Chapala Public Works director Gustavo Almada (right forefront) appeared on site early Wednesday morning to supervise the installation of new water lines along Calle San Jose in San Antonio Tlayacapan, the first stage of a complete overhaul for the flood-prone street. The official estimates that the project will be wrapped up in September. Photo by D. Palfrey.

Almada says the San Jose-Lloyd axis lies in the path of a creek bed that has been converted into a thoroughfare used by motorists headed to new homes and businesses that have cropped up in the vicinity. The streets have become increasingly prone to flooding as natural waterways in the neighboring hillsides have been diverted by private developers to accommodate new subdivisions along the margins of the Libramiento by-pass.

Prompted by protests lodged by village residents, municipal government officials last year gave their pledge to diminish the town’s susceptibility to natural disasters. According to Chapala planning department chief Jose de Jesus Arce, the developers of the Cielo Vista housing complex paid for a professional survey of the San Antonio area watershed. However, corrective measures so far have been haphazard and inadequate in the face of man-made recontouring of natural landscape that has aggravated the situation.

Arce suggests that a permanent solution will require costly infrastructure with sufficient capacity to handle heavy rainy seasons and rechannel run-off to waterways that have not yet been compromised by urban sprawl.

In the meantime, Almada is confident that the repair job he is overseeing will hold up to the forces of nature in the immediate future.