If Congress comes up with funds this year for an infrastructure project in Santa Cruz County, what project should top the wish list?

The Palo Parado road and bridge, five residents of Rio Rico and Tubac and a developer told the board of supervisors on Feb. 3. But Supervisor Rudy Molera spoke up for residents of the Chula Vista subdivision along the Nogales Wash where a project to protect them from floods has stalled.

“We are poised to grow rapidly (in northeast Rio Rico),” said Roy Farrell, who lives on Morning Star Ranch. To reach Interstate 19, he and other residents drive south on Pendleton Drive to Rio Rico Drive when the Palo Parado Road river crossing is not passable.

“I’ve been stuck three times crossing the river,” Farrell said.

He thanked the county for its “diligent work” to improve the Palo Parado crossing.

Right now, the crossing is closed while the county grades and paves a section of road by the Union Pacific railroad tracks. But the county needs approximately $9 million to complete the road and build a bridge over the Santa Cruz River.

“If an ambulance has to drive you all the way around to get to Tucson, you’ve lost 20 minutes,” said Kathi Campana, co-chair of the Baca Float Coalition Inc., which advocates to keep the Santa Cruz River crossings open. “If it’s a heart attack, you’re dead.”

Jean Hatton, a resident of Camino Josefina, told the supervisors she has survived four ambulance rides to Tucson and feared she wouldn’t get to the hospital in time.

“The last time, they took me through the river,” Hatton said.

The Chula Vista project is also a question of people’s lives – “people living in that floodway,” Molera said. “Chula Vista is my No. 1 priority.”

Work began on that flood-control project north of Nogales about 18 years ago, said Bill Cox, a member of the county planning and zoning commission.

“We need to put all our resources into getting Chula Vista completed before we have a disaster like in 1992,” he said.

Campana argued that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which manages the Chula Vista project, should get an appropriation to replace the bridge they took out in summer 2008 and complete the project. “It’s their fault the bridge went out,” she said.

The multi-million dollar Chula Vista project affects 120 residents, Campana said. But the Palo Parado bridge has to be completed in five years, according to a December 2008 agreement with the Union Pacific Railroad.

“It affects thousands of people,” Campana said.

The Chula Vista project will benefit 214 households – a total of 738 people – in Chula Vista and the Pete Kitchen Mobile Home Park, Molera told the Nogales International.

During the meeting, the choice boiled down to which project was ready for construction and more likely to win congressional funding. Last year, the supervisors ranked Chula Vista first, Palo Parado second, and the 1904 Courthouse third.

“I’m hoping we have a project that will be shovel-ready by the beginning of the federal fiscal year (Oct. 1),” Supervisor John Maynard said.

The Corps of Engineers said it could start work at Chula Vista in October, Molera said.

First, Congress would have to lift the spending cap for the Chula Vista project, and then appropriate the money for the Corps, said Public Works Director Scott Altherr. The county will pay a portion of the cost in matching funds.

“I think the Chula Vista funding is more realistic for this year,” Altherr said. “We might be a little early for Palo Parado funds.”

Molera and Maynard had just approved a contract for $851,682 with CPE Consultants of Tucson to design the new Palo Parado Road and bridge.

Altherr wasn’t sure the company could complete its work by Oct. 1.

“The money (for Palo Parado Road) goes through federal highways and we have to go through the Local Government Section (of the Arizona Department of Transportation),” Altherr said. “It’s very difficult.”

Maynard asked for a recess and consulted with County Attorney George Silva. When the meeting reconvened, Maynard and Molera voted to table action for a week until Supervisor Manuel Ruiz, who was at a funeral in Pima County, could vote on the priority list.