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COLUMBUS 鈥� New Mexico鈥檚 only 24-hour border crossing, the Columbus Port of Entry, sits in a floodplain.

On Monday, state and local officials as well as some of their Chihuahua counterparts and Mexican port officials gathered near the border wall to cut a ceremonial ribbon in front of a massive flood diversion project more than a decade in the making.

鈥淐olumbus has always been a unique community of resilience and strong sense of place. Today we add another chapter to that story,鈥� state Rep. Jenifer Jones, R-Deming, said during a presentation of what has come to be known simply as 鈥渢he Berm Project.鈥�

The gathering marked the completion of the first phase of a $30 million investment of state and federal money to protect roads and property over some 1,800 acres of land.

When monsoon rains reach the mountains known as the Tres Hermanas in southern Luna County, the stormwater rapidly flows southeasterly from the mountains across the village of Columbus. In flood events, the water swirls around the port, occasionally even overtopping the roadway and lapping across the state highway connecting to the port.

The floodplain also exposes the neighboring village of Puerto Palomas. In 2006, the community was hit with disastrous flooding. Amid the devastation, some individuals went as far as to power up a bulldozer and etch a mile-long berm near the Palomas side of the crossing that inadvertently knocked down some Bush-era border fencing.

鈥淔lood waters do not recognize borders,鈥� Gerardo Fierro, the Border Authority鈥檚 executive director, said, 鈥渁nd reconciling communities requires solutions that benefit both sides.鈥�

That meant building 鈥渢ransformational infrastructure,鈥� he said, the kind of generational public works project that would support new economic growth for the border area and Columbus, which is presently a village of fewer than 1,600 residents.

When construction crews broke ground on a new, state-of-the-art $86 million port facility in 2017, the New Mexico Border Authority had already been working to secure funding for a flood diversion project to protect the crossing as well as homes and businesses on both sides of the border.

But the design and funding for the project ran into repeated delays, frustrating property owners and local governments aiming to bring economic development to the area, including a largely empty industrial park sitting close to the steel bollard border wall. The new port opened in 2019 and its Mexican counterpart has also seen extensive upgrades in recent years.

Upgrades to the new port of entry have continued and the port has welcomed increased commercial and passenger traffic as an alternative to El Paso and Santa Teresa ports of entry. The major medical facility in the region is Mimbres Memorial Hospital in Deming, and during the school year U.S. children living across the border line up for buses bringing them to public schools in Luna County.

Recent capital projects have built fiber-optic networks and upgrades to electrical power in the area. Columbus also lacks natural gas service, but Luna County Manager Chris Brice said in an interview that engineering and feasibility studies are underway to bring that to the region as well.

鈥淭he problem is, that entire area is in a floodplain, so nobody's going to be able to build industry down there or get insurance,鈥� Brice said. 鈥淲e want to build industry down there: We want some of what Santa Teresa is doing. There are people who are interested in coming down here. It just hasn鈥檛 been feasible.鈥�

Signs of progress include an extensive berm and drainage system with large culverts and other infrastructure engineered to channel stormwaters east and then south through Palomas to a reservoir several miles beyond the border.

Although it is divided into three phases, Brice said funding for the entire project via several agencies was lined up at once, at the insistence of property owners wary of the project coming to a halt before it was complete.

State Rep. Nathan Small, D-Las Cruces, who has chaired the House Appropriations and Finance Committee since 2023, pointed to the New Mexico Legislature鈥檚 bipartisan support for border development, calling on several Republican legislators present for the event.

鈥淲e're in a time where New Mexico is one of the fastest-growing border regions and has the most to gain economically, to support folks all across the state and especially in our border region,鈥� Small said.

Work on the third and final phase of the project is expected to begin as soon as this fall.

Algernon 顿鈥橝尘尘补蝉蝉补 is the Journal鈥檚 southern New Mexico correspondent. He can be reached at adammassa@abqjournal.com.