August 24, 2007, Cont. from front page, Colonial balcony contest, By Jesús Ibarra

Civil Protection evacuated 20 families from five communities and many more families may be at risk due to health problems caused by the overflow of sewage tanks. The rainy season is not yet over—continuing until the first days of October—and according to the National Meteorological Center, the hardest rains have yet to fall.

Presa Allende, the largest local dam

The Presa Allende, San Miguel’s largest dam, has a total capacity of 251 billion cubic meters; however, the National Water Commission (CNA) permits a maximum of 150 billion cubic meters. After the recent rains, the dam rose to 154 billion cubic meters, so the National Water Commission authorized opening the floodgates. “For security reasons, we manage two capacity ranges,” explained Álvarez. “The difference is more than 100 billion.”

Presa Allende has three floodgates. One is normally kept open for irrigation of nearby farmland. The other two are for security.

“On this occasion we opened one of the floodgates for eight days to release 50 cubic meters per second, 24 hours a day,” said Álvarez. “This excess water flows into the Laja River (which becomes the Lerma River in Salamanca), but does not affect downstream municipalities such as Comonfort and Celaya. This activity is coordinated between the Civil Protection departments of these municipalities in order to control water levels.”

Water discharged from the San Miguel sewage treatment plant is approximately 900,000 cubic meters per day, and does not affect levels of the dam.

According to Álvarez, the centrally located Presa del Obraje (near the Fábrica la Aurora), which burst in 1998 causing damage to various colonias, no longer collects water as it is full of silt.

Evacuation of rural communities

Approximately 20 families, a total of 98 people, were evacuated from the rural communities of El Carmen, La Venturina, La Minita, Rancho Bonito and La Medina, all near Los Rodríguez. Flooding occurred due to an overflow of irrigation channels.

“CNA calculations of the channel capacities are based on rainfall of 10 millimeters per second, but extremely heavy rains resulted in flooding,” said Álvarez. “This area is also a place of natural runoff from San Antonio del Viral from the higher part of Jalpa.”

The parish priest of Los Rodríguez, Father Genaro, provided shelter for the victims. The Red Cross supplied food, blankets and mattresses; Feed the Hungry provided breakfasts to the victims; and members of St. Paul’s Church purchased food supplies and donated clothing.

The victims

Now the families, the majority low-income “campesinos,” have returned to their water-damaged homes. Mud and water damage to homes and furniture was compounded by walls and floors splitting due to humidity. Eugenia Jaramillo, 20, who lives in La Medina, said the water reached depths of 50 centimeters inside their houses. “It reached our knees,” she said. “We had to leave our houses and stay in our neighbor’s, which had not been inundated.”

María de los Ángeles Ramírez, 30, also from La Medina, said that the water remained for eight days inside her house. “My refrigerator broke down,” she said. “Civil Protection staff came and helped to drain the water out and they also brought us some food.” María de los Ángeles said that the owners of Rancho Don Bosco, a large dairy and agricultural farm close to La Medina, built a soil dike to protect their property from inundation, which diverted more water into the rural community.

Catalina Jaramillo, 55, said that the walls and floor in her small house in La Medina, where she has lived for 30 years, are all split. “The water remained for several days inside my house and it still smells of humidity. The septic tanks overflowed. It smelled awful.”

The inhabitants of the rural communities were not the only ones damaged by inundations. La Minita, a company which grows, processes and exports agricultural products such as broccoli, cabbage and lettuce, lost more than 13 hectares of crops. “Many campesinos who grow corn or beans also were affected,” said Álvarez.

Pilar Osete owns a small dairy farm, with more than 200 cows, next to La Medina and Rancho Don Bosco, and she also lives on her farm. “My house was completely inundated. My furniture was damaged. Currently, it still smells of humidity,” she said. “The water reached the cows’ udders, causing infections such as mastitis, which caused the milk production to decrease. I even had to send some cows to the slaughterhouse because they were unable to produce milk anymore due to the infection. The cows’ meal got wet, too.”

According to Osete, the inundations were not caused by the rainfall in La Medina, but by the overflow of the irrigation channel. “The rain here was not so hard. It was the overflow of the channel which caused the inundations. People usually throw garbage into the channel, obstructing it, and because of the rain the grass in it had grown up, obstructing it more.”

For Osete, the worst and most alarming situation was that the septic tanks in La Medina and in her own house overflowed. “The smell was awful and the pieces of excrement were floating all around. I have a two-year-old baby and now I am worried because of the unhealthy consequences this may have. I tried to remain outside my house as much time as possible,” she said.

Prevention measures

According to Álvarez, the sanitary delegation of the Health Center is currently working together with Civil Protection in doing works of disinfection and cleaning up the areas where water overflowed the septic tanks, by promoting vaccination campaigns and talks with the people in the communities.

He announced that according to the National Meteorological Service, the rainy season is not yet over and the hardest rains will come in September. “It is difficult to make an exact prediction of the rains to come. It is very changeable,” said Álvarez. As we went to press the weather forecast was rainy for the next several days in San Miguel and the closeness of Hurricane Dean to the Yucatán may bring more rain.

He said that as a measure of prevention, his department is training groups of people in each community to form squads that are trained in risks identification, emergency evacuation and fire prevention. “From the 530 rural communities in the municipality, we have already trained people in 280 of them, mainly in the ones that are located in areas considered risky.”

For Álvarez the risky areas in the municipality are the communities in the area of Los Rodríguez—the communities already affected. Although the channel has already been cleaned, it is a reception channel for water coming down from Jalpa. Also at risk are those on the edge of the Laja River, like San Miguelito, La Cieneguita and Atotonilco. “In the Laja communities, some developments have intruded on the river basin, so we are doing a campaign to reduce these intrusions and we are being very strict.”

Álvarez asked citizens not to throw garbage on city streets. “Garbage on the streets is a great problem, and during the rainy season water flows drag the garbage into the city rainwater drains, which obstructs them, mainly in Ancha de San Antonio, Hernández Macías and Canal.”

He also suggested that citizens not swim in presas or rivers during the rainy season, since it is quite dangerous.

As for the sealing off of Presa Allende, Alvarez explained that it was not sealed off because of the rainy season, but because of a rumor that the four main rainwater collecting sites in the state—Presa del Palote in León, Presa La Purísima in Acámbaro, Presa del Jobero in Apaseo, and Presa Allende—may suffer attacks like the pipelines in Salamanca and Querétaro on July 5 and 10, attributed to the left-wing policy group called Ejército Popular Revolucionario, EPR (Popular Revolutionary Army), which also participated in last year’s violent demonstrations in Oaxaca.

The local government, with the Economic Development and Tourism Department, announced the bid for a Balconies and Roofs contest to be celebrated in September 2007.

“The objective of the contest is to beautify the balconies and roofs in downtown houses with natural plants and flowers,” said Francisco Peyret, head of the Economic Development Department. “We will to do a big campaign to invite the citizens to participate and we hope to do the contest each year.”

The contest includes two categories: balconies and roofs. In the balcony category, the judges will consider several aspects for their decision, such as the original architecture in agreement with the rest of the building; construction material, architectural details, quicklime painting, stone and metal work, decoration, and cleanliness; its characteristics and architecture should be representative of the city or should be related to a historical fact.

In the roof category, judges will consider the cleanliness—with no garbage, old things or rubble; the roof’s preservation—with no modifications or additions on its architecture; and the setting–with gardens or flowerpots, giving a better overall aesthetic appeal. Other aspects to be considered are the metalwork, the visibility of water tanks, ceilings, terraces and decoration.

The decoration technique is free for balconies as well as for roofs. Natural plants and flowers are important.

The owners of balconies or roofs who wish to participate must register in the office of the Coordination of the Economic Development Department with Fabiola García, with an official identification—FM3or passport for foreigners, proof of address, and for those who rent the house, an authorization from the owner. Registrations will be accepted through August and September. “The deadline for registration is September 30 and the results will be given during the first week of October. We will be accepting registrations and the judges will be visiting the balconies at the same time,” said Peyret. The judges will be personalities related to the city’s history and architecture –José Cornelio López Espinoza, the city’s chronicler; Félix Luna, expert in San Miguel traditions and historian; and Raúl Barrera, head of the Architects Association of San Miguel; and two representatives of the local government, Cristóbal Finkelstein Franyutti, City Hall secretary, and Gerardo Arteaga, city councilor.

As we went to press, only one balcony on Recreo Street had been registered.

Streets included in the contest

Mesones, Hidalgo, Reloj, Juárez, Umarán, San Francisco, Canal, Correo, Cuna de Allende, Recreo, Hospicio, Cuadrante, Jesús, Hernández Macías, Zacateros, Aldama

Prizes for the three first places

1st. prize: A trip to Ixtapa for two persons

2nd:prize: A trip to Zacatecas for two persons

3rd prize: A diploma by the local government