Watershed Protection Plan - Lower Rio Grande Valley Development ...

TECHNICAL AND FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE REQUIRED
restoration project necessitates a site-specifi c
assessment of environmental conditions, a feasibility
study tailored to the site, a detailed engineering design
of the measures deemed feasible for the site and
professional oversight of construction to insure proper
installation and maintenance of the project.
Technical resources currently available to help
implement habitat restoration projects include services
provided to the general public by the TPWD, USFWS,
NRCS, TCE and Texas Sea Grant. Additional
technical assistance for designing and implementing
habitat restoration projects is available from several
local universities, including UTB, UTPA and TAMUK.
However, the type and amount of consulting services
these organizations are able to provide for individual
ACW Protection Plan-related habitat restoration
projects is limited and general in nature and will
be dependent on the amount of excess resources
available beyond those necessary to fulfi ll the general
public obligations of these organizations.
The most pressing need for technical assistance
associated with the Habitat Restoration Component
of the ACW Protection Plan is in grant writing and
partnership development to fund and implement
large habitat restoration projects such as constructed
wetlands.
Technical Assistance Needs for Habitat Restoration
(2006-2015)
The Habitat Restoration Work Group and the ACW
Partnership did not produce an independent estimate of
the amount of technical support required to implement
all of the measures included in the Habitat Restoration
Component of the ACW Protection Plan because of the
uncertainty associated with implementing small habitat
restoration projects in ill-defi ned geographic locations.
These small projects include installation of stream bank
stabilization structures, creation of wetland swales in
drainage channels and installation of vegetated fi lter
strips.
Pending individual assessments of feasibility,
implementation of these measures may be appropriate
in some areas but not in others. Also, implementation
of some of the measures may be dependent on
landowner cooperation and also, in some cases, permit
authorization must be obtained from agencies such as
the IBWC, USACE, municipal and county governments,
and irrigation and drainage districts, which normally
require site-specifi c information for authorization. For
these reasons, the ACW Partnership focused estimates
of the technical assistance needed to implement the
Habitat Restoration Component of the ACW Protection
Plan on the measures of the Plan that can be easily
quantifi ed. These measures include construction of
wetlands for tertiary treatment of waste streams from
individual wastewater treatment plants and/or for
polishing fl ows from multiple wastewater treatment
facilities in close proximity, and construction of large
regional wetlands that treat fl ows from multiple sources
including wastewater treatment facilities and nonpoint
discharges from urban and agricultural areas or water
pumped directly from the Arroyo Colorado. Because
of the obvious connection these measures have to
wastewater, estimates of the technical assistance
needed to implement habitat restoration projects
have been included in the estimates of the technical
assistance needed to implement the Wastewater
Infrastructure Component of the ACW Protection Plan.
Assessing habitat restoration
Wastewater Infrastructure
Successful implementation of the wastewater
infrastructure component of the ACW Protection Plan
depends on the availability of technical assistance for
the operators of the wastewater treatment facilities
that represent the Principal Point Source Contributors
of Pollutants of concern to the Arroyo Colorado.
Small municipalities and water supply corporations,
in particular, lack the staffi ng needed to compile sitespecifi
c data and information to conduct initial scoping,
cost and feasibility analyses to develop preliminary
designs of proposed biological treatment systems.
Arroyo Colorado Watershed Protection Plan 128 January 2007