Problems arose almost immediately, as Rio Rancho developers contended (unconvincingly) that drainage from their projects did not exceed “historic flows.”
As Corrales subdivisions crept higher into the sandhills on this side of the boundary, Amrep’s worries over potential liability intensified. Mysteriously, ownership of one or more of those dams was transferred to Sandoval County.
A continuation of steps taken to shift the escarpment drainage problems to taxpayers and their public institutions came when in 2007 a project was launched to pipe stormwater from Dam 1 all the way to the Montoyas Arroyo. (See Corrales Comment Vol.XXV No. 24, February 10, 2007 “Stormwater Projects Under Way for Corrales Escarpment.”)
In part, that long drainage pipe was a response to the severe flooding that hit Corrales as Sagebrush Subdivision was going in. As part of his development agreement with the Village of Corrales, builder Ed Paschich promised to dedicate five acres of land along Sagebrush Drive to the Village in exchange for getting slightly higher residential density.
Two and a half acres were dedicated for a park, specifically soccer fields, on the south side of Sagebrush Drive and another 2.5 acres just across the road on the north side. But within weeks of installing the irrigation pump, irrigation system and seeding the field, a huge flood of water from Dam 1 raged down the escarpment and buried the would-be soccer field in deep sediment.
Since that day, Village officials have made several half-hearted attempts to rehabilitate the land dedicated for public recreation, although in recent years those five acres have served only as a materials dump for gravel and recycled asphalt. The current Salce Basin Flood Hazard Remediation project’s main feature is a five-foot diameter pipe that begins in an arroyo near the top of Loma del Oro Road north of the Sagebrush Subdivision and ends at spillway into the huge Salce Basin pond.
The Corrales Fire Department’s Tanya Lattin has been the Village’s primary interface with Meridian Contracting, which has built the infrastructure to address chronic erosion and flooding in that terrain.
At an October 30, 2019 pre-construction conference in the Village Office conference room, Battalion Commander Lattin dramatically recalled the flood damage that occurred from the July 26, 2013 “once in a thousand years” storm that saturated parts of Rio Rancho and Corrales. “A lot of these people were horribly, horribly impacted,” she told the Meridian representatives. The entire first level of one family’s home was filled with water and silt.
Lattin said she would try to keep homeowners fully informed throughout. “Five or six homes will have a very big impact” from the construction project, she pointed out. In addition to the crucial work along Loma del Oro, the northern end of Calle de Blas has been re-designed and rebuilt so that storm water will drain into a series of roadside catchments referred to as Noah’s Ponds.
The project has 14 specific construction parts, or tasks. Another of those is a future pond at the northeast corner of the Sagebrush and Griego Court intersection. Total construction price project according to the contractor’s bid is $2,176,825. After the July 2013 storm event and the enormous damage it caused, Village officials successfully got funding from FEMA and state government, which allowed the current project to get underway.
A homeowner hard hit by storm water run-off from that downpour told the Village Council at its June 24, 2014 meeting that her home had 10 feet of storm water and silt. The flooding “completely ruined our office, library, sewing, exercise room, guest bedroom and guest bathrooms” in the home’s basement area, one-third of the structure, according to Kate Bogart, whose home is just west of Calle Blanca between Loma del Oro and Camino Rayo del Sol.
The water also reached the main floor with damage to the kitchen, bath, hallway, dining room, living room and breakfast room. “We have estimated losses over $100,000 from this one flooding event.
“During the night of July 26, my husband barely made it out of our home alive, had to abandon our home, and had to evacuate with the Corrales Fire Department —they all got stuck on Calle Blanca del Norte,” Bogart wrote. (See Corrales Comment Vol.XXXIII No.10 July 5, 2014 “Monsoon Storms Begin; Repairs Not Finished From 2013 Flooding.”)
In early 2007, David Stoliker, then-director of the Southern Sandoval County Arroyo Flood Control Authority (SSCAFCA) explained earlier attempts to address the problems within the Salce Basin watershed. He outlined two projects related to the old Dam 1 on the Rio Rancho-Corrales boundary that were supposed to control run-off to the terrain along the escarpment from Sagebrush to Angel Road. “On the Thompson fence line [boundary] there’s an old dam up there that the County received from Amrep, who told them it was a park and the County didn’t realize it was a dam,” Stoliker explained.
“In the area west of the Thompson fence line, there’s an outlet of the old Dam 1 that cuts across the escarpment to the Montoyas Arroyo,” he continued. But run-off coming in south of the dam has been running into Corrales unchecked. So, Stoliker said, “we’re going to grade that whole thing so all that water will not flow into Corrales.” Instead, it will flow down into the drainage feature installed at the old dam.
“That is one of the last places where storm water still flows into Corrales from Rio Rancho. What happened this past rain event [in 2006] is that we have an emergency spillway on the south side of the old dam of about five to ten acres that can still flow into Corrales.
“Well, in the big rains last summer, it cut [erosion] like you wouldn’t believe.
“When you have a steep slope like that, and the water gets up a strong velocity, it will cut right through.” Stoliker said his agency had retained two lots at the extreme west end of the Sagebrush Subdivision at the time the parcels were delineated in the mid-1980s. “On the cul de sac at the end of Sagebrush, we own two lots, and we wanted to keep those so that nobody would get hurt [if they built a home below the old Dam 1]. Well, the storm water from that 5-10 acres ended up cutting through our two lots.
“It cut right down into Salce Park. Instead of cutting through the original arroyo, it cut away from the arroyo… don’t ask me how it did it, but it was pretty heavy velocity.
“So right now, we’re issuing a task order for $37,000 of the $250,000” earmarked in the [2006] bond election to grade the land south of the old dam to direct run-off into the drainage pipe that leads to the Montoyas Arroyo. The second, related, project was to the north of the old Dam 1. “There’s a steep escarpment in here, and the run-off came down near Tierra Encantada, so we’re going to take a look at that, too.
“In one place, the run-off broke out a couple of little ponds the Village had. We think with a little bit of new piping and putting in a little bigger drop inlets [into the existing drainage pipe that leads from the old Dam 1 to the Montoyas] we can solve that problem.”
Stoliker explained that when his agency installed the pipeline from Dam 1 to the Montoyas Arroyo in 1998, that project included inlets for flows coming from the escarpment itself. Those original inlets along the pipeline route did function, he explained, “but either the inlets were not big enough, or somehow we got a lot more sediment coming in than we expected. “I think what’s happening is that people are building up there and they’re covering their lots so it increases the run-off.
“Or it could have been simply that someone had done a lot of grading up there. Remember, this was a horrible storm event. This was what I consider to be a greater-than-one hundred year event. So they had enough run-off from these lots [in Rio Rancho], and maybe they did have ponds in there, but the ponds over-topped and it came down and broke out a couple of the structures that were in there.”
Most of those erosion problems identified more than a decade ago may finally have been addressed by the Salce Basin project now being completed.
2020-APRIL 25 ISSUE: COVID-19 INVADES CORRALES; 4 CASES REPORTED HERE
As of Monday, April 20, four cases of the coronavirus COVID-19 had been recorded in Corrales. That information was available through the N.M. Department of Health’s website for the first time on Friday, April 17. Continual reporting of cases by zipcode can be found at the department’s website: http://www.cv.nmhealth.org. On that homepage, find the “Click here to view positive cases by county,” and then choose “View map by zipcode.” All of Corrales, and only Corrales, has the zipcode 87048.
As of April 20, 1,971 people in New Mexico had been confirmed with the disease, out of a total of 36,784 who had been tested at that time. Fifty-eight died. One hundred sixteen COVID-19 patients were hospitalized. It had not been disclosed how those four cases in Corrales had contracted the virus.
Tanya Lattin, the Corrales Fire Department’s emergency management coordinator said April 20 that the total coronavirus cases in Corrales still stood at four. “The State has told me that the zip code mapping ‘should’ be updated two times weekly, probably Mondays and Thursdays. I have put in a request to the State to find out more on days and times of the updates. I do know it does not look like it has been updated since the launch.”
Lattin said Corrales fire-rescue personnal have adequate personnel protective gear so far. “We have not changed anything since the four cases have been reported. The department has had strict protocols going back to March on response to all calls. “As I am sure you know, there are people who can be actively infected with COVID-19 without showing signs and symptoms, All patients, if capable, are asked by dispatch to come outside of their home. Surgical masks are given to all patients to wear, if they do not already have them.
“Responders use N-95 masks or P-100 on all calls along with eye protection and gowns if needed,” Lattin added. “Gloves are always worn on calls so this is not new. After every call, the crew will shower and wash their uniforms.
“We have a good amount of PPE as we started planning in January for COVID-19. We do look daily for available PPE from our vendors to replace what has been used. We also have requested and received some PPE from the New Mexico Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. The Corrales EOC also secures and transfers neede supplies to other Village departments when requested.
“The fire department has a good supply of disinfectants for the station, vehicles and equipment. We have more disinfectants on order and purchased in February UVC equipment to add to the cleaning protocols in place in the fire station. The UVC has also been used at Village Hall by Chief Martinez.” She said the department staff has a health check protocol, under which each person checks for fever several times a day, and signs of any illness for all entries into the station are logged on a sheet. “Crews follow social distancing guidelines while at work as well.”
Call volume is holding steady from last year’s numbers from April 1, 2019 to April 19, 2020 as compared to the same time frame for 2020, she reported. “We are eight calls lower this year than last, but we had two structure fires, a car fire, a storage shed fire, a vegetation fire, a stove top fire and three more motor vehicle accidents than we have this year.”
New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham continued to impose relatively strict demands for business and institutional closures and stay-at-home instructions to prevent further infections. She declined to lift those restrictions, while officials in other states acted to ease those for a return to business as usual. In her remarks April 17, Mayor Jo Anne Roake urged villagers to stay the course in holding down spread of the infection which is most dangerous for the elderly and people with conditions such as diabetes and heart ailments.
As villagers remain cooped up at home, concerns over mental health stresses have mounted. Among opportunities for help is the Agora Crisis Center which can be reached by calling 277-3013 or by internet at http://www.agoracares.org. A spokesman for the N.M. State Police issued the following directive about reporting businesses that remain open despite restrictions imposed by the governor. “There is some misunderstanding percolating through the public and media regarding the method to report businesses that are not in compliance with the public health orders.
“Please help us spread the word that anyone wanting to report a business should not contact any of the state hotlines. The correct method to report is to send an email to nmsp.covid19@state.nm.us.
“A report should include the name and location of the business, and date and time the violation was noted. Reports can also be sent to a local law enforcement agency.” Along with other news media, community newspapers such as Corrales Comment are specifically exempt from mandatory closures since the governor designated them as essential services. While the Comment office remains closed indefinitely, operations are continuing more or less normally via telephone interviews and photo-taking.
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