 The McAllen Public Works Department is preparing to accommodate the fast-growing McAllen, Texas, area. McAllen, Texas, has been thriving with a booming population and ongoing construction projects. However, the city’s infrastructure needs to be expanded and maintained to keep pace with that growth, which has kept the public works department on its toes. McAllen Public Works offers solid waste and recycling collection services; oversee clean, well-maintained alleys, streets and sidewalks; maintain drainage ways and stormwater collection systems; and enhance the residents’ quality of life. The department is organized into three divisions: Solid Waste Services, Streets & Drainage, and Fleet Operations. Solid Waste is responsible for residential, commercial, roll-off, recycling, composting and brush collection and oversees the Keep McAllen Beautiful program. The Streets and Drainage division handles street and alley maintenance, cleaning, drainage maintenance, sidewalk construction, and graffiti removal. The Fleet Operations division offers maintenance and repair service to all 720 units in the McAllen fleet. U.S. Business Review spoke with Director Carlos A. Sanchez, P.E., and Recycling Manager Ouina Rutledge about how public works serves McAllen’s more than 126,000 residents. USBR: How is the public works department keeping up with McAllen’s growth?
Sanchez: Last week, Mayor Richard Cortez delivered his state of the city address and forecasted that in the next 35 years, the city will triple in size. From a public works standpoint, we need to expand our infrastructure and continue to give proper maintenance to our streets and drainage systems. We’re looking to coordinate with the engineering and development community to make sure that we’re well-positioned for the future. USBR: Does the city partner with other agencies or surrounding municipalities?
Sanchez: In parallel to a trend by other public works agencies through out the country, City of McAllen Public Works is taking an active role as a first responder, assisting in damage assessments and recovery efforts that result from catastrophic events. Recently we assisted in various brush fire suppression efforts through out our county and surrounding counties. The department works closely with the McAllen’s fire and police departments. We also have established a mutual-aid agreement with various Rio Grande Valley cities, which provides us the flexibility to assist each other in emergencies, such as floods and fires. Through these mutual aid agreements, participating cities may recover their cost in the event that a state or federal disaster declaration is declared. USBR: Can you detail recent projects?
Sanchez: We recently built two city-school parks and two more are under construction. The two completed parks, Jackson City/School Park and the McAuliffe City/School Park are 14 to 24 acres in size. These parks are regional stormwater detention facilities which provide protection against localize flooding in the event of a high-intensity storm. But, the majority of the time, when the fields are dry, they are used for school and city recreational facilities. USBR: Can you talk about the Keep McAllen Beautiful program?
Rutledge: Keep McAllen Beautiful is an extension of the Keep America Beautiful organization. That program is at the forefront of our community, reaching out to the schools and neighborhoods to educate about the importance of recycling, composting and keeping our town clean. We have a good relationship with our community and in the last year, the environmental education coordinator spoke to more than 39,000 people in outreach presentations.
We also launched a Save the Greens pilot program to collect vegetative waste from residents, grocery stores and restaurants. We take the waste to a composting facility and sell it back to organic growers in the area. We won a $50,000 grant from the EPA to expand the program, and we went from recycling 6,000 pounds of vegetable waste to more than 20,000 pounds of waste. Because of these efforts, we are being considered for the Texas Environmental Excellence Award, which will be presented to us in April. USBR: How is the public works department keeping up from a personnel and resources standpoint?
Sanchez: We have 244 employees right now, but we’re on a five-year plan to increase our personnel. Our HR department works closely with the Texas Workforce Commission, a state organization that hosts job fairs to recruit new talent. We also will be expanding our compost facility on the south side of the city. In the next 20 months, we will relocate to a new facility about 13 miles north. It’s about a $500,000 investment to move into the new facility. Currently, we’re operating out of a 40-acre facility. The new facility is about 300 acres; we’ll probably start out using about 60 acres, but we’ll have room to expand. |
