Willacy County Workshop

Research Applied Technology Education Services, Inc.

February 23, 2023

RATES Projects

Pilot Channel Project: City of Edinburg

EPA/NAD Bank- Border 2025

Flood Infrastructure Fund (FIF) & Fresh Water Flows (FWF)

Texas Water Development Board

North and Central Watershed Characterization Phase II

Texas Commission on Environmental Quality

Pilot Channel: City of Edinburg

NAD Bank/EPA -Border 2025

Objectives:
- Characterize local flows in a local ditch at the City of Edinburg by installing an RTHS Station.
- Four Monitoring Campaigns
- Water Quality
- Flow Measurements
Goal:
- Increase awareness of Nonpoint pollution
- Potential application of RTHS and REON Systems shared by Stakeholders

July 2022-September 2022

Quarter 1

October 2022-December 2022

Quarter 2

January 2023-March 2023

Quarter 3

Quarter 1

Quarterly Report 1- Completed

Stakeholder Engagement-Completed

Site Selection-Completed

Site Reconnaissance- Completed

Draft QAPP-Completed

Quarter 2

Quarterly Report 2 Completed

Access Agreement-Completed

RTHS Station Design- Completed

Final QAPP -Completed

Workshops-Hidalgo County-Completed

Quarter 3

Quarterly Report 3

RTHS Station Deployment and Operation

GPS Survey

RTHS O&M

1st Sampling Campaign

Data Processing

Workshop Cameron County- Completed

Workshop Willacy County

Texas Water Development Board Flood Infrastructure Fund (FIF)

LRGV Hydrologic & Hydraulic Modeling: Adaptive Resolution

Lower Rio Grande Valley Region

Tier I Modeling

South Laguna Madre HUC-8

Selected to predict hydrologic flows for the LRGV project area
- f(DEM, routing, meteorological forcing, land cover, etc.
Has been executed for the model domain
- Generally good agreement between modeled and observed flows.
Next step is the assimilation of observed data.

Tier II Modeling

6 Hydraulic Models

Selection criteria:
- Characterize regional flows
- Primary drains
- Higher channel orders tributaries
Modeled areas with no existing monitoring infrastructure
- Address data gaps for model calibration and validation

44 RTHS Stations Deployment

2 – Delta Lake ID (approved)
3 – Willacy County DD (approved)
5 – IBWC (pending receipt of letters of no objection to then submit a permit to IBWC)
18 – HCDD1 (pending permit revisions)
16 – Cameron County (pending permit owner revisions)

Tier III Modeling

RATES contracted under FIF to develop 20 urban stormwater model

City of Mission
City of Alton
City of San Benito
City of Edinburg

Tier III- City of Alton Study Area

Tier III- City of Alton

Texas Water Development Board Fresh Water Flows

Active Stations

RTHS-Stage Heights: REON websites
Four Quarterly Monitoring Campaigns:
- 2021-2022
- Water quality samples
- Flow measurements
Future: Developing Rating Curves for Design
5th Sampling Campaign at the end of February 2023

TWDB FWF Results

Water Quality Data Collection

https://storymaps.arcgis.com

NOAA's Online Positioning User Service (OPUS) provides free access to high-accuracy National Spatial Reference System (NSRS) coordinates.

Continuous GPS Data was collected

North and Central Phase II

TCEQ Section 319: Solicitation No. 582-21-23333

Characterization of Northern and Central LRGV Watersheds: Phase II
Contract Execution: September 2022

Extend Phase I Lower Rio Grande Valley-North and Central Watershed Characterization (UTRGV).
Provide a combination of continuous and event-based monitoring (modeled after LLM-BSC WPP)
RTHS- stream monitoring: Leverages 3 monitoring stations commissioned by TWDB-FWF
- Raymondville Drain
- Hidalgo-Willacy Main Drain
- USIBWC North Floodway
Quarterly- water quality and hydrodynamic measurements
- DO, Water Temp, Conductivity, pH, Nitrate/Nitrite, Total Phosphorus, TKN, and E. coli
- ADCP discharge transects and flow measurements to develop discharge rating curves as a function of stage height
Continuous
- Water quality
- Stream stage height