City Council 12-10-19 - Emergency meeting

[0:00:00] welcome to this very special City Council meeting called on the 10th of December at 3 o'clock we will call this meeting to order and we'll start off with any public comment is there any public comment to be offered today with no public comment we will move into the emergency agenda and the emergency agenda 3a is first and final reading of an emergency ordinance allowing the award of no-bid contracts for the emergency repair of a 24-inch sewer line break located between Magdalene Street and Oak Street under the Houston Heart Expressway and amending the budget to allocate funding for such contracts who's presenting Allison it'll be me I was just going to provide you all with a brief update of the events that have occurred and where we are at right now yesterday morning our city crews were notified of some manholes backing up it took a while but they figured out trace that blockage to be the 24 inch crossing under Houston Heart Expressway we have been trying to TV as well as clean out the 24 inch but on both the north and south end of the loop but have been unable to even there's about 150 feet of pipe that we have been unable to access with our our rigs so we do believe that the sewer main has completely collapsed the sewer is overflowing out of manholes into the storm drain on the north side of the loop that storm drain conveys that wastewater or storm flow to the south end towards the railroad crossing or the railroad itself by 5th Street from there we built a berm and set up a pumping system where we're pumping back into the sewer system there back into the 24 inch downstream of the blockage last night of course we've received frein and that sort low also I guess the flows from that broke through the berm

[0:02:06] and so we rebuilt that this morning we've got that pumping system back up and going so as of about 9:00 this morning we were no longer discharging into the river we have been working with text tcq all the appropriate authorities we've shut down the exit ramp for Oak Street and this allows our crews to have a little bit more area to work with we just started excavating the hole near the near the loop I guess about two hours ago we're working on getting a formal bypass pumping system in place so that we are no longer discharging into the storm drain system and using that to convey the sewer back to our 24 inch and hopefully we'll have that it start to get putting it in place this evening you know be happy to answer any specific questions you'll have do I have questions from Council Billy was there any seepage so this discharge is near the police station of the Contra River this is downstream of it's actually downstream of any intake of our water treatment facility we currently are treating Oh H IV water and not contra River water but even if we were treating the river water this is downstream of of what that would be so the answer's no no ma'am residential water no ma'am thank you further questions from Council but no further questions from Council I guess what you need us to do is to take a vote on approving this ordinance 2019 - one five - and I guess I'd also like to just add we did start working with a local contractor Darnell construction last night he did mobilize a pump out there to assist us with the bypass

[0:04:08] pumping they've been working with us they have a boring machine that they are bringing on-site that we're going to try to utilize the existing 24 inch and remit out so that we can get some flow back established through there and we'll work on our formalized or final basically a construction or new construction of a line as soon as we can but we have been working with Darnell construction very closely and they've been very responsive to all of our requests so we've been working with them where are we going to find the funds to for this emergency it's just so the public understands Alison I believe that will be utilizing capital dollars but I might need to refer to the finance department Tina would you like to come forward and address the question has been able to build up a bit of a fund balance in her capital project fund fund 520 and through savings in prior years and we've saved that money up intentionally to have a fund balance in case of these types of emergencies what is the fund balance it is the budgeted ending fund balance is just over five million dollars and as Indian Rin is that November end of end of October yes in October and we are asking to use $500,000 of that amount okay so is what we need to do today is to have a motion Mara yes out of season what's the time frame that we're talking about for this project right now we're still trying to mitigate the flow once we get the flow off of the area that's been impacted or is collapsed we'll have a better idea of timeline and especially once they mobilize that boring machine out there we really haven't been able to

[0:06:11] lay eyes or basically get a feel for the collapsed area and how much of the line is collapsed so right now I'm a I believe it's a little premature to give timelines of how long it'll take us but if you generalize would you say three days would you say two weeks would you say somewhere in between I guess I think it's gonna take us longer probably than three days but hopefully not a month I really don't know at this point will it have any negative impact on any of the businesses or homeowners in that area we do we we have main holes directly in the backyard and in the front yard of some homeowners that we've been working with so far we've we had the street closed last night but we made the homeowner aware and he had the ability to leave and enter his home so I don't think other than some odor issues I don't think we'll have too much of an impact in that area okay do I have any further questions or comments from Council move to a presenter and let's make sure when we say what we're moving to approve what are you moving to approve this is first and final reading you do award a no-bid contract for the emergency repair of the 24 inch sewer line that's located between Magdalene in the amount of 500 thousand it's in the budget amendment so you're asking to also approve a budget amendment allowing to use five hundred thousand dollars out of the fund balance capital that would be the motion on the floor with that motion on the floor do I have a second there's a second by Lane do we have public comment on the motion on the floor Mirel ma yes you may although we don't have a sudden timeline to get this accomplished we will be sending out updates as soon as we find out a little bit more as soon as Allyson the staff have an opportunity to take a closer

[0:08:12] look at what the issue is City Council will be getting daily updates but we'll also make sure that we sent out press releases to make sure that the public understands where we are with this - so it's just not a up in the area we don't know it just yet we will know as the days go on and we'll keep everybody informed so we want to make sure everyone realizes there's no there is not a boil issue out there there's there's no water so she has she's drinking water issues at this point so okay what else Daniel do you want to comment all right with that and there seemed to be no public comments so with that we'll take a vote on the amendment on the floor all in favor say aye with none opposed motion passes 7-0 with no other item on this emergency agenda I would ask for a motion for adjournment so moved by Tommy Hebert is there a second second in a second by tom any public comment on a journey in this meeting with none we'll go ahead and take a vote all in favor say meeting is over

Captured 2026-07-26 · source: youtube.com/watch?v=Rbn869D-95A