Water bosses consider 8-mile long water line

MARK YOUNG A study is underway to help authorities decide how eight miles of new pipelines might be built in a multi-million dollar project to deliver more drinking water to Port Aransas to accommodate future growth.

The study by Urban Engineering of Corpus Christi has been ongoing since shortly after the Nueces County Water Control and Improvement District No. 4 Board of Directors voted in December to approve spending up to $200,000 on efforts related to the proposed water line.

(The study isn’t actually expected to cost as much as $200,000, but directors voted to approve that much to be on the safe side, according to Mark Young, manager of the water district. The district didn’t have prices on some components of the study at the time of the vote, Young said. In addition, he said, the money had to cover legal fees for water contracts with a water provider, the San Patricio Municipal Water District.)

Young said he’s hoping to see the study finished by late March.

The study will look at the possibility of building a new line alongside an older one that runs from Aransas Pass, paralleling State Hwy. 361, to the Corpus Christi Ship Channel at Port Aransas, Young said.

The possibility of building the water line has been in the water district’s plans for a few years, but nothing has been set in stone yet.

The study will help determine whether the district decides to take on the project and how it might proceed.

One of the project’s lynchpins has to do with determining the condition of a 20-inchwide water line that runs from Harbor Island under the bottom of the Corpus Christi Ship Channel and onto Mustang Island, Young said.

The line under the ship channel was constructed in 1969. Water district officials have no reason to believe there’s anything wrong with the line, but it needs checking, because it would be a critical part of the planned project, Young said.

Marked STAFF PHOTO BY DAN PARKER Mike McConkey, right, and David Hinojosa, both employees of Nueces County Water Control and Improvement District No. 4, mark areas where underground utilities exist off 11th Street on Monday, Jan. 30. It was preparatory work for a large-scale project that soon will be undertaken to widen 11th Street and replace old water, sewer and gas lines with modern lines. Water district officials also recently have commissioned a study to see how a major new water line might possibly be built from Aransas Pass to Port Aransas, to increase capacity on Mustang Island. The line runs 10 to 20 feet under the bottom of the channel where water is about 45 feet deep.

To investigate how well the water line is holding up, the district will bring in a firm that will examine the inside of the line with a camera, Young said. The camera will be inserted in one end of the line and move through the line, shooting video along the way.

A small, parachute-like device will be attached to the camera. The parachute will be caught in the flow of the water and pull the camera along behind it, Young said.

If the line under the ship channel turns out to be in bad enough shape, and if it is determined to be infeasible to fix or replace it, that could force water district officials to rethink the plan to build a new line from Aransas Pass to the ship channel, Young said.

That could mean looking at the possibility of instead building a new line that would run from Corpus Christi down Padre and Mustang Islands to get more water to Port Aransas, he said.

But Young is optimistic that the ship channel line isn’t in bad shape.

“I’ll be surprised if that line has issues,” he said.

Nueces County Water Control and Improvement District No. 4 provides Port Aransas and the rest of Mustang Island with all of the area’s drinking water. The water originates in Lake Texoma, Lake Corpus Christi and Choke Canyon Reservoir.

The district purchases its water, already treated, from the San Patricio Municipal Water District and the City of Corpus Christi.

About 70 percent of the water consumed in Port Aransas comes from a pipeline that runs from Corpus Christi down Padre and Mustang Islands.

Some 30 percent of the water that flows into Port Aransas comes from two pipelines that come from Aransas Pass. One that’s made of steel runs under Redfish Bay. The other, made of a cement-fiber material, runs parallel to State Hwy. 361. Both meet at a point within the Harbor Island shipyard once operated by the McDermott company. Those two lines flow into the line that runs under the bottom of the Corpus Christi Ship Channel.

The study is going to explain costs, the proposed new water line’s precise route, how much more water could flow to Port Aransas after construction, how to phase the project and the project’s feasibility, considering the needed permits and other factors.

Although the study isn’t finished yet, water district officials have some preliminary ideas about how a new line might be built. Young explained some of it this way:

• The new line that’s being contemplated would be a PVC pipe that runs from a pump station on Beasley Road in Aransas Pass to Dale Miller Bridge. From there, it likely would be built to lie alongside the existing line that runs along State Hwy. 361. In sections where State Hwy. 361 becomes bridges, the new water line would probably run under the bay bottom.

• The new line eventually might replace the existing line entirely. Built in 1969, the existing line is 12 inches wide. The new one is envisioned to be 20 to 24 inches wide.

• About eight miles long, the new line would be built in possibly four phases, over a period of perhaps 10 years. Water demand and available funding will dictate when various phases go forward.

• About one million gallons of water a day can flow through the current Redfish Bay and State Hwy. 361 lines, combined, Young said. It hasn’t been determined yet exactly how much a new line could increase capacity. But Young was able to provide an estimate.

“Each phase will provide some additional capacity,” he said. “The last phase will likely provide three to four times the existing capacity (coming from Aransas Pass).” Port Aransas sometimes uses as much as 3 million gallons of water per day in the summertime.

• The Redfish Bay line would be shut down after the new line is completely built along State Hwy. 361.

If the water district decides to go forward with the project, it could begin as soon as late summer this year, Young said .

Th e goal is to have Phase One of the project finished and in use by summer 2013, he said.

The water district doesn’t tax, currently. Its revenues come from payments on water bills, and capital impact funds, which come from fees assessed on property owners each time a new buildings are built.

The water district’s goal is to build the new line without taxing, Young said. The district has a long-term plan to gradually raise water rates over a period of years to pay for the planned new line and other capital projects and operations undertaken by the district, Young said.

“Water rate increases will be necessary almost annually due to rising costs of water and projects such as this,” he said.

Rate increases could be as much as three to five percent each time, Young said, adding that the amount is typical in the industry, statewide.

Questions? Comments? Contact Dan Parker at (361) 749- 5131 or dan@portasouthjetty.com.