What happened on Tapioca Street on August 30, 2024, the river of rainwater that ended the life of 16-year-old “Rafita,” is not new. Since 2004, the Municipal Institute of Research and Planning (IMIP) warned of the need for stormwater works given that this street is the lowest point of the Tapioca stream, where up to 50 thousand liters per second of discharge flow can be reached in times of heavy rain, due to runoff coming, at its highest point, from the Roma subdivision and the Colinas de Juárez cemetery.
According to the runoff analysis in the Sectoral Plan for Stormwater Management (approved by the City Council on August 12, 2004), the sub-basin called Tapioca Creek is part of Zone IV (of eight) of the Airport Basin, made up of 15 creeks.
The Tapioca stream, the document shows, is the lowest part of both its sub-basin and the Airport basin.
“It is the most important stream in the basin due to its size and the amount of water it generates, and it is made up of several tributaries,” says IMIP in the report.
He adds that “it collects the runoff that occurs from the intersection of Ramón Rayón and De las Torres avenues, following the southern watershed of this sub-basin to the eastern limits of the airport, south of the Aero Juárez Industrial Park; from that point, the water flows north, increasing its volume as it crosses the Roma, Conjunto Habitacional Aeropuerto, Paseos del Alba, Héroes de la Revolución, Los Alcaldes, Solidaridad, Lucio Blanco, Juárez Nuevo, Infonavit Ampliación Aeropuerto neighborhoods, finally reaching the Ángel Trías subdivision.”
He points out that the main channel is formed at the height of the Roma subdivision, located south of Santiago Blancas Avenue and Yepómera, passes by one side of the Colinas de Juárez cemetery, finding a little further down two sewers in its channel that due to their reduced hydraulic area become structures to regulate the flows that come from the upper parts.
The report warns that the “well-defined channel crosses the Infonavit Solidaridad colony and then becomes Toronja Roja Street and before reaching Manuel J. Clouthier it passes Tapioca Street, reaching Paseo de la Victoria, crosses (…) and enters the Las Lomas Industrial Park, where it causes large-scale flooding; the water is finally stored in the grounds of the Misión de los Lagos golf course”, where part of it infiltrates and another part ends up in drain 2-A.
This flow rate – which is the flow that is reached – can reach up to 54.04 cubic meters per second, with speeds “that cause traffic to be interrupted during the passage of maximum flow,” without taking into account the damage to the homes and industry that receive it or those impacted by the rainwater that also carries garbage and soil.
The “rain control work on the Tapioca stream” is even planned in the short term in the recently published Sustainable Urban Development Plan 2040 of the IMIP, although it continues in a preliminary project generated by the UACJ in conjunction with the National Water Commission in 2016, without specifying dates for the preparation of the executive project, extension or direction of the works, type of works, cost or other details.
The IMIP Water Management Plan, on the other hand, proposes a cost of 51 million 827 thousand 916 pesos to channel 10 of the 15 streams in the Airport basin, of which 16 million 731 thousand 263 correspond to the Tapioca stream –considering 2004 costs–, an investment that would go mostly to lining.
In May 2019, Sergio Alberto Duarte Cano, then a Civil Engineering student, presented a graduation project called “Hydro-economic design for the Storm Drainage System in the Tapioca Stream”, published on the Internet, without the signatures of its project director, Arturo Marrufo Meléndez.
However, it determined that a system is needed to evacuate the flows caused by rainfall “that fail to infiltrate the different layers of the soil” due to the urbanization of the area, which also “represents (…) insecurity for citizens, in addition to economic losses in terms of infrastructure.”
For this reason, he proposed three storm drain designs with their respective costs: corrugated PVC pipe, with an investment of 44 million 027 thousand 145 pesos; a 10-centimeter concrete-lined channel, with an investment of 24 million 547 thousand 897 pesos, and a mixed rain garden, feasible with 23 million 205 thousand 871 pesos. The three proposals were evaluated with prices from that year.
‘Everything that rainwater is municipal’
The Ministry of Communications and Public Works, as well as the Municipal Board of Water and Sanitation of Juarez, were consulted about the works that are planned for this area. The first denied that there was any project, while the second, through spokesman Daniel Valles, said that “all stormwater is municipal. The JMAS has no influence on dams, absorption wells and storm sewers (almost non-existent) in the city.”
Carlos Nájera, coordinator of Social Communication for the municipal government of Juárez, was also consulted on the matter, considering that IMIP has been planning these works since 2004, but no response had been obtained by the time this edition went to press.
Two local residents confirmed the fact to El Diario: they have had their food stalls on Tapioca Street for nine and 20 years and every rain, heavy, moderate or light, that road becomes a dangerous flow even for their sheet metal stalls.
They had never witnessed the death of a person like that of Rafael Antonio Rodríguez Ibarra, 16, a student at Conalep II, but they had seen drums, cars, and all kinds of garbage and vehicles being swept away by the current.
One of them, from the “Los Nietos” food stand, at the intersection of Anémona and Tapioca streets, showed how the water current even exceeded the level of the sidewalk and stripped paint from the lower part of the exterior walls of some houses.
“When I got my permit, the Department of Commerce warned me that this was a risk zone,” said the tenant.
“I’ve lived here all my life and the water has always been like this. I’ve seen it all,” said another Tapioca trader.
#Risks #Tapioca #years
