By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
Commissioners court members heard a presentation on work being done on a drainage and water study from the engineering company hired by the city to do the work.
Members of the court listened to the presentation, made by Daniel Diaz of the firm International Consulting Engineers, during their Sept. 26 meeting.
Diaz began his presentation by telling the court, “If there’s only two things that stay in your heads about us is that we are a small business engineering firm, and we have two natives from Del Rio, myself and the owner were both born and raised in Del Rio, graduated from Del Rio High School, so we’re hoping to bring our expertise in engineering design over to Val Verde County.”
Diaz said he wanted to review some of the work his firm is currently doing for the city of Del Rio.
He said it was opportune for him to listen to the presentation on the Cienegas Road reconstruction efforts and drainage issues given earlier in the meeting by Texas Infrastructure Development Group representatives, since drainage and flooding issues are among the projects his firm is working on with the city.
“Our hope is that we can collaborate with Val Verde County on those designs that you will be receiving in the near future,” Diaz said.
County Judge Lewis G. Owens Jr. said drainage is one of the main issues confronting the county, especially in the Del Rio Hedges area in the northeast section of Del Rio and how chronic flooding concerns there relate to possible future development of a 60-acre property north of Walmart the county is currently leasing.
Owens said he believes “some type of flood retention system” would likely have to be constructed near the site of the old National Park Service headquarters at the entrance to Quail Road on the east side of U.S. Highway 90.
“We talked about that with the city, in order to help with some of the water issues from the (new elementary) school, whatever those are, and then also the amount of water that comes through Quail Run and goes through Happy, Ohio, the Hedges,” Owens said.
Owens said Commissioner Pct. 2 Juan Carlos Vazquez is in the process of building a road to connect Chapman and Lausen Roads in the area. He added there would be a concrete rip-rap constructed along Lausen to help alleviate some of the water in that area when it floods after heavy rains.
Owens said another drainage issue is the amount of water that crosses Second Street near the Westlawn Cemetery. Another is the amount of water that flows down Bean, Rodriguez and Chapoy streets in the San Felipe area, but which originates on the north side of Highway 90, the county judge said.
Diaz said his company is headquartered in Corpus Christi and employs about 125 people and works on projects from civil and structural engineering to surveying.
He said the firm has done a great deal of work in the Corpus Christi/Nueces County area, including work on developing infrastructure.
“There’s a lot of industry that is coming to that region, and our firm is in the foundation building of the civil infrastructure, the roadways, the drainage, that is required to make sure that these large-scale facilities have adequate infrastructure to support that growth, and we’d like to provide similar opportunities out here in Val Verde County as you continue to seek growth in this area,” Diaz said.
Diaz spoke about some of the work the company has done in the local area, including a project at Laughlin Air Force Base that involved redesign of drainage systems for the airfield and updating the base’s water distribution systems. He also spoke to the court about other major projects the company has done in the state.
Finally, Diaz briefed the court on the work his company is doing for the city of Del Rio.
“We are doing two addendums to existing master studies that were done back about 10 to 15 years ago. The first one is the drainage/watershed study. It’s a humongous study, done very well by CP&Y. Now we are doing updates to that, an addendum to what is existing, receiving the modeling data and performing that analysis because things have changed. In 10 to 15 years, things have been built and with that comes the necessary assessments to see how the water is flowing now, where is it going to, and moving forward to planning actions, design and then construction to fix those areas,” Diaz said.
“The second one is on another master plan. This one is to the water study that was done by TetraTech back in 2012, and this is trying to align and identify where the water pressure issues are going on within the city of Del Rio. We know of some that are occurring north of Bedell, and so we are doing the modeling to make sure we can identify the correct way forward. Is it a pump? Is it a water tank? We’re trying to identify those key things right now as we’re going through the analysis and the modeling,” he added.
Diaz said the third project deals with the city’s wastewater system and will include helping the city eliminate five lift stations along the San Felipe Creek and develop a bypass between its two wastewater treatment plants in south Del Rio.
Diaz also told the court his company will create a formal drainage manual for the city once it is done updating the drainage study.
“Once we do this drainage study, then we will do a formal drainage manual that we can provide the city of Del Rio to provide to its future developers so they have a guideline, a standard of what to follow,” Diaz said.
Owens thanked Diaz for the presentation and said he would make sure that Diaz received the contact information for each of the commissioners.
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