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Museum moving along Gas service By JASON BUCH LAREDO MORNING TIMES
The Zapata County Commissioners this week chose a firm to coordinate the construction of the Zapata County Museum. The court approved PM2I, a statewide firm, to handle advertising and bidding for the museum’s construction project. The museum will be on the site of the old community center, next to the sesquicentennial plaza and will include exhibits about Zapata County’s history, culture and art, said county project director
Mario Gonzalez-Davis. “We’re all excited about it, of course,” said County Judge Rosavla Guerra. “We’re looking forward to GUERRA it, because I think in Zapata, we’re in need of one.” The court has set aside almost $2 million over the last two years to fund the museum, said Pct. 3 Commissioner Joseph Rathmell. The museum’s façade will in-
corporate the old stone architecture common in the county’s communities that were abandoned when Falcon Lake was created, Rathmell said. It will be a place to display the county’s historical artifacts, and will discuss industries, such as oil and gas, that have played a large part in the county’s history, he said. “Currently we don’t have museum, so we felt it was appropriate to make space available for it,” Rathmell said. Also at Monday’s meeting, the court chose an environmental
firm to test decibel levels as part of the county’s noise ordinance as well. The ordinance is still being tweaked, and is not yet being enforced, said County Attorney Said Alfonso Figueroa. Commissioners voted to hire the environmental consulting firm Argus Consultants to handle testing decibel levels in areas affected by the ordinance. The ordinance targets compressors for oil and gas wells that are within 800 feet of residential
See COUNTY | PAGE 11A
firm opens By ZACH LINDSEY THE ZAPATA TIMES
The McJunkin Redman Corp. has a lot of faith in the future of natural gas in Zapata. On Thursday, Nov. 13, the corporation held a grand opening for its new location in the community of Zapata. McJunkin Redman supplies ConoccoPhillips and a variety of other, smaller suppliers in the area. “Right now, it’s a big demand for the supplies,” said Alan Montes, inside sales representative for McJunkin Redman. “Even though the gas prices are going down, the work is still there.” The Zapata store is a division of the Laredo center. “It’s one profit center, but it’s two different worlds,” said
David Hance, sales representative in the Laredo area. His brother, John, is one of the sales representatives at the new Zapata store. The brothers are from Michigan, but they’ve been in the South Texas area for years and plan to stick around. “Our goal is to be here for quite a while,” John Hance said. “With our customer base, it looks like we have a pretty good future here.” The company decided to open up a Zapata location after recognizing the community’s growth. The Zapata location has been open since Aug. 18. “We’re definitely committed to the community’s growth,” said Robert Smith, the company’s regional manager. “We …
See NATURAL GAS | PAGE 11A
Photo by Christina Rosales | Laredo Morning Times File photos
FULL LAKE
Red Cross ready to help
BOOSTS FISHING PLEASURE By RON HENRY STRAIT
FLW tourney next week/Page 3
SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS
here’s a “new lake” on the U.S.-Mexico border, but it has a familiar name and actually has been around for decades. What has created a new lake from a familiar old trophy-bass haunt on the Rio Grande is water, lots of water. Falcon Reservoir was at 101 percent conservation capacity as of Friday. On Sept. 1, it was at 47 percent capacity. The sudden surge of water that filled the giant lake originated with Pacific storms that carried into Northern Mexico’s Concho River drainage in August and September. As the Mexican reservoirs west
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of Big Bend spilled with over-capacity, the U.S. International Boundary and Water Commission began flood operations on Sept. 5 as water was released into the Rio Grande. On Sept. 16, the flow reached 53,000 cubic feet of water per second. To get a feel for the volume, that is the equivalent flow of about 40 semi trailers of water per second. The water filled Falcon, as well as Amistad up river, to their current combined 162,600 surface acres and flooded miles of shoreline that had become overgrown in drier times with brush and weeds.
See FALCON | PAGE 11A
Rossy Benavides, left, watches as four of her five children, left to right,Alexis, Eddie, Brian and Brandon, play with their father, Eddie Benavides.
(Editor’s note: United Way is funding 25 agencies in Laredo and Zapata with its 2008-09 campaign. This is the first in a series on the agencies and the people they help.)
By CHRISTINA ROSALES THE ZAPATA TIMES
Fishermen in an October 2007 tournament found plenty of space — and fish — to enjoy. TOP: A bass fisherman scoots along Lake Falcon. ABOVE: An angler shows off his catch.
The Benavides family was ready for back-to-school time. The newly purchased school supplies and clothing were stored in closets at their Cielito Lindo home that summer day in August. While parents Rossy and Eddie Benavides were at work, their five children were at home.
Then one of the toddler boys, curious about fire, began playing with a match in one of the closets, Rossy Benavides said. “I saw black smoke under my door so I got out and tried to put out the fire,” said the oldest son, 13-year-old Felipe Hernandez. Felipe could not put out the fire, so he closed the closet door and rushed his brothers and sister out the door before any of
See UNITED WAY | PAGE 11A
A LAKE VIEW
Land grants help populate Nuevo Santander panish explorer Jose de Escandon and his close aides had the right idea over the issue of populating the northern villages in the province of Nuevo Santander, “Escandon and his colegas (advisors) were given authority by Spain through the viceroy to offer settlers something of value to get them and their families to come here,” Rodolfo Gonzalez de la Garza, genealogist-historian said in one of his many talks in Laredo or Nuevo Laredo. “The most im-
S
ODIE ARAMBULA portant thing this region had to offer, of course, was land, but it would be land from which they could make a living and raise
their families.” Gonzalez de la Garza said that Escandon was trained at a military school in Merida (Yucatan) but while he was a military strategist, “he was knowledgeable in topography, surveying and tools of an engineer.” According to Gonzalez de la Garza, the Spanish-born explorer and his men did some scouting of the region years before he got the itch to settle the region. By the middle of the 18th century (1745), Escandon, having left
his Indian fighting in the Gulf coast and Sierra Madre Oriental, lobbied the Crown in Madrid for support to colonize what became known in history as the Seno Mexicano. People who signed to be among the early land grantees had to agree to settle the land, and remain on site to work the land for a determined period of time. The tracts were assigned close to the source of water along rivers that emptied into the lower Rio Grande — Salado, San Juan, Alamo.
From this period of time, the national archives recorded the names of leading explorers who contributed to these settlements, Gonzalez de la Garza developed brief biographies from “Archivo de la Nacion” documents. The biographies cite historical figures that were prominent in the Laredo-Zapata scene. Jose Maria Peña also documented (“Four Winds of Revilla”) the briefs on Captain Blas Maria de la Garza Falcon, Captain Miguel de la Garza Falcon, Cap-
tain Carlos Cantu, Captain Pedro Estrada and Vicente Guerra Cañamar. Jose Espitia de Vela of East Chicago, Ind., working on a book on the history of the Vela family in the Americas, told this writer his genealogy research on Guerra Cañamar took him to the beginnings of the Los Ojuelos community in Webb County. Laredo native Peña’s research focused on Revilla to pin down
See LAKE VIEW | PAGE 11A