By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
City council members have approved a major drainage study for chronically flood-prone areas in south Del Rio’s San Felipe neighborhood.
Del Rio City Council members Jan. 24 unanimously approved an ordinance directing City Manager John Sheedy to approve a contract with AG3 Group for engineering services for the south Del Rio drainage study, which will be conducted in an area lying roughly between Railway Avenue and Dr. Fermin Calderon Boulevard.
In an informational packet provided to the council, City Purchasing Agent Luis Menchaca noted AG3 “was part of the engineering firms approved for on-call services through an ordinance authorizing the city manager to approve 10 firms as approved vendors for general civil engineering professional services for the city.” Menchaca wrote council approved that ordinance in August 2022.
“Public works staff have discussed the project with the firm, and they have submitted their proposal that includes the following: professional engineering and survey services for a (WA#2) hydraulic drainage study of south San Felipe neighborhood, detention pond analysis and design, field inspections and coordination with local stakeholders, city, county, TxDOT and FEMA offices.
“Pursuant to the study, AG3 will perform a drainage analysis of the site based on topography, data available from public agencies. AG3 will also perform needed topographic survey services of the subject neighborhood streets, U.S. 277 existing drainage structures and pertinent site surroundings. AG3 will also provide cost estimates of the hydraulic drainage options analyzed,” Menchaca added.
Menchaca said AG3 will charge $65,000 for the services it outlined.
When Mayor Al Arreola called for discussion of the agenda item, Councilman J.P. Sanchez made the motion to approve the ordinance, with Mayor Pro-tem Steven Webb giving the second.
When Arreola asked if council members had any questions, Councilwoman Alexandra Falcon Calderon asked, “This group, AG3, have they been hired before?”
“This would be the first contract we have with them. They were part of (the) request for qualifications that we did a couple of months ago so we can hire on-call engineering services, and they were one of the 10 firms that we went ahead and selected, so even though we have not hired them in the past, we are familiar with them because we’ve reviewed their statement of qualifications,” Menchaca answered.
“Now, this is for the south San Felipe drainage study. Has it been in the past any of that studied?” Calderon asked.
“No, we haven’t had a study,” Sheedy replied.
City Public Works Director Albert Quintanilla, “This hasn’t been part of the study in the past. This is an area that wasn’t part of the FEMA study, but a part where we noticed there are flooding issues and so we want to address it. The study would be for regrading some of roadways to get water to flow down our streets better and then for a location for a possible detention pond just north of Dr. Fermin Calderon (Boulevard) to catch some of that water before it crosses and starts flooding farther downstream.”
When Calderon said, “North, only?”
Quintanilla replied, “Between Railway Avenue and Fermin Calderon for now, this portion of it, but we want to continue on farther downstream, but this will address that first portion of it.”
“And when would it be the rest?” Calderon asked.
“As soon as we get this portion done, once we figure out the balance of the cost, we can figure out when to do the next phase and continue on downstream on that,” Quintanilla replied.
“John, based on the going back to this issue there at the start of the drainage, after all this time of how bad it’s been, did you all take into consideration the most areas of streets or is what he just mentioned? We had a whole lot of problems in certain areas,” Calderon asked the city manager.
“It’s all that area. Like I mentioned earlier, I came to council, I advised council that we were going to pause after (repaving) Nicholson Street and start on this project. I had gone out there myself. I’ve seen that for years, the problems with flooding (in that area), and we have people that have had their homes flooded several times, but yes, we did look at all that area, but this is an area that I don’t think has ever been studied,” Sheedy replied.
“It has never been studied, but it is a flood hazard. This is basically low-hanging fruit, something we can attack quickly and make some improvements to help a lot of the residents in that area,” Quintanilla added.
“What is the time frame on this study?” Calderon asked.
“Three months, basically,” Quintanilla replied.
“And then from there on?” Calderon asked.
“From there on, they’ll give us the study results and then we can start scheduling how we’re going to do the work. In this location, what we want to do is regrade the streets . . . We want to do an inverted crown, where you’re basically funneling all the water down the middle of the street. Once we get the study done in three months, we’ll see if we can get our equipment to get started on that work,” Quintanilla said.
He added once the study is done, the city will also work on possibly acquiring the property for the proposed detention pond and determining how large that pond will have to be to alleviate the area’s flooding problems.
“This is giving people that live in that area hope, because they’ve been desperate on this for so many years, and we do want rain, but there’s some homes where we’ve seen these people have gone through so much,” Calderon said, adding flooding concerns are frequently voiced by citizens who attend her town hall meetings.
Arreola said this is the first in a series of drainage projects to relieve flooding issues throughout the city, noting there are areas in the Chihuahua neighborhood and in central Del Rio prone to flooding during heavy rains.
Sheedy said the city is looking at placing detention ponds off Garfield Avenue near the city’s Carranza Park.
“We have to strategize and help the areas that need it the worst,” Sheedy said.
Mayor Pro-tem Steven Webb asked if city officials have contacted Union Pacific Railroad.
“Because they’re the ones that created the drainage problem when they readjusted the tracks,” Webb charged.
Quintanilla said the railroad would be contacted once the city’s receives the study results.
“The people over on East Bean, Chapoy, and Rodriguez all suffer every time we have a rain. They have a foot of water at their front door, and that’s not good,” Webb said.
The council then voted unanimously to approve the ordinance allowing Sheedy to move forward with the drainage study.
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