City plans to upgrade Leona St. sewer

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Dilley city councilors unanimously approved upgrading the wastewater infrastructure to the city’s main line last week, moments after selecting a $7.5 million project for a sewer plant.
Manuel Gonzalez, an engineer from Premier Civil Engineering, told councilors the upgrade to the wastewater lines along Leona Street will be imperative due to some portions of the line being under pressure.
According to Gonzalez, the main line on Leona Street (Hwy 85) receives all the wastewater from the west side of town, and the sewage flows into a lift station near the intersection of Leona and Scott streets. He said the station at that site will sometimes fill up to between three and four feet of wastewater which is then backing into other lines and does not allow the wastewater to move along the line to the wastewater treatment plant.
“We will probably have to upgrade the main line from Scott Street to Miller Street along Leona,” the engineer said. “This will entail making the eight-inch pipe into a twelve-inch pipe.”
The engineer said that there could be additional repairs required, depending on the gradient of the sewer line.
“It does not have a lot of capacity,” Gonzalez said. “If the slope is good, it will work good. If not, we may to have to upgrade another section later. This was part of option one, but if you are doing option three we will do just pieces we need to do. We will minimize the cost to the city and do it section by section.”
Mayor Gilbert Eguia reminded councilors the funding for the project was available due to a budget amendment made earlier this year.
City Secretary Juanita Fonesca confirmed that councilors have moved $75,000 from COVID relief funds to help rehabilitate aging infrastructure.