Texas Business reports:  A California firm recently won a $6.3 million contract to build levee improvements along the U.S.-Mexico boundary.

The contract amount, $6,324,094.50, was awarded to Magnus Pacific Corp. of Roseville, California.

The firm must build levee improvements for 9 miles of levee segments in Presidio County.

The project is authorized under the Urban Levee Remediation of the Rio Grande and Cibolo Creek.

The project includes 1) preparation of right of way; 2) improving existing top of levee; 3) constructing 6-inch flex base along top of entire levee system, including maintenance ramps; 4) reconstructing levee embankment and maintenance access ramps: 5) constructing slurry trench and toe drain; 6) placing riprap protection; 7) replacing sluice gates assemblies inside the existing 17 gatewell structures; 8) cleaning and removing debris from opening of culverts, and inlet and outlet structures of the existing gatewells; and 9) removing and installing existing fence and fence gate. 

The contract was handled by the International Boundary and Water Commission office in El Paso.

The Rio Grande was established as the Texas boundary with Mexico in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848.  There has been flooding in Presidio in the past from the Rio Grande, even though it dwindles to almost nothing at Presidio. Presidio County, because of its unusual triangular shape and the shape of the Rio Grande, has more of its county line shared with Mexico than with the United States. The Presidio levees project is part of an infusion of $220 million by American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.  The funding is targeted to accelerate work on 170 miles of levees of the Rio Grande flood control system in Texas and New Mexico. The El Paso-based International Boundary and Water Commission has reported the work improve flood protection for more than two million U.S. residents.