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Consultants outline 19‑mile Middle Rio Grande levee assessment; initial report due end of May
Summary
Wilson & Company told the Los Ranchos board the first assessment of a 19‑mile levee will be delivered by the end of May, with an analysis due in mid‑June and draft findings in August; the planning phase excludes hydrology, geotechnical reassessment and environmental compliance and flags vegetation encroachment, erosion and seepage as concerns.
Wilson & Company engineers told the Village of Los Ranchos de Albuquerque board on Tuesday that an initial assessment of a 19‑mile stretch of the Middle Rio Grande levee is nearly complete and will be shared with the village by the end of May.
"We have started to review the condition of the levee," Luke Smith, the Wilson & Company project lead, said. He told trustees the effort covers the levee between the north and south diversion channels and includes field inspections, topographic review and a survey of maintenance and inspection records held by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District.
Smith said the project is scoped in three reports: an initial assessment (data collection and summary), an analysis and evaluation (mid‑June target) and a findings/design‑recommendation report (draft targeted mid‑August). The current scope explicitly excludes redoing hydrology/hydraulics, geotechnical reassessments, construction plans or environmental compliance work.
Trustees and staff pressed Wilson & Company on items that could influence design choices, including vegetation encroachment on slopes, localized erosion on the landside, signs of seepage and slope instability. "One of the major things with the existing levee is encroachment of woody vegetation along the side slopes," Smith said, noting such growth can harm levee integrity and is often addressed through maintenance.
The presentation included an example cross‑section to illustrate how a rebuilt footprint could differ from the existing embankment. Several trustees warned that widening or raising the levee footprint could affect the Bosque trail, cottonwoods and the riverside drain. "If you expand the footprint… it would cause a huge amount of change to the bosque trail, to vegetation," Trustee Ranovich said, urging the design team to account for existing site conditions.
Smith said major environmental and permitting decisions — including NEPA review and potential Army Corps involvement for funding or approvals — would shape final footprints and mitigation requirements. He said the team is relying on existing Corps hydraulics rather than producing new hydraulic models in this phase.
Staff and the consultant said they expect subsequent community engagement, public meetings and coordination with the Conservancy District, Bernalillo County and the U.S. Army Corps. The board did not take action; the presentation served as an update on schedule and early findings.
