District ‘dodged a bullet’ with levee repairs

Engineers’ work prevented major flooding in the area

The Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District board thanked the engineering team at its recent meeting for spring and early summer levee repairs that helped the district avoid flooding.

“We appreciate your team’s work to prevent levee breaches and major valley-wide f looding,” Bernalillo County board member John Kelly told engineering division manager Jason Casuga during the July 8 meeting. “We dodged a bullet thanks to these guys. We had water sitting on those levees for something like 14 weeks.”

Casuga told the Journal late last month that the engineering team anticipated an increase in material sloughing off of the district’s levees because of the good water year. The crew had inspected levees since April and started repairs in May. Casuga told the board that this year’s extensive repairs gave the team a “broader assessment” of levee work that still needs to be done.

Last month, board members Stephanie Russo Baca and Barbara Baca toured the district’s levee system in Valencia County with state legislators Sen. Gregory Baca, R-Belen, and Rep. Gail Armstrong, R-Magdalena.

“It was really good for us to be on the ground to tour the levee system and see where the sloughing is occurring,” Russo Baca told the board. “With the help of (the Bureau of) Reclamation and the state, I hope we can get more of that levee work accomplished.”

Kelly said this year’s extensive repairs indicate that MRGCD may need to direct more of next year’s budget to the levee system.