What happened to this drainage plan?

Ten years ago Truth or Consequences Mayor John Mulcahy, showing leadership and a green mindset that we could use more of, contacted Van Clothier of Stream Dynamics in Silver City to do a “storm water harvesting assessment.”

Evidently the plan was too forward thinking. No follow up was done, and ten years later WH Pacific’s “downtown master drainage plan” that offers no water harvesting or reuse, only $8.7 million in concrete infrastructure that will race pollutants from cars driving over paved roads into the Rio Grande.

The EPA website describes how storm water running over roads pollutes: “As it flows over these surfaces, the water picks up dirt and dust, rubber and metal deposits from tire wear, antifreeze and engine oil that has dripped onto the pavement, pesticides and fertilizers, and discarded cups, plastic bags, cigarette butts, pet waste, and other litter.”

The Stream Dynamics proposal looks far less expensive and would beautify T or C as well as cool it down.

Please find it below.

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Kathleen Sloan
Kathleen Sloan

Kathleen Sloan has been a local-government reporter for 17 years, covering counties and cities in three states—New Mexico, Iowa and Florida. She has also covered the arts for various publications in Virginia, New Mexico and Iowa. Sloan worked for the Truth or Consequences Herald newspaper from 2006 to 2013; it closed December 2019. She returned to T or C in 2019 and founded the online newspaper, the Sierra County Sun, with Diana Tittle taking the helm as editor during the last year and a half of operation. The Sun closed December 2021, concurrent with Sloan retiring. SierraCountySun.org is still an open website, with hundreds of past articles still available. Sloan is now a board member of the not-for-profit organization, the Sierra County Public-Interest Journalism Project, which supported the Sun and is currently sponsoring the Sierra County Citizen, another free and open website. Sloan is volunteering as a citizen journalist, covering the T or C beat. She can be reached at kathleen.sloan@gmail.com or 575-297-4146.

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4 Comments

  1. Very good article. What, indeed, happened to that plan? It looks like it was well thought out and involved some relatively simple solutions to a HUGE problem. Well, we still have the problem so, obviously, none of the solutions were employed. Again, why aren’t things followed through in this town. As a resident I would be happy to have helped with runoff from my property (this I have done without anyone telling me) especially since it improves the look of the property AND keeps water ON it rather than letting run down into downtown businesses. Common sense is NOT one of the common virtues encouraged here.

  2. Wow, is this the same John Mulcahy that the fair city of T or C sought to impeach? Would be funny if not so sad.

  3. It was too forward thinking, associated with green change and not generated by the good old boys (in this case girls), an emotional reaction, fear based – better to have a bigger police station. The same thing happened when we tried to tell of the dangers of 5G and smart meters and how that would affect the kind of people how would choose to live here. Other cities saw the need to create cities that would draw the kind of neighbors with kids we wanted – instead we got a bunch of scam artists and those more interested in exploiting the potential ($).

  4. Mr Noel- are you accusing our local artists and entrepeneurs, they’re quite local, very much so, are you accusing these people who don’t live here, have no history here, have been coddled by east coast trust funds, these people, these good people, who buy multiple homes here yet live in none of them, these good people who advocate for political change while spending the majority of their time elsewhere, are you accusing these people of being scam artists?

    I’d agree with that.

    I’d also say a government is sadly run by bureaucrats who could give a hootin’ heck about, well, much. other than a big truck, contracts for their friends, and a dinner once in awhile at the local steakhouse.

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