Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Two years ago, during the floods of 2006, the Butterfield Apartments and several houses in Northeast El Paso were flooded. Construction was supposed to start in December to fix the problem but the project has become more expensive than anticipated. City engineers say the drainage system needs to be bigger, to accommodate more water. Original estimates were at 6 million dollars, but the cost has ballooned to almost 20 million dollars. The city looked at buying the apartments and tearing them down, but now engineers are looking at a scaled down version that would cost much less. That version would have retention ponds on the east side of the US-54 on Castner Range.