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State Holds Back Disaster Money
New Mexicans have needed help after wildfires and floods in recent years. FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has done its part: sending money to the state of New Mexico. But the state has not released tens of millions of dollars for contractors who did disaster recovery work.
Alfredo Roybal remembers the summer of 2011, when the Pacheco Fire raged above Nambé Reservoir.
“The first thing that came down was a lot of ash and debris, you can see the darker soil here,” he said, stepping through the layer of black that still sits atop the milk chocolate-colored bank of the Nambé River. “There’s little remnants of that now, but it came down—it looked like oil or tar rolling down the mountainside."
Roybal has been the dam tender here for 13 years. He makes sure farmers in Pojoaque, Nambé and El Rancho get their water. That means the reservoir has to hold all the water it can. Not mud, boulders, and dead trees.
So the irrigation district needed help. They got the promise of disaster relief from FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and then hired someone to fix the flood damage.
Roybal and Edward Lucero, chair of the Pojoaque Valley Irrigation District, showed off some of the work that was done to keep the reservoir in shape. The two men pointed out trenches, and the new stone and wire walls that help hold sediment and debris out of the lake.
But the irrigation district still hasn’t paid a local contractor for that work. That’s because the state still hasn’t cut them a check even though it has the FEMA money.
“It’s really affected the people who did the work,” Lucero says. “They completed the work over a year ago, about a year and a half ago.”
That’s right: a year and a half after finishing the job, Martin Urban is still waiting to get paid.
And now he may lose his business.
http://ksjd.org/post/state-holds-back-disaster-money#stream/0
Alfredo Roybal remembers the summer of 2011, when the Pacheco Fire raged above Nambé Reservoir.
“The first thing that came down was a lot of ash and debris, you can see the darker soil here,” he said, stepping through the layer of black that still sits atop the milk chocolate-colored bank of the Nambé River. “There’s little remnants of that now, but it came down—it looked like oil or tar rolling down the mountainside."
Roybal has been the dam tender here for 13 years. He makes sure farmers in Pojoaque, Nambé and El Rancho get their water. That means the reservoir has to hold all the water it can. Not mud, boulders, and dead trees.
So the irrigation district needed help. They got the promise of disaster relief from FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and then hired someone to fix the flood damage.
Roybal and Edward Lucero, chair of the Pojoaque Valley Irrigation District, showed off some of the work that was done to keep the reservoir in shape. The two men pointed out trenches, and the new stone and wire walls that help hold sediment and debris out of the lake.
But the irrigation district still hasn’t paid a local contractor for that work. That’s because the state still hasn’t cut them a check even though it has the FEMA money.
“It’s really affected the people who did the work,” Lucero says. “They completed the work over a year ago, about a year and a half ago.”
That’s right: a year and a half after finishing the job, Martin Urban is still waiting to get paid.
And now he may lose his business.
http://ksjd.org/post/state-holds-back-disaster-money#stream/0
It appears like a conspiracy to disadvantage small businesses. Follow the money.
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