Located at 3510 Old Port Isabel Rd Brownsville, TX, Cameron County Drainage District #1 (CCDD#1) is transforming the 45-acre tract behind its offices and maintenance building, and along the main drainage ditch, into an educational public park. CCDD#1 will reduce negative ecological impacts and enhance the educational capabilities of Cascade Park by utilizing LID practices in the design of the park. This will allow the District an opportunity to influence the public and community leaders through the creative presentation of educational messages about flooding hazards, conservation, non-point source pollution, and other water-related concerns. BMPs to included in this project: bioretention areas, wetlands for biofiltration, pervious pavement, rainwater harvesting.

The struggle to comply with local city drainage policy requirements, to adhere to local stormwater regulations and to provide clients with cost-effective parking lots is an ongoing frustrating design undertaking for many consulting engineers in the LRGV. South Texas College (STC) and Perez Consulting Engineers (PCE, a local consultant), were presented with such a dilemma recently. STC required 200 parking spaces in a proposed project, but the McAllen drainage policy, parking lot specifications, landscape ordinance and tree requirements collectively reduced the proposed parking lot from 200 lots to 175. The project was not cost-effective. PCE opted to integrate LID concepts into its design and ultimately was able to achieve 200 lots. The biofilters designed by the engineering industry typically require aggregates not readily found in the LRGV. These designs require aggregates to be shipped from upstate, which adds additional cost to a design that usually results in a similar project in the LRGV to be scrapped.

PCE designed the STC parking lot using a 200 linear foot biofilter located along the center line of the parking lot. The aggregate utilized was a gravel/sand mixture that the design engineer located in the Roma, Texas region which is located in the LRGV. The design also included a grass swale and a small detention pond. PCE conducted testing of the mixture and the subsurface design and the results demonstrated a filtration and storage capacity that allowed PCE to meet the local code requirements and the client’s needs. Although the short-term goals were met, the long-term performance of this BMP is unknown.

TAMU-K partnered with STC and PCE to monitor the effectiveness of an existing LID parking lot in McAllen, Texas. Monitoring equipment was installed the inlets and outlets of the BMPs toassess the effectiveness.

Located at 525 South Kansas Avenue, The City of Weslaco’s proposal seeks to install water allocation cisterns at the public library then recycle this water for use within the landscaping needs of the library. We hope implementation of this project will serve as a model for libraries and Weslaco Buildings from which they may learn methods to improve water conservation, lower water utility cost and demands, and lower non-point source pollutants from rooftops. Similar to many cities across the country, the filtration capacity of its municipal water services is nearing its limits and budget constraints provide a difficult environment in which to build a new water processing plant.

Located 221 Dawes Ave, Alton, TX, The City would have its first LID project and this will help to encourage other communities, architects, engineers and developers to use these types of technologies instead of conventional construction methods in order to accomplish water quality improvement in the region to the maximum practical extent. A pervious pavement in the fire station (heavy load traffic) is projected.