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First, I was wrong on the depth of the ditch. I stated that the depth was at least twenty feet deep. It was 16 feet deep. I should have stated that it appeared 20 feet deep at night. Which it certainly did.

Second, Happy New Year!

Third, my calibrated eyes are calibrated. My eyes at night said twenty feet and they were right, but my feet were 16 feet from the water. At night with the dimness, the ditch is much more treacherous appearing than in full daylight. In any case, the ditch is 16 feet deep by two types of measurements.

The first method I used involved a rope. I attached a bag with rocks on the end of a 40 ft rope I had marked at 3 foot intervals out to eighteen feet. At nine and eighteen feet I put small knots that would indicate those lengths. I hammer threw the bag as best I could but because I had to make sure the rope would not go flying out of reach I had to hold the rope back from full extension. This resulted in the bag falling almost exactly half way up the slope on the other side instead of the top as I had hoped. I did not want to risk the rope falling in the stench pool so I lived with what I got.

I measured the length of the rope from that location and it was 28 ft 3 inches. I also measured vertical drop versus horizontal travel(the angle of the rope). The angle resulted in 10 inches of drop for 34 inches of horizontal distance(I had a yardstick). That is a 16 degree down angle. From this information I could calculate the horizontal distance as 27 feet. The long and the short of it is that the ditch is 30 feet wide at the top.

The next measurement was along the near slope. I dropped the bag into the near edge of the water and pulled it just out of the water. I assume it was out no more than a few inches but if it was out farther the depth would be calculated to more than the 16 feet. The length of the rope was 17 feet. The drop was 20 inches to 7 inches or about a 70.7 degree angle(my calibrated eyeballs at night measured 75 degrees). The result is that the ditch is 16 feet deep. Further calculations show that the water is 18 feet across. The depth of the water was not measured but appears to be about two to three feet deep. The tire that I saw the first time was in the ditch fully under water.

The second method of measuring the depth of the ditch was simply throwing a rock and timing its fall(kerplunk). I threw a rock out as level as I could and used at stop watch to time its fall. I did this four times and chose the fastest time. This was measured at 1.15 seconds. The calculated distance is around 21 feet. That is close to calibrated eyeball height.

Now, what does this all mean? It means that I was just as close at night as Bob's references were during the day(10-12) feet. It means that Davila even lied about the depth of the ditch since 16 feet is certainly a heck of a lot deeper than just slightly above a 6 foot wader. The angles verify that Juarez was lying about(or someone was) Compean falling face first into the ditch. In fact, I slipped as I measured the slope. I was sideways so I was quickly able to stop the slide by leaning on my solid footing. I can see how Compean slipped if he stepped down into the ditch. He would have gone to one knee as he testified.

On the way to the ditch, I again drove the distance at the posted speed limits and reached the ditch in 5 minutes and 31 seconds. Still no schools on the road.

An interesting thing happened this time however, when I arrived at the ditch, there was a BP truck located on the levee in what I believe would have been where Compean was stopped. I went about my business but one or two other BP trucks buzzed by while I was there. After my first measurement, an agent come down and asked what I was doing. I politely answered, but the agent replied he was not familiar with the Ramos and Compean case. Towards the end of my stay all trucks left but another one appeared and drove down on the side of the levee. A lady agent got out and asked about what I was doing and politely asked for my name. I gave it to her.