College Station City Council approved a construction contract to replace failing stormwater infrastructure at four locations after staff described the work as maintenance, not a system redesign.
The council voted to allow the city to proceed with a $259,398.52 contract with Tara Bella Construction plus the city's contingency for a total appropriation of $285,338.37 for repairs to Frost Drive, Driftwood Drive, Huntington Drive and Southwood Forest. The contract was included and approved on the meeting's consent agenda.
The work is intended as remove-and-replace maintenance on deteriorated corrugated steel pipes, not an upsizing or hydraulic redesign, city staff said. Pete Kaylor, Assistant Director of Public Works, summarized the scope: "It's simple remove and replace projects across the city for our aging infrastructure that's failing." Council members and staff emphasized that replacing collapsed or partially collapsed pipes generally returns the system to original capacity and does not change watershed hydrology.
At public comment, neighborhood residents and council members raised the separate, ongoing Rosewood drainage dispute, where private obstructions and an informal easement have created localized flooding. Michelle Wenck, representing nearby homeowners, said residents had been told different things about whether the city owned easements on their properties. Staff responded that the four projects in the approved contract are on city-owned infrastructure; the Rosewood issue involves obstructions in an understood drainage easement and is being handled as a separate, larger problem. City staff noted there is a $740,000 budget item to address that longer, lower-Bee-Creek drainage corridor.
Council discussion also clarified that the city typically replaces pipes at the same diameter to avoid creating downstream impacts; any upsizing would require a drainage study and separate design.
The contract for the four sites proceeds as maintenance work; Rosewood and other private-obstruction issues remain separate and will be addressed through study, enforcement or larger capital work as appropriate.