City helping to advance efforts to repair Meadow Lake Dam

Seguin, TX, USA / Seguin Today
Darren Dunn

(Seguin) — Efforts to replace the Meadowlake Dam continue to move forward. The city of Seguin recently agreed to use some of the money that it had committed to the project to get some much needed worok done now.

Seguin City Manager Steve Parker says the city has pledged $5 million to help with the construction of the aging dam on the Guadalupe River in Seguin. The city’s funding represents only a third of the total costs, with the rest being funded by the Meadowlake Water Control Improvement District (WCID) or other sources.  Parker says the city wants to use a portion of its funding to get some plans completed for the project.

“If you recall in August of this last year, we developed a memorandum that would allow the city to contribute $5 million towards the Meadow Lake dam project. The estimated cost of that initial assessment was a little bit over $20 million (or) $20.8 million — of which the city could be on the hook for up to $5 million. The idea was that the Water Control Improvement District for Meadow Lake would be on the hook for the difference of that almost $15 million. Again, they’re also going after a grant that’s a little over $5 million. If those things hit, our goal was that the district will pay $10 million, the city would pay $5 million and then the grant would come in (with) $5 million. So, it’s like a two-third and one-third split between the (district and the city). The problem is that the WCID needs to issue all its debt in one fell swoop, once they know that the project is a go. But that is not (expected) until January 2025. So, we’ve been looking for (solutions and) thinking outside the box to try to come up with a way that we could start the engineering (work) now,” said Parker.

Parker says getting the design work done now is critically important to the future of this project. He says that’s why he recommended that the city pay for those initial costs, and then it could be reimbursed later if the costs far exceed the estimated price tag for repairs to the dam.

“So, what we decided to do in our debt issuance, that was approved a couple of weeks ago,  that we would put in the $1.3 million for engineering and design of the dam engineering. That would allow us to get good hard designs, and then allow us to bid that out to really determine if we are somewhere around that $20 million figure to build Meadow Lake dam repairs,” said Parker.

Parker says this will cost the city some money upfront, but he believes it’s a good investment for the city to make. That’s one of the reasons why the council initially agreed to contribute $5 million towards fixing the dam. He says by providing some of that money now, it allows things to continue to move forward and better prepares everyone for what will eventually become a large capital project for the Meadowlake WCID. Parker says this is not additional money from the cit8y. He says this is still part of the city’s original $5 million investment.

“If the project were not to make, then the Water Control Improvement District would start paying the debt service on this $1.36 million, or they eventually could issue debt to take us out and reimburse us. So, we’re not on the hook after this if the project does not make. If the project makes, that’s going to be part of our $5 million contribution. But it gets the project and design started now. So, we thought it was worth bringing it back to the council to entertain this agreement. We have worked out —  if more grants come in in the future – let’s say we get another $5 million, then the Water Control Improvement District and the city would share in the grants coming in – at a two-thirds, one-third split. So, if we got additional money in, then our potential cap of $5 million could potentially go down, but it will not go above the $5 million (commitment),” said Parker.

It was almost five years ago that a dam failed upstream on Lake Dunlap. That set off a series of reactions designed to figure out a way to work with the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority (GBRA) to preserve all of the hydroelectric lakes along the Guadalupe River. Since that time, water control improvement districts (WCID’s) were formed along lakes Dunlap, McQueeney, and Placid. Lake Dunlap has since been restored, and repair projects are currently underway on lakes McQueeney and Placid. Meadow Lake also has a WCID, and voters in the district have approved a tax rate that will help to pay some of the debt service for the future improvement project. The city’s $5 million is designed to help ease some of that burden, while also protecting an asset for the city.

View article on SeguinToday.com