing a hard hat. It seems nice.”
Representatives for the project, reached via a gate that also had not called Rio Hondo, explained that the campus is outside city limits, inside another entity’s jurisdiction, and adjacent to a third entity that will discuss a ditch on Wednesday.
Water Co-Op Does the Math: 58 Houses of Thirst
The East Rio Hondo Water Supply Corporation confirmed the campus requested roughly 50,000 gallons of potable water per day, which General Manager Ruben Fuentes calculated, using a dry-erase board and visible relief, equals about 58 homes.
“That’s a subdivision,” Fuentes said. “The servers will be air-cooled. They’re basically a nice neighborhood that never waters its lawn, borrows your sugar, or speaks.”
Residents along FM 106 remained skeptical, noting that 1,800 acres of thinking machines could get thirsty once they discover Valley summers.
Harlingen’s Only Lever Is a Ditch It Owns Somewhere Else
Nearby Harlingen, which also does not control the site and does not supply its water, has discovered it owns a drainage canal near Valley International Airport — outside Harlingen city limits — that could serve the campus. Commissioners are expected to discuss the ditch Wednesday, marking the first time in Valley history a city’s entire negotiating position fit inside a ditch.
“It’s a strong ditch,” said one commissioner, speaking on condition of anonymity because the ditch had not been briefed. “Everything flows to the Arroyo Colorado eventually. Even leverage.”
At press time, the fence had extended another 40 acres and, sources say, left a voicemail for Harlingen — which Harlingen has not returned.
