By Ken Stickney

ken.stickney@panews.com

SABINE PASS — Residents of this farflung portion of Port Arthur told city representatives Thursday they’ve been ignored for years when it comes to water, sewer and street service.

Some 50 residents attended an evening meeting at Sabine Pass School, organized after residents complained that raw sewage was resting in their ditches and front yards, that streets there have crumbled and that drainage fails to protect them from flooding. They said calls to City Hall have gone unanswered or otherwise provided no resolution.

They got this guarantee in return: Public Services Director Hani Tohme told them all 36,000 feet of pipe that goes through Sabine Pass will be replaced within three years. The system, he said, had failed there and work was already underway.

And City Councilwoman Charlotte Moses, who serves citywide, said the city has taken a new direction in recent months and that new leadership is trying to fix lingering problems.

“Give us an opportunity,” she said. “Give us three years.”

Sabine Pass School Superintendent Kristi Heid and Mic Cowart, manager at the Sabine Pass Port Authority, co-hosted the meeting, which started with a half-dozen scheduled speakers talking about problems that have plagued their neighborhood or others around Sabine Pass, the heart of which is located some 10 miles past the Chevron Phillips plant on Highway 87.

Those complaints generally centered on roads and drainage, and local concerns were illustrated by drone footage taken over the community. That footage revealed drainage ditches that were failing or so overgrown that they were barely recognizable. The main ditch ran behind the football field at Sabine Pass School.

Meeting organizers noted that Sabine Pass had tried to escape Port Arthur’s political reach in 1977, Sabine Pass residents tried to establish their own municipality but were blocked by Port Arthur. The following year, Port Arthur annexed Sabine Pass into the city but promised it would provide police, fire and emergency medical service as well as solid waste, water, wastewater facilities, road maintenance, parks playgrounds, swimming pools, and maintenance of other publicly owned buildings.

The goal of the meeting, Cowart said, was to determine whether Port Arthur kept its promises.

Residents who took the floor said the city had not. Some said their concerns had been ignored for decades.

Bernell Dartez said in 24 years living in Sabine Pass, the city had never cut his ditch.

“I don’t even know who our councilman is,” he said. It is Raymond Scott, who attended the meeting and later addressed the citizens.

But Tohme said that such neglect has been changing in recent months. He explained to residents that in order to fix public service problems, the city needed to generate income. A rate increase last year was the first in 10 years, he said; it generated enough funding to put the department’s operations in the black this year and has given the city the opportunity to start fixing old problems.

Among them, he said were some in Sabine Pass.

He said the city’s new pipe-bursting crew’s first assignment was to Mechanic Drive, where it made repairs. He said city crews identified 12 manholes as drainage problems and addressed that problem. And, he said, Port Arthur has replaced a lift station. He said the pump is now in operation.

A more long-term solution, he said, will involve replacing all of Sabine Pass’ pipes within three years as well as other components of the water and sewer system.

At Tohme’s behest, citizens passed around a notebook to list problems with city services in the area.