WESLACO — City and school district officials here are continuing a yearslong collaboration to improve drainage infrastructure throughout town.
The latest iteration of that teamwork came Thursday, when city commissioners and school board trustees met to discuss their latest joint project — a regional detention facility (RDF) that will be built on school district property, but will benefit scores of residents along Sugarcane Drive.
The 11-acre RDF is expected to cost $3 million and will be dug out from a span of empty land between Cleckler-Heald Elementary School and Beatriz Garza Middle School along West Sugarcane Drive.
It will serve a dual purpose — collecting and retaining up to 5 feet of storm water during heavy rain events, while also allowing for athletics and recreation when it’s dry.
“When it’s dry, it’s gonna be constructed to where there’s enough room to put soccer fields,” said Orlando Cruz, the principal engineer with Cruz Hogan Consultants, the firm engaged by the city to engineer and design the RDF.
“It’s gonna be 5 feet (deep, with) gentle slopes. We don’t want to make it too deep. There’s gonna be added security. It’s gonna be fenced,” Cruz said.
A mockup of the RDF superimposed over a satellite view shows at least two athletic fields located at the bottom of the proposed pond as it curves in an L-shape from West Sugarcane Drive, south behind the middle school and toward Border Avenue.
City and school leaders also discussed the possibility of installing a walking trail along the perimeter of the RDF and along nearby drainage ditches.
There’s already an existing RDF at the site that was put in years ago, but it’s rather shallow and doesn’t have much capacity, Cruz said. The new facility will be able to hold 60-acre-feet of water — or nearly 19.6 million gallons of water.
Some officials worried that that increased capacity still won’t be enough to prevent floodwaters from entering nearby homes and businesses.
“If we sit here and people are still getting 2-3 inches (of water) in their house, they’re gonna say, ‘Well… no hicieron nada,’” said Weslaco ISD school board Secretary Jesse Treviño.
But the city’s engineer, Albert Aldana said the RDF’s capacity will be a “big difference maker” — something one commissioner echoed.
“It’s not a catchall solution to the flooding, but what it does is it helps to mitigate and possibly even save some of those homes,” said District 3 Commissioner Jose “J.P.” Rodriguez.
The city of Weslaco will be contributing some $760,000 to pay for the project, while the rest will come via state loans and grants, Weslaco interim City Manager Andrew Muñoz said.
The city’s portion of the project funding is part of the $4 million drainage bond Weslaco voters approved in 2019. The city will also contribute in-kind services by providing some of the construction labor, Muñoz said.
But creating infrastructure takes time, and the RDF isn’t expected to begin construction until the beginning of 2023, at the earliest.
For now, Cruz Hogan is still in the midst of getting all the state regulatory approvals needed to jumpstart construction.
“We’re working through the engineering report, we’re working through the environmental reports, with the Texas Water Development Board,” Cruz said.
He hopes to receive authorization to begin the formal design process as early as next month, but doesn’t anticipate the city will be able to seek construction bids until the end of the year.
Meanwhile, District 5 Commissioner Letty Lopez spoke about the importance of partnering with the school district on the project.
“I believe it’s important because we’re using the citizens’ tax dollars to the best advantage of everyone. We’re using everything that they’ve already bought for and paid for in betterment of the community as a whole,” Lopez said.
