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Residents of the Berryhill area in Milan and Cibola County, N.M., wanted to thank the village and county for their work in clearing the drainage ditches after a decade of requests. Diego Lopez -CC
GRANTS, N.M. – After nearly 10 years of asking, the community south of the railroad tracks in Milan, New Mexico has had their arroyos and ditches cleaned. Members of this southern community live on either the Village of Milan or Cibola County side, the border change has been partly blamed for the delay in cleaning the ditches.
Before the village and county did their parts to clean the ditches, trees, trash and overgrown shrubbery managed to take over the ditches, leading to fears of flooding any time rain would come to the area.
In some areas of the ditch before it was cleaned, it was nearly impossible to tell there was supposed to be a ditch, “If I go over there and didn’t know where the arroyo was supposed to be, I wouldn’t know that was an arroyo, I would just think it was an overgrown spot with trees and bushes,” area resident Roxanne Sena said. Her husband, Lawrence Sena, had been asking for the drainages to be cleaned out for over 10 years, and both were elated when the drains were cleaned.
Area resident Bruce Lynn explained that the ditches hadn’t been cleared out for years, and that the majority of properties safe from flooding have been properties where the owner began their own flood mitigation efforts.
Foreman with the Cibola County Road Department, Joseph Baca said, “They [road department] used a backhoe to reestablish the bar ditch and cleared the dirt buildup at the culverts, with the current monsoon rains the bar ditch and culverts are flushing downstream to the collector ditch [on] Crater St.”
Since the cleaning, the ditches are visible and can act as flood mitigation in the event of heavy rainfall. Without trees, shrubbery, dirt, rocks and trash blocking the path, water can flow freely without disturbing the roads or houses in the area. Citizens are reminded not to play in arroyos, and that during flash flood events arroyos can turn into dangerous rushing rivers.
Residents of the Berryhill area wanted to express their gratitude to the agencies that cleaned the ditches that keep their homes safe from flood.