With Land Deal, City Manager is Delivering on Promise to Effectively Address Avenue P Flooding Problem

SAN ANGELO, TX — The City Council Tuesday approved purchasing two key pieces of property that will lessen the threat of flooding along Avenue P.  

The plan to reduce flooding in the area around Avenue P east of S. Bryant Blvd. on the city’s south side was introduced in February of this year. That flooding problem has been ongoing for decades. City Manager Daniel Valenzuela said at a town hall meeting in February that he was determined to address it effectively. It comes up almost daily, he said.

City Engineer Russell Pehl and Assistant Engineer Lance Overstreet conceived the upstream drain field solution after considering and discarding two other options. Those options were deep drainage ditches inside the residential neighborhood or a large water drainage pipe underneath the street. The latter would require U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approval the City didn’t believe was possible to obtain.

The plan the City is pursuing now is to purchase land north and west of the Avenue P area and construct retention ponds on the acreage to slow drainage downstream as water rushes southeast to the Concho River during heavy downpours.

The first land purchase was approved Tuesday.

In a unanimous vote, the Council authorized City Manager Daniel Valenzuela to negotiate and execute a contract for the purchase 1805 and 1806 Harbor Court. The purchase price will not exceed $600,000.

MAP of where the land to be purchased is located:

City engineers plan to build a detention pond on the vacant lots that could hold the stormwater produced by a 25-year rainstorm – a storm capable of producing 5.25 inches of rain over a 24-hour span.

The pond will prevent stormwaters from rushing down Avenue P and flooding homes along the street.

“It’s not the 100-year fix we were seeking,” City Engineer Russell Pehl said, “but this is a definite step in the right direction. We hit a lot of roadblocks trying to purchase key properties that could have accommodated a 100-year storm. This solution will accommodate a 25-year rain event.”

Pehl stressed the City must still acquire two more pieces of property before the detention pond can be built. Negotiations are progressing with those landowners, he said.

After the pond is built, Pehl said the City will look to reshape Avenue P to keep floodwaters in the middle of the roadway rather than draining outward toward homes.

That road shaping will mean the roadway will be an “inverted V” to keep more of the water rushing towards the Concho River in the roadway, not in the front lawns of the homes there.

At a town hall meeting in February, Valenzuela said the City budgeted $2.4 million to address the Avenue P flooding problem. The budget did not include money to reconstruct the Avenue P, however. Funding for the street reconstruction is planned as part of the multi-year, $80 million street reconstruction plan that is now underway.

This is an expanded article based upon a City of San Angelo press release on Nov. 7, 2017.