Background

While precipitation in the area is irregular and isolated, short but intense showers tend to occur during the summer months. The average annual rainfall in Nuevo Laredo is 22.6 inches; however, occasional heavy rainfall averages up to 49.9 inches, causing severe flooding.

The city’s storm drainage collectors were built in 1976 and extend through downtown Nuevo Laredo. Nevertheless, due to accelerated growth, system capacity has become inadequate, causing constant flooding problems for the city’s population.

Flash flooding causes significant property damage to homes, businesses, and municipal infrastructure. In addition, it poses a serious health and safety threat, ranging from injuries to respiratory infections and waterborne intestinal diseases, such as hepatitis and cholera. Moreover, when the streets flood large volumes of storm water enter the sanitary sewer system mixing with untreated sewage. To keep the treatment plant from being overloaded, this untreated mixture is diverted and discharged directly into the Rio Grande.

Description

The City has proposed a project to construct a new storm drainage system, consisting of six storm sewer collectors and a storm water channel. Storm water will flow by means of gravity directly into the Rio Grande or smaller streams that eventually flow into that river.

Benefits

The Project will prevent recurrent flooding, thus protecting human health and safety by reducing the possibility of waterborne infections such as hepatitis and cholera, as well as improving road safety during storms. It will also significantly reduce storm water flows into the existing sanitary sewer system and wastewater treatment plants, thereby increasing their efficiency and effectiveness.