By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
The city’s consultants for a planned second international bridge next month will begin an
environmental survey that will culminate in the recommendation of a route connecting
the bridge site to area highways, members of the city’s international bridge board have
learned.
Bridge board members heard an update on the consultants’ work on plans for a second
international bridge linking Del Rio and Ciudad Acuña, Coah., Mexico, during a meeting
on Tuesday.
Assistant City Manager Manuel Chavez briefed bridge board members on the
consultants’ plans.
After Mayor Al Arreola, bridge board chair, recognized Chavez and invited him to give
the update, Chavez told the board, “As of right now, I wanted to mention that the
consultants, RRP (Consulting Engineers), are commencing the environmental phase of
the project. Currently, they haven’t started on the fieldwork, but they’ve already started
here with that process.
“The earliest that they’re looking at having those boots on the ground would probably be
April 14, and again, that will probably take a few months with that particular process, but
again, just wanted to make that known that they’ve already started with that, and that’s
something we’ve been waiting for for quite a while, and, as previously mentioned, the
route selection is not final until you have this environmental study done. Then that would
determine exactly what the route will look like. At that point, that’s where that would
become more final,” Chavez told the board.
Chavez also told the board members that the Ports-to-Plains Alliance has requested a
letter of support from the city to seek federal funds to connect the new bridge to the
planned, future I-27 corridor.
Chavez said, “The other update I wanted to provide is that Ports-to-Plains, they requested
support from the city, the county and other agencies regarding their funding request into
Congressman (Tony) Gonzales’s (office). They are requesting about $6.4 million to be
able to connect the I-27 to the second bridge, and that’s something we’ll have on the city
council agenda tonight for council to approve that support, and again, that’s just another
phase to this as we continue to put everything together towards a second international
bridge.”
Arreola asked if the funding request was for the section of Ports-to-Plains between San
Angelo and Del Rio, and Chavez said the funding request was strictly for the Del Rio
connector between the planned I-27 corridor and the planned second bridge.
After the meeting Chavez told The 830 Times the city’s bridge consultants will not focus
their environmental survey on any one of the two to three routes they have proposed in
the past, but will conduct the survey on the entire tract of land encompassing all the
previously proposed routes before making a final recommendation to the city.
The writer can be released at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com .
