Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
Escondido Estates residents heard an update on the county’s continuing work to provide city water to the area during county commissioners court’s Dec. 20 meeting.
Sergio Rodriguez, president of the Escondido Estates Residents Association and now a candidate for County Commissioner Pct. 1, spoke to county commissioners court about the project during its December regular term on Dec. 20.
Rodriguez said he was aware there was an item further down the agenda for the court to discuss the project and reminded the court the last update on the project had been given in October.
At the time, there hadn’t been much of an update, Rodriguez told the court.
“It was pretty much the same comment: ‘We’re waiting on an engineer’s report. Personnel keeps changing, which makes it really hard to get ahold of someone,’ which it’s understandable, but at that time, County Engineer Carlos Velarde was asked if there was a deadline, and the response was December 2023. So we are very eager to find out the result of that engineering report and hopefully fix the pressure issue in a timely matter,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez had some positive words for the court as well.
“I truly believe that not all citizen comments should be negative. I am a person who acknowledges when something is done correctly. So, on behalf of Escondido Estates and Rancho Del Rio, I wanted to say thank you. Commissioner Wardlaw, thank you, and commissioners and county judge, in regards to our second entrance,” he said.
“A few years ago, I came to this court and addressed the issue that in our area there was only one way in and one way out, both in Escondido Estates and Rancho Del Rio, and I made it a point to let you guys know that the obstruction was happening on a daily basis by the train,” Rodriguez said.
“This court took action, developed a game plan. It took a little longer than expected due to circumstances beyond this court’s control, but I just wanted to say thank you to you guys. That second entrance is looking great. Hopefully we’ll get it done fairly quickly. So, like I said, I don’t think it should just be negative comments, and I just wanted to say thank you,” he finished.
After the court listened the rest of the citizens who signed up to speak during the citizen comments portion of the Dec. 20 meeting, County Judge Lewis G. Owens Jr. moved up several agenda items.
First was an update on the county’s planned reconstruction of Cienegas Road. Then Owens called on Velarde to give the court an update on the Escondido Estates water project.
Owens said, “We have been waiting. We did get a response from TRC (the contracted engineers on the project). The dollar amount on what they quoted us on what the cost of this project was going to be was three-something and change.”
Velarde responded, “So we have two options. We received the engineering report from TRC, and we have two available options for the pump system. Option 1 will be in the price range between $200,000 and $307,000. Option 2 is going to be between the price range $265,000 and $568,000,” Velarde said.
“The difference is pretty much Option 1 has the most concerns on the system (as) we’re going to be replacing the three pumps, not just one, and then by doing that, you’re going to be creating what we call ‘the water hammer effect.’ If you increase the water flow, we might damage some of the pipe that we have there. This ‘water hammer’ is a pressure surge caused by the rapid tension flow rate. The sudden change in momentum exerts large forces within the water distribution system and can cause damage to the pipe. With this option, we just need to take care of that effect and was going to be increasing the flow by 450 gallons per minute,” Velarde explained.
“We have grants that we can apply for, to go through there, because one of the issues – well, not one of the issues, the issue we’re having a problem with – is because of the fire hydrants. It isn’t the amount of pressure for the houses (in Escondido), it’s how much pressure and how many gallons per minute we’ll have on the fire hydrants. That’s the concern,” the county engineer said.
“More grants to extend water lines, they’re out there, too, but you really don’t want to go do anything more to the water lines, extend anything else, until we take care of the issues with the fire (hydrants) and make sure that the gallons per minute that are required at a fire hydrant at a certain amount of pressure,” Velarde said.
“So we will get with Carl (Esser, the county’s grants administrator) and check and see what monies are out there that we can go apply for. If there’s not anything there, we will visit with Commissioner Wardlaw and then we will look at another plan,” Velarde finished.
Owens said the county will work “over the next couple of weeks” to come up with a plan.
Directing his comments to the Escondido Estates residents in the audience, Owens said, “I know that you all have been waiting for a dollar amount, just like we have. When we first started (this project), we were talking about $75,000 to $100,000. We actually set aside $100,000-something, and the first chunk of that money went for the company to do the study. That was like a $29,000 deal, and we’re not happy at all with TRC and what they gave us for the $29,000.
“We actually believed that we would have something (at the end of their work) to be able to go out for bids, not them give me an estimate. I want detailed drawings in order to be able to go out for bids. That wasn’t part of this. I can use the dollar amounts to apply for a grant, but at the end of the day, we still have to have a drawing of what they’re wanting to be able to submit to TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) and whoever we’re going to apply for the grant with,” Owens said.
Owens then looked out into the audience and said, “Sergio, did that answer your question?”
“Not what we wanted to hear, but I’ll definitely follow up with you and Commissioner Wardlaw,” Rodriguez replied.
“Like I said, it wasn’t what we wanted to hear, because when we started all this, we thought we could sort of fix it for $100,000-something,” Owens said.
“So they (TRC) didn’t give you a dollar amount, they just gave you an actual drawing?” Rodriguez asked.
“There’s no drawing to the $29,000, what they gave us for $29,000,” Owens said.
County Commissioner Pct. 4 Gustavo “Gus” Flores then asked if he could make a statement and Owens yielded the floor.
“Concerning Escondido Estates, don’t forget that at the end of the day, everything has to be approved by the city of Del Rio. They own the water. So, sometimes, dealing with them slows down the process quite a bit,” Flores said.
“But that has nothing to do with this issue,” Sandra Fuentes, a co-chair of The Border Organization, which has been working with the Escondido residents, called out from the audience.
“With this issue right here, I will tell you, when we first started, a year ago, we thought we were going to design it, build it and go on, and then they wanted the company that did the first design to design it; basically, not Carlos (Velarde). So then we had to go back to TRC, and then the mess started, because (TRC) kept switching people on us,” Owens said.
Owens said city officials told him “that somebody needed to design the system other than us (county),” and “that’s how come we went down the road with TRC, because they had designed the initial plans.”
The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com
