MARK SORENSON
July 23, 2008
~ Location
Martha Doty Freeman, Interviewer
San Antonio River Authority Oral History Project, Phase II
This is Martha Doty Freeman. The date is July 23,.d, 2008. I am interviewing Mark Sorenf}j;
as part of the San Antonio River Authority's Oral Hist01y Project, Phase 11. The interview is
taking place at the River Authority's headquarters in San Antonio.
Well, my name is Mark Sorenson. I was born in Corpus Christi, I lived there about nine (;)
years, and then we moved to San Antonio, Texas. I've lived here all my life. I'm abo@
years old, I guess, so it's been a long time.
As far as how I got involved in engineering, my dad was an engineer~ I'm a twin brother, I EJ
have a twin, we're both in the engineering field. Graduated from Texas A&M 197811 guess it
was. Always was good, I guess
1
in the sciences and math and stuff like that. I was proud of
what my dad did and wanted to do the same thing, and that's how I guess I got involved.
What was your focus at A&M in engineering?
Civil engineering. Once I got out of school, I went to work for TxDOT for about a year. I
left there and went into the private sector with a firm here out of San Antonio, started a
family. I worked there probably - the private sector probably about five years with that firm,
and then I went to work with my dad, fte worked for a company and I took his place. He was
the chief engineer there, and I took his place when he was retiring.
What were the names of those firms?
The finn itsel f that I came from wa
went to a structural steel outfit called Genera
another five years, I guess. And then I went to work for a county agency; I was a county
engineer down in Frio County for about nine years, and then I left there and went to Kendall
County as the county engineer and stayed about six, and wound up here.
And really didn't know much about the River Authority. Typically river authorities aren't
well-known. But I walked in and - first of all, 1 saw it on the Internet and kind of looked up
the history, saw what they were into, kind of thought that would be nice to do. So I guess I
found out who was in charge of the department and I sent him an emai1' they'd been looking
for a while. Told him what I had been up to and what I thought I could do for them, and they
set up an interview and walked in and saw this beautiful building and where it was at and
thought, "Wow, it's a nice place."
So you know, the more 1 got into the River Authority, it just - more of a family-type
atmosphere. And I've always had a good time wherever I've worked, but this is really a
different atmosphere for me. It's kind of a marriage of the p1ivate and public sector, which I
think is a good fit.
Had you known any of the staff here before from having gone to A&M or worked for TxDOT?
2
Because I notice a lot of them go through that route.
I knew a couple of people here only because they had done some work for me in Kendall
County on the flood control - we had a couple floods come through, and Hector and - I
guess it was Hector and Claude and Steve Raabe had come up there and met with me and a
few other people. And I was in charge of that process, so I knew the group for maybe about
a year, I guess, and then kind of used them as a reference, too, with Jim Boenig, my - the
manager here at the engineering department. So other than that, no, I really didn' t know
anybody.
I knew Greg Rothe kind of through a family - I knew the Rothes just because they're well­known
in Medina County and I was county engineer in Frio County, and so it was just one of
those things you knew about. My wife grew up in D'Hanis, Texas, and the Rothes lived in
D'Hanis, so they knew each other very well.
So what year did you come here?
I came in 2003, I guess it was, August or September of2003.
Now, did you have any particular interest in water issues before this -
No.
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- or experience with them?
Not really. I liked the river projec~that they were fixing to extend the River Walk and the
Mission Reach and the restoration and all that kind of stuff, and that sounded really
interesting to me. A long-term project like especially the River Walk and even the Mission
Reach, but the River Walk in particular is historical, so the thought ofbeing involved in a
project like that just really kind of blew me away. And I knew that's what they were looking
for, somebody to be in charge ofthe Museum Reach, so I thought that was something I'd
really, really want to be involved in. So I sold myself and got it.
So you were hired to deal with the -
Museum Reach.
- River Improvements Project.
Particularly the Museum Reach at that point. They weren't looking for - at that point, Jim
was in charge ofthe entire River Improvement Project, which included Eagleland and the
whole shebang. And there was a transition. Rothe, when he came on board, made some 0
direction changes and created a couple of new departments, and the original person, which
was Steve Graham, that started this project, the whole River Improvement Project, had
another person - he was getting out of that portion of it and was going into water resources, I
guess, or some other portion. But anyway, he had somebody else in charge of that, ofthe
4
Museum Reach, and decided- that person decided he'd like to go to work for Steve Graham
under his new position. So that Museum Reach needed a leader, and that's where I came on
board and took it over.
Now, how did you - I assume you had to play a certain amount of catch-up in terms of
coming current on where the project was and where it was going.
,,.....
History of it, yeah. I kind of came at' an opportune time. It was kind of a - it finished up in
the preliminary design for the most part in June of 2003, and then there was kind of little
things that went on before you got into final designfso it gave me a little bit of time to read
~hrough the history, work wi~hich was the one doing it before. And I guess
between the September and December time frame that - and the consultants, it worked out
real well. They had done such a good job getting it where it was, it wasn' t hard to catch up.
But I had to catch up with the design guidelines and read through those, and basically the
~a~ first month I was here I was just looking through documents. Most of it was really cool, the
A
historical portion of it, how they - you know, SW A did some concept drawings, and then, of
course, Ford, Powell & Carson did the preliminary design and then working through their
documents and their spreadsheets and everything, it really - it wasn't too big a leap; it was
pretty easy. They made it easy for me.
? ll {J.)~
Describe f or me what the thrust of the design wa.§. "8f how tkd you describe it, the underlying
aesthetics of it or the plan behind it?
5
Well, as far as the Museum Reach was, the whole idea was to carry on the Hugman design_ l Q
mean, that was the word they used throughout the project, "Make it Hugman-like." And
some of the - I don't know if I'm saying this right.-jome of the work that had gone on in the
past maybe swayed a little bit from that, and they wanted P-. the whole thing about Hugman
was it just varies throughout. You walk down through the river loop, and it 's just -
everything's different. You walk from one place to the next, it's always different; that's
what really Hugman's all about, different things, little cham1ing things. And some of the
past - as I understand it, some of the past renovations or some of the work on the River Walk
;:~
in the main channel, not the loop itself, the main channel, had been just repetitive. it wasn't -
nothing was different. So the idea was to ...
Yeah, okay, that's the word 1 guess I was looking for. So the idea was to do something more
like what Hugman would have done. But it still needed to be a River Walk, and it still
needed to be the flood-control aspects~ ~look like a flood-control channel like the
main channel does in some places where the high walls, and you walk through, and you go -
~
the 15-foot wall abatement)dea was to not do that again, as best you could. So then again,
the preliminary design was done, so I'm working toward the preliminary to a final, and most
of the hard decisions had been made through the public process.
That's one thing that was a little bit difficult to get used to, I guess, coming from the
6
background I did, county engineer, you pretty much - you were it, especially in the small
counties. ~ 't a lot of decisions to be made; you just went out and got things done.
In the public process here, SARA goes overboard to get public input on everything, I mean,
it's just really a neat process once you get used to it. It really makes you feel like you're
doing what somebody else - or a combination of a lot of people, what they really want to see
the project be about. So I guess I was really impressed about how people can take the
amount of time and money it takes to get that done, because that's not cheap, it's time-consuming,
and everybody's got a different idea of how they would like it to look.
But the idea is to facilitate, and that's one thing SARA's good at is facilitating. I think that's
our strong point. I think tha! the public, pty, /ounty, whoever, look to us as kind of a
centerpoint, whether \"~e to admit it or not, to bring people together and take
everybody's ideas and the challenges they have, especially with the dollars that are available
and making all this stuff work. SARA's good at that, they're really good at that, and they've
hired people that are good at that.
Even though the design was prelty well developed by !he time you came on, were you
involved in any of that kind of interaction?
Yeah. Because it didn't stop. Even after preliminary design was officially completed in
2003, June of2003, final design didn't really start until I think the latter part of2004, so it
was a year lag there. There were some dollar issues and not wanting to go out in front of the
7
Mission Reach, the notth and south work together so it didn't look like the north was getting
everything again. That was a big political fight, you know, about making sure that it was fair.
The whole idea was to start them all at the same time; that never works, but that was the idea.
So we had a little bit of, at the 6unty and ei'ty's request, standby time so the Mission Reach
could get caught up and get through the process. So there were still some things that were -
I'm trying to think of some of the things in the decision process that went on between the
ending of the preliminary design and the beginning of the final, but- a lot of value
engmeenng.
Typically, this budget was set back in, I guess~8 and 1999, the budget for the thing, and
1\
of course we're in 2004 and we're trying to make 1998 dollars work, and it was already slim
pickings in 1998, so it was very difficult. And the ¢ty had taken a pretty hard stance as well
as the lounty, "This is what you've got, make it work."
So give me some examples of where the value engineering came in.
Well, if you can imagine, and I'm sure you know what the River Walk's all about, but it's
about beauty and it's about longevity, it's about doing something that's structurally sound
and make it look aesthetically pleasing. And from an engineering standpoint, that's not
always easy, not cheap anyway. It's easy, I guess, but it's not cheap. So once we came up
with a design and prices again, we were millions over it, way over, considerably. So that
people that were put in charge of the ¢ity and ¢'ounty, T 6rf is over (inaudible),
8
Qis over (inaudible) county, were sticking hard to this dollar amount. So they said,
"You need to value engineer."
So they were talking about instead of these beautiful retaining walls and bulkheads we have
that are rock-lined and concrete and all that stuff going into sheet piling. Sheet piling is
typically - ifyou know what that is, it's a piece of sheet metal, corrugated sheet metal that's
().. v~~£
dri ven down to make it tJart ~+a wall, so it looks like what it is, a piece of steel driven into -
and they were going to talk about lining it or putting a veneer that hung over it that looked
like rock, but longevity - and eventually, you know, it just doesn' t - it's not the same, not to
me anyway.
And here I was involved in this project that was going to last 100 years, and we' re talking
about making it a drainage proj ect. And it just - we never got past that with those guys, it
was always a drainage project to them. But in all fairness, they were told, "Hey, this is what
you got, you go out and make it work," and they were doing what they were told to do.
Now, who are "they" that -
8 was the director - he's no longer there, director of Public Works.~
was the director of something infrastructure - infrastructure services, I guess, for the county.
So their job was really to hold the line and to he fiscally responsible.
9
Did a good jo~ ~rantee you. We had many heated meetings over those issues. Once it
got down to it - and the ROC was kind of the facilitator between these kind of issues, you
know, they wanted a beautiful design, and they would hear our issues and their issues, and
they would go politically and make whatever they needed to do, talk to whoever they needed
to talk to. At this point, even though the public leaders like to say they were involved,
-i'hey're really not; it's a very high-level involvement, you know, from a dollar standpoint.
They don't really - and once they start listening to what's really going on, I think they
realized that's not a good thing. We need to make sure that this thing's going to be not only
pretty in the beginning but pretty 100 years from now and not be falling apart and cost us
money because we were short-sighted. That's my opinion anyway. That's where I get in
trouble.
~
So we had high-level meetings. We have a committee called C-6, which is two /-ity high­.\
level people, the mayor and a city council person; two county official~ which is usually a
county judge and the county commissioner; and then the River Authority, which is a board
member and typically the chairman of the board here. And then they added a couple of
people, still called the C-6, but the River Oversight Committee, which was the two co-chairs,
Lila and Irby, Lila Cockrell and lrby Hightower, which are unbelievable people. How they
could dedicate that much time and effort into this thing is beyond me, I couldn't do it. And
they're the ones that really got this project through, truth be known.
I wo11der what their roles were in terms of helping to move it beyond -
10
Lila, she worked her political magic. She's still got a lot going on. She's a cheerleader, and
this is her baby.,~e really wanted to see it happen. So she used her - I'm sure her mayoral
connections that she's had and continues to have, past and future mayors. I know she would
look Phil right in the face across the table when he first got in, and it was hard for him to look
at her.
(Laughing.)
"What are you doing to my project?" She was serious. She can be a real grandmother, but
she can be a - she can look you right in the face and get to you, too, 'i6utJ you in your place
real quick.
Like your mom.
Exactly. With even more authority. And him being brand-new, I mean, I think he was
intimidated.
But I think what really made this project work was her, Lila, getting involved - I mean her
and Irby getting involved. lrby from a ·- he's an architect by trade, and he is somebody that
can talk to anybody and bring them across not necessarily to his side, but to see the reality of
things. And he's very good at that, just amazes me. People can be pissed off in the room,
and he can take up and his smile comes across, he's tall and slender, and all of a sudden
everybody's buddies, just that way. Good guy. And he knew the mayor and different people,
11
but between the two -
Mayor Hardberger had some strange ideas about this project, but he believes in getting things
{.) done, I mean, that 's what he did when he was a judge. He's used to doing this and it
happened. And that's kind of the way he approached this project.
So is the bottom line that the /uy a!Utjounty eventually came up with more money?
The county didn't, the county stayed firm, 13.1 million bucks is all they put in to this project.
City came up with a whole bunch more money, just a huge amount. Now, part of that was
because the River Authority, we can' t fund capital improvement projects, that's against the
law. But we can fund maintenance, so Rothe in his wisdom, good guy, he's a facilitator too,
proposed that we maintain this added burden to the city for a period of years to the tune of
about a million and a half per year.
What does that mean, maintaining?
Maintain - take over this new improved poriion. Water the plants, clean the sidewalks, run
the lock and dam, that kind of thing.
So they could take that cost -
So they could leverage - they could leverage that 1.5 million per year and make up this $20
12
million deficit. So once he convinced them of doing tha~it didn 't take long convincing, he's
pretty goo~~he _¢ity decided to leverage it and put another $20 million into the project, so
they went from - oh, goodness, let's see. I guess they went from about - 1 may have my
numbers wrong here, but they went from about a $20 million project to $52 million project,
maybe ['m off by a little bit. But a huge increase, huge increase, and made the project work.
But it was conditional. This project was originally a four-year project to build, that's the way
we saw it anyway. We realized we had a little fluff in there, we also knew what the river
does when it rains, so we had some fluff time in there. We agreed -
So this drought has been good for something.
Yes, it has. I wish we were further along, but yeah, it has. We' re on schedule, but I still
wish we were out in front, because it's going to rain one day, maybe today.
So they came up with the additional money, and what was the next step?
· ¥
Oh, I wa~~about the year's time.
"
The mayor put a commission on it. He said in the
middle of a meeting, nobody knew it, we'd agreed to three years, cut it from four to three.
And then I went to a meeting at C-6, he goes, "Now, I'm going to find this money for you
guys, but I want this thing done in two years." And we all just kind of swallowed, and said,
''Okay." And we all agreed, and everybody's looking at everybody, "How are we going to
get this done?" And we agreed to it, and that was it, it was done. Then we bid it out, and the
project was another 20 million - no, excuse me. Anyway, it was over budget, we came up
13
with that additional 20 million, the 1.5 to leverage it and make it work.
And could not have got a better contractor. I mean, l really had some doubts at first just
/."' .
because they were so far over .. lhey were the only btdder, by the way. We had sent out -
Who was it?
.Jv'
Zachry. We sent out).e"sets of plans, 400 bucks a set, and somebody had to be serious to
come get a set of plans. And then one person turned a bid in; that just blew me away.
Anyway, negotiations started -
And you didn't have time to go back out and rebid it?
No way, they weren't going to do that, that wasn't going to happen, at least - Tor~:vCr)
\..___.
was adamant that that happen. He said, "This is foolish. This had to happen." The mayor,
under the gavel, get-it-done type thing, it's going to happen. So they found a way. We all
would meet together but and David Zachry would meet in our meetings and
they'd work their little deals and get them going and got it down to a price we could live with.
That's what I was going to ask, was Zachry -
Didn't cut any money, didn't really cut any money out of it. We had a base project - this is
where I'm going to get into real trouble.
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(Laugh in g.)
We had a base project that just built - throughout this whole process, we had a lot of
different scenarios to build. Some just built the waterway. leu didn't have any way to get to
it or anything, but that was all the money we had and that's what it built. Anyway, bottom
line is we had a base project with just strictly built bulkheads and that's it and water and dam,
lock and dam. That was like 50 million bucks, 49 million bucks. Then if you wanted to have
an add alternate in there for sidewalks, lighting, I mean, all the stuff that makes it a River
Walk -
Amenities.
- retaining walls, that kind of stuff, I wouldn't even call those amenities, but that's what we
called them, amenities. And then you had a second option, additional option for landscaping
and irrigation, which obviously you've got to have if you're going to have a project. So
awarded the base bid at 49.8, and they told us to go out and get new prices for this. Well, I
just imagined having three contractors in this project at once. It was already going to be a
nightmare in two years, but you get three contractors in this thing, it was going to be
impossible, no way.
Now, explain to me again, why you had to have three contractors?
15
Well, if we went out to bid again on the - if they told us we had to go out and bid it again on
the options, we potentially could get an additional two contractors on this project. So I
convinced or somebody convinced the fty that it was in everybody's best interest to award
as best we could, try to get them to come down on the price, but award these alternates to
them, which we did. They did come down by about $830,000 on about another $10 million
add, I guess, something like that, I forget.
But best thing we ever did, I mean it really is. They have been unbelievable, just the perfect
people to work with. No problems, can-do kind of people.
Tell me from a11 engineer's point of view what that is in terms of-
Well, throughout the project, there's never a perfect project, and a contractor can really get to
'th th l't I dd . h Y kn "W 1 you WI ese 1 t e a s m t ere. ou ow, e( 1~ 0"rg(o~t t hI' S so we ' re go.m g to c h arge you
~
this," and that's when they make their money. Typically a contractor if he's going to bid a
project, he sees holes in it, he doesn't bring it up, keeps it in the back of his head, and that's
where he knows he can underbid everybody and can make his money back later on. And
that's what I thought they'd done, personally, but I've totally changed my mind. I think this
is what they really believe it's going to take to build the project and in retrospect it probably
is. Because of what it is, it is a river project, it is something that's susceptible to small
downpours that fills up the river.
I mean, we've got the river completely bypassed. The river doesn 't go down the channel
16
anymore. We take it down into the tunnel, down through - out the other side and we pull it
back out;1:here was a maintenance shaft out at Brooklyn~ we pull it back out and put it back
,(
into the river so the downtown loop is good. But the local drainage still comes through street
drains to the river, and it'll fill that thing up in a heartbeat, just in a matter ofminutes it fills it
up. So you've got to pump all that out, there's no way to get it out. And they know that. My
point is it's not an easy challenge. So from an engineering sense and aspect, I guess, they
can pick and pull this thing apart to make their money, or they can say - they can have a can-do
kind of attitude and just get it done pretty much.
There have been quite a few adds on this project because it's not a perfect project, but for the
most part - to give you an example, if you didn't count the two big adds, the two alternates,
there was a $4 million contingency built into this thing, and we've spent maybe half a million
bucks and we're halfway through the project.
That's all. How?
I'm talking about now stuff that really was an add, not the two big adds and not something
we decided we wanted later on because - for instance, we were going to put conduit in the
river so we could add fiber in future years. Well, that wasn't really part of the project, so I
don't count that. So the real project add is a little less than half a million bucks, which is
nothing, it's nothing compared to - we' re not through yet, but that's just the kind of can-do
attitude they've got. It's all really due to, I think, Zachry's personnel and the guy they've got
in charge, which is Joht_0.ls~) He's an engineer, but he's been there, like~something
17
years, and he's done everything, knows it all, I mean, just unbelievable. So he doesn' t let
little things bug him, he doesn't get upset, he just gets it done.
When I was down here, I guess I was reading in the newspaper about the unexpected
encounter with the dam~
Oh, yeah, it's cool.
Tell me about that.
Well, when we - they were going to build this river in phases, so when we dried up the river
in November of2006, we did, there's still pools of water, and there was still a little bit of
drain over the Hugman Dam, always, I mean, never stopped, just a little trickle all the time.
And we knew there was going to be seepage, you've got your aquifers right there. So when
they built the first phase, it was, I don't know, maybe three or four blocks up and you still
have your pools upstream.
When they finally got up to that one place where this fairly large pool was behind the VFW,
my chief inspector called and he says, "Mark, we've got something in the river down here
that must be a huge rock because it's hard and they can't get through it, and we need to drain
this river. So we're going to chisel through it here a little bit and see if we can't get it to
drain." They did.
18
And as they drained it, they reali zed that something was organized, and of course it's
completely - if you can imagine, (drawing diagram) this river now is like this. \Ckn, we're
going to make it like this. Well, this dam - actually it's probably more out here like this.
This dam is like this, and they cut some of it out, and it goes back over - see, it's gone, you
~
don't know it's there until you start excavating the river like you want, you just uncover
" more and more and more, so it just wasn't there .
.. s,~
In fact, if you look at historical stuff, 1878 or 1870s, it appeared brand-new; 1904 it was gone,
just off the map, you didn't see it. @ou see something that looks on a map like this, but
when you come down you see a line here, a line here, and it says "old dam," and then after
that you never see it on a map again. So it was completely gone off the radar, which is cool I
)
think. I don't know if you've been down there to see it, but it's really something. Somebody
spent a whole bunch ofmoney back in 1878 to build this thing. Huge blocks of limestone
perfectly fitted together, I mean, just beautiful. It's going to be really cool. We're going to
incorporate it into the project.
So how are you going to incorporate if;. wlzat are you going to do?
Well, this lock - what we call a bulkhead here is like this, and this right now is at about - the
water elevation is about four inches above the existing dam. This thing gets down like this
naturally because it was cut out to extend the river a long time ago. This is right about mud
~-H-.-
level. This is about - the whole (inaudible) channel is maybe J,dfee4i sticks out here from
this bulkhead maybe abot~t, so it's a large area here that you can go and the boats
19
would never hit it anyway, so it doesn't matter.
So what we're going to do - the original plan was to leave it alone, don't do anything, leave
it at the ~he water. That's a waste, no one would even know it's there, it's going to
be a hazard, you're going to have to mark it somehow so the barges don't hit it. So let's raise
this up, let's ad@inches to it, make it look natural, so it comes out of the water and then
tell the story over here - they oe~nned to tell the story, but you couldn't have seen
what you were talking about.
So FPC - Boone Powell is amazing, has designed some of the stuff around it, and now he's
going to -· John Mize, Boone Powell, a lot of different - there was a lot of different people,
but Boone's always been - he's been the guy. And they're going to put lights in the channel
here so it lights up at night from both sides. He's got a sidewalk that comes by over here;
you walk by and it tells the story, kind of goes out over the dam, and you look down, you can
supposedly see into the water and see this dam below the water, it's going to be below the
water over here. And then you'll see this jutting out on the west bank going upstream, and
there' ll be a sidewalk here, too, that has a little thing that kind of goes out over it and a place
where it tells the story and look out and talk about this dam that was a raceway dam that
backed water off - you know the story.
For a mill.
A mill that went in front of the VFW all the way down to 81
h Street, which is kind of hard for
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me to tell you, but it's three or four blocks away. And the river itself - I wish I had brought
that map, that's cool too. The river itself comes - let's just say it goes like this right now.
Well, it used to go- back in the old days, it used to go like this (drawing).
Lots of meanders.
So here's the dam - yeah - and it backed water into a raceway that let's just say was like this;-- -- here's 81
h Street, this dam went down here and dumped - this raceway went down here and
dumped back into 8111 Street. Well, now this is a block away from where it really is. We
always had a little place in here that just poured water out, we couldn't stop the dang water,
and still today it still pours water out. We just stuck a big pipe in the bulkhead because i+­~
;:,&. »--h.t l
w~nld have fille8-up behind the bulkhead.
(End of Tape 1, Side 1. Beginning of Tape 1, Side 2.)
Anyway, this - and once we found this thing, it all made sense. This is the old river, it's just
coming right out here, it's ~d gravel. It's all been filled in, it's just a conduit to the river.
So is there some way to interpret that also or is this now private property in here?
It's all private property, and I'm sure these guys are scared to death they were going find it,
to tell you the truth, these developers. I mean, that's the worst enemy for a developer to find
something that's historic because you've got to leave it alone or - you've got to do
21
something. Whalever it is, it's going to be expensive.
So that was kind of our thought too here, you know. We were kind of afraid# lJe found this
:sn--•""'' c:,.....
and thought that's all there was, and we started doing-stmilttr excavation over here, and we
found something else, "Oh, crap, we got some more stuff." And John said, "Mark, we need
to quit digging. We're going to keep finding more, and once we find it, we're going to be in
trouble." It was kind of a long - kind of a funny story.
So did you have to coordinate with thejtate on all this?
We did, but they were great. Basically if you leave it alone, for the most part, they don't care.
You can bury it, do whatever you want, just don't touch it. You got to document it. They've
got different levels of documentation, HAB 1, which stands for something, and HAB2 and
HAB3; we had to do a HAB3 which is the highest level. And it's a drawing and a survey and
photographs and all these kind of things that go on. And then you can cover up, do whatever
you want, just don't disturb it.
Well, they've always bought into the idea that it doesn't do any good if we really want to - if
it doesn't hurt it hydraulically, which is a big deal, they have never - they didn't want it to
look like the original dam if you're going to add on to it. They want it to be an obvious add
on. So once Boone got that into his head, we decided to do this and add on to it, which was
kind of a push; he didn't want to do anything, which I just thought wasn't a good idea. But
anyway, his final design is just unbelievable, really good, it's going to be cool. I sure do get
22
wound up, don't I?
(Laughing.) So had you intended to - were there plans for a lock there anyway?
No, no, this was way upstream of the locks. This is probably - if you had to put it - you
know where Jones is, Museum of Art.
Yes.
It's almost at Jones, if you've been down there. It's almost up there, the VFW Hall. The
lock is all the way down at AT&T, if you know where that's at, Brooklyn Avenue, so it's
several blocks away, the locks are. So no, it did not. It did affect the hydraulics slightly.
The 100-year flood plan is what we're really concerned about. We don't want to make it any
worse. Part of this project was1ifwe could - before this project, the floodplain spread out all
over downtown. Even though the tunnel itself is in place, it never was modeled and so it still
showed, and people had to adhere to this floodplain that was huge, it took in everything.
And once they modeled it during this project, they modeled it again_ We didn't, somebody
~ else did, our group did here, and it reduced it considerably, but it still \¥enttrri"'t take it back
within the channel itself, but our project takes it back basically within the channel, which is
great. It really makes it good for developers.
23
One of the aspects of that was typically you can't claim that until you've done what you call
a LOMAR, letter of map revision, after a project's built. So the developer is going to be two
years behind the curve if they waited, if they didn't want to have to build to floodplain
standards, which means you elevate everything or you flood-proof it or do something.
We talked to a few people at the City and got them to agree for the most part, with a few little
hiccups here and there, that the project was going to get built; it was in construction and
developers ought to be able to build to this - we sent in a CLOMAR, conditional letter of
map revision, which is before the project, showing what it's going to be like. And at the end
of the project you're supposed to do a LOMAR of what you really built.
We sent in the CLOMAR, showed them what was going to happen. They kind ofhalfway
agreed that developers should be able to develop to what we're building. Even though it's
not real, it is going to happen; we know it's going to happen. The money's there,
everything's done. Which was a big deal to a developer, huge deal, and it allows them
basically to build up to the property line, for the most part, with some exceptions.
So - I forget where I was going with this.
Well, is a LOMAR a state requirement?
It's a local requirement with FEMA, which typically - is always administered locally, you
know, the ¢ounty and the /,ity, (inaudible) jurisdiction, the FEMA administrator with the
24
city and the FEMA administrator with the }6ounty; what FEMA does in the pt)jFEMA does
in the county. So I guess where the federal government comes in, if you don't enforce your
floodplain rules, there are some base rules you have to deal with in order for - if you got
flooded out, you' re going to get federal help, but if you don't deal with those rules, they
can - they have to help yo~ but they don't have to extend your guaranteed insurance. They
can sa:>;"You no longer qualify because you haven't been dealing with the rules." But
locally they're supposed to make things happen, make the CLOMAR's happen, make the
LOMAR's happen, make people build up above so you don't.t[e't impacted by floods;that's
supposed to happen locally.
So how does this tie in with th e - or does it tie in with the big map revision project that I keep
hearing about?
It is not tied in yet, but will. What they did wa~it's called an LMMP, Limited something
fi.ranscriber's note: Limited Map Maintenance Progra~, that took existing conditions as
they are today with the tunnel and development and all this other kind of stuff and says what
it is today. Then they're actually going to do a FIRM, which is a Flood Insurance Rate Map,
which puts it all together. And that's what we're in the process of doing right now. The
LMMP is in place, the FIRM is out for public review. That doesn't take into account our
project, though, because it's not built yet. They can' t do that, legally FEMA can't accept that.
Once our project is done, we'll do this LOMAR, which we' II just do a small portion of a map
revision, issue that as either a complete sheet or an addition to the sheet that exists today that
shows the existing conditions. That's how it will tie in eventually.
25
I see. Now, what is it about the engineering of this project that reduces the floodplain back
to the river channel? That just is amazing to me.
Well, it wasn't that far out with the tunnel. The tunnel pretty well did most of it. It wasn' t
our project.
I mean, I think about all the new development that's going to occur as a result of the project,
and you'd think that would increase the flooding -
For the most part, downtown is pretty well developed. I mean, all the hard surfaces are in
place. You don't really do a lot by doing - at least not today, there's not a lot of undeveloped
land, it's all runoff anyway, so it's not a lot that we're doing. So let's just say you've got
your river channel here like this, I'm looking at it from the top (referring to map), and the
section of it that existed when they did the LMMP looked like this. We're going to take that
section and make it like this, which creates more room. That's how we're reducing the
(inaudible). So let's just say that the floodplain is just on the fringes, we're going to reduce it
by - and it was that deep, so it wasn't much, we're just taking it to where they can now
develop this extr{j feet in here and putting it back in the channel, for the most part. It isn't
all like that;1here's still some old meanders that the river gets out in. Next to the Museum of
Art there's an old meander there and a couple other places. I think maybe up near~
an old meander went through. But for the most part, it's a good thing.
26
Now, this configuration with this squaring off of the bottom of the channel, that 's similar to
what's going on in the Mission Reach, isn't it? Aren't they digging out a lot?
Yeah, they are, but for the most part, you're getting the same section back. It's typically the
same shape anyway, Vou're either making it wider and deeper so you can get more water to
the trees; or it's fine the way it is, you just don't have any trees. So the idea is to put trees
back in, but when you put obstructions, you've got to make more room.
So what they're doing here is -let's say you've got a section like this (referring to map).
Right now they've got something that looks like this (drawing), and then it takes kind of a
point here like this and goes to a flat bottom, comes up and then goes out flat again and then
like that, that's how it is. The new section may look like- it may get a little wider since it
goes way out here, comes out, and then goes down and gets deeper across here, it just creates
more room is all they're really doing. But in the meantime, they're putting all kinds of good
stuff in.
What about the lock system that I keep hearing about? What's ...
Well, we didn't have to have a lock system.ffll work fine without it. But what it meant
was - the locks raise the boats about nine feet, it's a good distance. So if we didn't raise the
boats nine feet, that meant we were going to have to deepen the channel by nine feet time
you got up to io Perla t float the barges. So you've already got real steep sides compared
to the River a , you're already - you can't develop - when you look at this section here,
27
(drawing) here's the top of the bank, and you kind of go like this and put a retaining wall in.
And we put a sidewalk here, arid then we put a bulkhead here, and then we got the river,
looks, you know, something like that. Well, there'll be no development down here. There
won't be like in the River Walk where you've got tables down here on the sidewalks. All the
development will be up here on the top ofthe bank; there won' t be anything in the channel at
all.
What was your question again? I'm sorry.
About the locks.
Yes. Okay. Well, the idea was not to have this - as you're floating down the - we could
have gone without, but if you did, you would have had these big tall walls when you get
~
down to the - you'd be in this canyon. ~"ft· s bad enough, but we didn't want to make it
./1\
worse. Plus pretty cool, you know. We call them "Lila's Locks" is what we call them.
(Laughing.)
Because she really wanted them. A lot of study went into it. Everybody says, "Well, you
could have done it cheaper a different way." We looked at - "we," way before my time.
Preliminary design looked at about five different scenarios: one was a single locts; one was a
,(..,.,_
double lockj one was not anything, just put something ther~a~e (inandib\e} it up and go
around, get off and get back on a boa5 one was an elevator system where you just ran the
28
barge over the top ofthe dam, it was a thing that pulled it up. None of them were as cheap as
what we' re doing money for money. I think the only thing that was cheaper was a single
~
lock system, but for the additional money, you could run two locks}rtit just - it was like 3 or
$400,000 more, it would make no sense not to do it, and still maintain the flood- remember
you've got - the main thing this whole channel is to pass floodwaters. Ifthat don't get
accomplished, we don't need any of this.
The locks are completely gravity fed, there's no pumps to run the water. You've just got -
I'm going to run out of paper here. You've got - the top view is what I' ll show here.
You've got this channel (drawing), and then you've got the locks here, and then this is a big
old weir gate here, a gate that folds over to let the floodwaters pas~ it 's all going this way.
This is a lock coming in. There's a gallery here that just has a big old slide gate, it's just a
flat sheet that you pull up and down to let water in. It comes in this gallery here, and then
~
there's some little holes - well, big holes that come up under the locks, you've got a lock,
i\
and they float in here, and it raises it up. And when you want to let the water out, you open
this gate down here and it goes out this direction, and you open -once it equalizes, you open
these gates and go on out.
And this is all based on this big pool of water up here, huge pool of water that's letting this
water in so we don' t - we can operate on very little flow, much less flow than what it takes to
make the river operate. The fity require@cfs to make the tiver operate downtown, to
make it pretty and the fish alive and all that kind of stuff that makes the tourists like it. This
thing will operate with abou(i}cfs, so before we ever get into a flow situation, they kick on
29
the pumps at the inlet and do this recirc thing, i r you know what that is. They have the ability
to put this thing in recirc mode and just constant put it in a loop. They can do that to a much
higher flow than@fs.
But my point is the simplicity of this thing, I guess, is really what I'm getting at. You open a
gate, let it run in, there 's very little water as far as volume goes here. To reduce this big pool
upstream, it takes a lot of cycling to reduce it by one foot, that's -{]Jcfs. At the typical load,
@fs, you can lock all day long and never affect this up here.
So we modeled this thing, a real model, built a model. We - my consultants did, went up to
Minnesota and watched it. And the idea was the people were worried about - especially
Rothe were won·ied about people sitting in the slot for any given amount of time; he thought
it was going to take too long and had a hard time convincing him that it's not. It's going to
be five minutes, which can seem like a long time when you're in a confined space, probably.
But if you go any faster than five minutes, it makes this thing rock and roll and you feel
uncomfortable. So the fastest we could get it to rise in this chamber was about a five-minute
fill rate to nine feet. So I would guess that you could spend a couple minutes out here staging
and a couple minutes on the downstream side and five minutes in the lock, so maybe ten
minutes total getting through this thing.
So who came up with the design for it?
Our design consultants, I'm not sure - I guess it was really probably - a conceptual design
30
was done during the SW A, and it showed this lock system. And then, of course, HDR, which
is part of the team of FPC, did all the analysis with the hydraulics and the cost analysis
between the different types of locks and all that kind of stuff. HDR is the one that physically
designed the system and made it work. As far as the idea, l don't know. Wouldn't put it past
Lila to have. (Laughing.)
(Laughing.) Now, how is the decision made not to allow development on that lower level?
Well, there's just no room for it, it's just sidewalks. It's so steep, you just don't have any -
through the loop, that stuffs all down at river level, everything is. There's just not room.
You'd have to do a lot of excavation to get them down to the river level and then put it down
to the sidewalk.
One thing this project tried to do was not acquire any right-of-way. We had an existing right-q.-/
of-way we had to live within with very few exceptions, maybe .ati access. And we asked for
donations, but I mean, this was nothing,~ size of this room was the donation for an access
point. It was just - in the overall scheme of things, it wasn't anything. All developers
without exception saw the advantage. I mean, they didn't have to ask twice. "Sure, you've
got what you need." As long as it wasn't half their property, an access point to their property
was great.
... J~ -
So you've got an eight-foot .wide sidewalk, there's just not anyplace to put a table, just no
A. t\
room.
31
Who are some of the developers who've been active in this?
Well, really, just a very few that own most of the property. Ed Cross owns a good chunk. Of
course Rio Perla basically bought up J with a few exceptions}ought everything north of 35
on both sides of the river with the exception of the motels, a couple of old motels up there
... - .. ' / . ,,.. ' \
they haven't got( Lifschud, Q:.~~g~ ?~is, that's most of the big ones. Now, of course,
you've still got public - SAMA owns a huge amount ofpropet1y, probably the biggest
landowner, well, with the exception of Rio Perla now, I guess. But for the most part, they 've
got the most river frontage, huge. CPS, forgot about them, they've got a great big chunk.
Interesting. So what do you see happening in that stretch in terms of development? What
are you projecting might happen?
What I'm told is going to happen, what they are all shooting foy is multiuse-type stuff, mostly
condos and residential space but intermixed in with restaurants, a few restaurants and hotels
and retail. But what I hear them saying the most is living quarters. Forgot about the Housing
Authority has a big chunk of property down there that they intend to put housing on.
Really?
Uh-huh.
32
f1lteresting. Did you - have you personally had much interaction with some of the partners
and all in this like the )'fuseum or ...
Yeah. We try to get- we've given - like I said in the beginning, I guess, we really spent a
lot of time on getting everybody involved, a lot of the public process. It involves many ofthe
stakeholders, make sure that we're not doing anything that's going to diminish the way they
might want to develop their property, you know, access points, if nothing else making
expansion joints in the walls so that they can come out easy when they do decide to develop.
But we've met with - gosh, on my time alone which is not near as much as some in the early
days, I've met with Museum of Art many times, their board and everybody else, explaining
what we're doing and asking for property. They gave a huge chunk of property because it
was all in the river, I mean, they basically went into the river with their property. If you've
been to the Museum of Art, they have a chain link fence up top, and it goes all the way down
to the bottom, and it wasn't maintained. We convinced them to give it to us and we'd restore
the old SAMA Island in there, looks beautiful.
What is that?
It's an old - that river, looking at maps, used to be really wide, maybe l 00, 150, 200 fooC
wide in that area because they had these gravel bars that often made islands. We didn' t
exactly restore the island, but we made something that looks - that puts water down there
anyway in a space that you can' t even get to, but you can see it from an overlook and from
33
the Museum of Art. What we're calling it is the restored SAMA Island. It's pretty, real
pretty.
So what else have you done in terms of coordinating with them?
There was a boat landing that was meant to be on their place or on the river that would
accommodate their place. They didn't want access in front of their place; they didn't want
any public access. They wanted it to be - they were worried about security, art pieces and
stuff, people getting to the top of bank, which in reality is almost impossible because it's
straight up. But we accommodated that; we stopped the sidewalk at Jones going upstream,
and we started it again on - basically on the other side of their property. So we - but they
l>"'_;._,
still owned the boat landing, a fairly large boat landing, so we had to have a way to get to it.
1\
What we do is we go up to Roy Smith Street, if that makes any sense, it's up near 35, it's a
dead-end street. We took an old bridge, an old pedestrian bridge that used to be in the
~
Museum of Art where tire cross way is, Mark Watson donated it - bought it and donated it
back to the River Foundation and gave it to us. Thej~undation has raised money to restore
that bridge, and we' re going to stick it across at Roy Smith that will actually be pedestrian
access to get over to that side of the river and then go down a sidewalk that takes them to the
boat landing at the Museum of Art and then eventually will lead up into some development
they' re going to do to connect to it.
So we met with their architects, we've met with their board, like I said, several times, their
34
engineers, I mean, on and on and on. A lot of coordination with the stakeholders, and they' re
/
one of them, whether it be Ed Cross or Lifschut~ or whoever, we met with them all to talk
about their development.
So if the sidewalk is interrupted, how do people have any continuity of being able to -
You can cross the river, you can cross on the other side. This is the west bank that they're on.
/, ~
hhe east bank, there's continuous sidewalk the whole way that's eight foot wide, ADA
"
accessible. So what you do is - the sidewalk at Jones comes up to street level, you can cross
over tllerfo; you can go in the Museum of Art and then get back through their place going to
the deal, which is what they really would like you to do.
Sure.
Makes sense. Or you can cross the bridge there, Jones Street bridge, and go back down into
the river and go on down to wherever you want to go, all the way down to the (inaudible)
bridge across the river and come back, at least at one point.
This extends up to the Witte?
No, it doesn't. It only goes to the inlet, which is at Josephine Street. The original planned
Museum Reach took in everything up to - involved some type of work all the way up to
Hildebrand, but the barge traffic never went past Josephine ever, never went past Grayson
35
ever. Now, we had a walkway that went from Grayson under 1-37, or if you want to call it
281, and get over to Avenue B, go up A venue B past the Witte into Brackenridge Park and
up to Hildebrand. That part wasn't funded as part of this. The dollars 1 was talking about
earlier only went to Grayson, and it was just the barge traffic portion of it with a small walk
that went from Grayson to Josephine to get you up to Josephine and go down to Avenue B,
and that was the connection; right now that's the way the connection's made.
In the venue tax, the venue tax that was passed recently funds to the tune of about 12 million
bucks this pedestrian path only up to I guess the Witte. But it doesn't do any of the other
stuff, like taking out the concrete Catalpa-Pershing, if you know what that is.
No.
That' s a concrete ditch out near - it goes from Mulberry up to the Witte - no. Goes from -
well, kind ofhard to explain. It really doesn't go anyplace. It goes from Mulberry up to a
place that dead-ends. It' s a set of culverts that comes in from Fort Sam, huge amount of
·- -
water. It's a flood-control project, but it's just a concrete, it's 20 foot deep, 100 foot wide,
1\ A
and it's just a scar on the property. And the idea was to take all the concrete out and restore
that, vegetation and that kind of stufJ and increase the capacity because - kind of crazy. The
ditch plenty big, but it gets to a bridge and it narrows down to a little bitty old culve1t, so
you've got all this water that backs up and floods.
The idea was to hopefully scalp some water offthe San Antonio River at the museum and
36
-- take it down to Catalpa and hopefully - it didn' t work out that wa~l\. hopefully alleviate some
of the flooding in the River Road area. The whole area is kind of a stilling basin. And this is
where I get kind of sketchy, so this is really - this is my belief. The whole area in Brack- ­./
the golf course is kind of a stilling basin before it gets to the tunnd, J-.mean, it just kind of
holds water there is the way it is. And then it gets to the tunnel and goes under the city or
once it fills up the tunnel, well, then it goes over the weir and into the river and eventually it
f)-
carries the whole 1 00-year flood between the two of them. But River Road is just low place,
that's all there is to it.
Hope you're not from there, are you?
No.
Okay.
(Laughing.) No, it feels swampy. !t 's lovely. There are plans for all this enormous amount
of new construction at Fort Sam, and when you talked about the amount of water that comes
off of that ridge between the two drainages and basically either goes into Salado Creek or
into Broadway, how - do you have any idea how all of that new construction could
potentially affect what you-all are doing?
They have to plan for it. The new rules that have been in place for many, many years on
many, many communities make you detain water. Have you ever heard that term, detention
37
ponds? You've seen them.
Yeah, yes.
That's what they're for, to hold water and let it, for better word, pee off, at a small rate.
They'd have to plan for that, but keep in mind that whole area is considered fully developed
for the most part. I mean, there are all hard surfaces there. There are some green spaces, but
for the most part, it's developed. That's what they would consider ultimate development
anyway. So they would either have to plan for it or it's already at its peak, one or the other.
There's, you know, what we 've been talking about in terms of the preliminmy design and
how it's actually being built. Are there some significant differences between the two?
Say again. I'm sorry.
Well, you've got the preliminary design, the final design, and now you 're in the construction
phase. Do you see there being differences between the way the project's going to end up
looking and the design?
No. Preliminary design was- where the real difference was, if there was any in these images,
~
was very little was between conceptual SW A, and preliminary desigri> lhat was where if there
was any difference, that's where it was. From there forward, preliminary design is basically
38
final design, it was just the details they worked out to make it all work. But for the most part
it was the same.
Construction, nofd th the exception of the dam, everything is exactly like it was designed.
You said something about there being some changes to make it work. What kinds of things-
Well, conceptual, you're doing something that you haven' t run any hydraulics on, you
haven't done anything. I think I saw some plans on conceptual design where they had a big
turning yard before the locks or something, I don't know, I'd never even seen it until the
other day. That didn't happen. I mean, you get into preliminary design, then you make it
work hydraulically, you make it work from an access standpoint, you put all these things in it
everybody though~ "We can do that." You know, you draw something, a picture, but it
doesn't work. So l guess that's what I was saying, make it all work. Fine tune it.
I've also heard something about a grotto structure. What is this?
Well, the plans always called for a grotto structure. But j ust to put it in perspective size-wise,
we had a - (drawing) here's the river, here's Camden, here's Newell, kind of come together
to a point here, and then Newell goes on. \tere's the river. We had a little grotto here, and it's
just a place -
In the river?
39
Well, no, excuse me, not here. Outside the river right here. You actually walk through it,
where water just kind of came over the top and you walk through the waterfalls is what it
amounts to. Well, this thing is now like this, huge, beautiful thing, it's going to be
unbelievable.
How did that happen, speaking of design changes?
Yea~, o_~ay, that's a huge design change from a size standpoint anyway. The master art plan
~ .
/ \·
·Lorna Jordah, wow, I don't know if I should say this or not. She thought it would be nice to
\. --
enhance this project. We didn't build hers.
Okay. And who is she?
/ She is an artist from Washington~ate that we hired to do a master art plan for the entire
River Improvement Project, which is Museum, Mission, and Eagleland, the whole shebang.
Now, SARA hired her?
SARA did hire her. Was paid for by fity funds.
How long ago was that? Was it before you came?
40
No.erso. 'J~ ~)
It'}.ipainful thing for me so ... Engineers and artists don't work ...
Who came up with the idea to do that, or why did somebody think it was necessary to hire a -
Thejoundation actually, the foundation did. They felt like they needed - they needed
something to tell their potential funding people what they were doing, so they needed
something. Well, this group -
(Recording turned off and turned back on.)
So part of it had to do with appealing to a certain constituency that was going to contribute
They wanted to see how this art thing - thejoundation was created to add enhancements but
also do art, and they wanted to see how it was all going to mesh, at least that was the
/
foundation's thought, they needed this booked, for lack of a better term, with this recipe of
b d/
stuff of how - the lPek of things they were going to do, "Hey, would you like to fund this?"
That's how it started out.
So it was funding opportunities?
Yeah. Thank you. That's good, that's exactly what it was. Well, as part ofher task, she also
had to provide two conceptual pieces, one in the Museum and one in the Mission, of a large
41
something that was fundable or was buildable. She -
(End of Tape 1, Side 2. Beginning of Tape 2, Side 1.)
Whose idea was a grotto of some size originally?
FPC, Ford lowell Carson. It was their design. She saw their design when she came down.
Remember, the design was done in 2003. She saw it - well, she got to look at everything,
that was her deal. She got to look at planner design for the Mission Reach, planner design
for the Museum Reach, and let's get these things - pick out two places you'd like to work.
She saw this and it was good, let's enhance - let's make this thing a little bigger. There was
some back and forth -we decided we were going to do this thing, we tried to get her
involved.
Anyway, it didn't work out, bottom line, didn't work out. And she believed that she owned
this conceptual design. Well, it was in the contract she didn't own it; it was ours.
Plus she'd already taken somebody else's conceptual design
Right. Good point. Very good, that's the kind of a point we made. Anyway, it was a big
deal. Actually, we had a hard time getting other people interested in it because they thought
it was going to get them involved. We had a hard time getting somebody else to take on this
enhanced grotto because -
42
In terms of constructing it?
ln terms of designing it, from an artist's standpoint.
Ah, because they were afraid they were going to run afoul of her.
~
Uh-huh, yeah, that's my opinion. Anyway, even Ford Powell Carson felt uncomfortable.
) 1\
Even though it was their design originally, they felt uncomfortable.
She must have been formidable.
That's putting it mildly.
So how have you-all maneuvered around this?
Well, I just told them, "Don't worry about it. We've got legal opinions, we feel strongly that
this was never hers in the first place, and we' re telling you to go do something, gq_~o it. If
// ------- ' ~
you don' t want to work for us, we'll get somebody else." So FPC got yarlos Corte§ ·involved,
\., _- ---.
which is the best thing we ever did.
Oh, wonderfid.
43
Oh, it's going to be so cool, you just won't believe this thing. It's unbelievable. I thought
probably you had seen it, artist's conception.
No.
Oh, man, it's something else. Anyway, he's involved.
Great.
In fact, he should be starting here fairly shortly. We've started on the structural portion of it,
/ ---~
and then he'll start - he's going to do apilapas (phonetic), which is for better words, it's a
\
concrete tree that's on the opposite bank at this corner over here he's going to build it
(inaudible) looks like this (drawing), and you look out over here. We've got that foundation
done; he can start on that 1ight now if he wanted to.
/..,-- -'
' .· '·. \
So there will be tJu/ pilapas hn one side and the grotto on the other?
( .. _ / -~
Yes. We call it the grotto area, that's what we're calling this whole area. This is an access
point that winds down, handicapped, gets down to it, it's very steep. There's an old pecan
tree that'll have kind of a lookout point here. (Drawing) There 's an access point here that
goes to street level, there's a sidewalk that comes here. And what we've done, though, what
Ford Powell & Carson did and Carlos is they created another access point which we weren't
. ~ cL v~~{A_-
going to have, kind of made (maudible) liftle hacked off that he wasn't going to get an access
44
~
point. They created a place where you go through the grotto to - like a tunnel effec~ up to
street level; it's really nice.
And they've got several waterfalls now,~me come across here and here and a pool of water,
and it's cave-like and stalagmites and places to sit and lighting that's really cool.
So is Carlos doing the grotto also?
He's doing it all, doing it all. Getting paid good to do it all. He's getting a million dollars -
You know, concrete 's going up in price. (Laughing.)
Well, he didn't pay for any of that. No materials. He gets a million dollars up front.
Wow.
That's a good deal for him.
It 'II be pretty fabulous, I'm sure. Not to go back to a painful subject, but what was it she
conceptualized for the Mission Reach?
She had a really neat thing at the confluence of the San Pedro and San Antonio River.
There's a place where they come together just downstream of Highway 90, Mitchell Street,
45
the old Mission Concepci6n_:..iey come together right there. She had this - there was a place
that was - CPS had about four and a half acres, almost five acres that was paved that was
used for staging area on this one side over here, on the west bank where they came together.
We had to purchase half that property for the project to widen to allow these streets to be put
in, and CPS said, "We can't use half of it, you 're going-ffi have to buy it all." So bought it all,
j~undation gave us the money to buy the additional two acres, whatever amount it would be,
almost three probably, with some conditions, that if we - conditions it had to be something
that was park-like, a trailhead or something like that, and if we did not do that, then it
reverted back to them. They didn't want the property;[t was some kind of legal issue with
them, they didn't want to own property. Which is fine with us, we didn't want the propetiy
in the first place.
So the bottom line is, she designed this what they called "Confluence Theater" in this -
where the two rivers come together. (Drawing) There's a community over here, so the CPS
was in here, here's Mitchell Street. This river was going here; now it's going to come like
this or something like that, anyway, but the slope goes down here. So this actually comes
like this. And what she had designed was this Confluence Theater down here;Jiuess she ---
didn't look at the plans or whatever, I'm not sure exactly what she did. But she designed it,
and it was really cool, and there was a bridge that took you over to this side, which it still is,
and then took you up to Mission Concepcion over here to~took you on up this way.
Now because this is all slope, this something, may not be Confluence Theater anymore, it
46
was an idea of a gathe1ing place and a place to look down these two - where the rivers carne
together, kind of cool. So it's going to be a trailhead or a confluence theater, and then there's
going to be some type of something up here, we don' t know exactly what they're going to do.
But this is theirs to spend money on. Right now it's where the contractor's doing all their
staging; it's all fenced and secure. It's really cool.
Now, what you said, ''lheirs to spend money on, " ~o is theirs?
The/oundation. If they want to do something here ...
That's available.
That's available. What we would probably do at this point would make it a parking area.
Again, we can' t - remember, we can' t do capital improvement projects, so it has to be
somebody else.
How has it been to work with the/oundation on these aspects of the project, and can you see
opportunities in the fiaure on other projects?
I guess, keep in mind what I'm trying to do because it's- on Mission Reach it's great. Keep
in mind, I'm trying to get a project out, and it seems like we're always behind the curve ...
r;- j
/typically when you're trying to get other people to fund things;;tt's - you got a project here
that's purely flood control, this is purely flood control, that's all it's ever meant to be, get the
47
I
flood out of downtown San Antonio. Now they've decided they - the forps' mission has
-H~~
changed, they want to make it not only flood control, that still ~priority, they are also into
ecosystem restoration.
Well, anything you do to change that, you're taking out trees that makes the ecosystem
.<
restoration that got you the money in the first place, it's now a federal project, there's a lot of
strings that get attached to it, and it's time consuming and complicated and all these things.
So any changes to it is a (softly) pain in the butt. So great people to work with~ts down to
that artsy thing again for me, so - I'm a little negative sometimes, I can't help it.
So there are limits to how effective the cross communication has been with different groups,
but that 's- okay. It 's one area to work on.
It's a good thing, yeah, right. It's a good thing, it really is.
So that you-all can come to some kind of communication.
~~
I'll get past it. They're good people, it's just that their board is huge, likei9J.something
0-
people. So everybody's got their ideas of what to do, and everybody's off on - they're going
)[
15,000 different ways.
They think differently.
48
Exactly.
And they bring a different aesthetic to it.
And they're really not thinking about what it's really there for. They don't understand the
complicated portion ofit all. It's just a god-dang bench, put it down there. Well, there's
other things~·'0s just a bridge, put it down there. It's just other things that go on.
We've got some dedicated people at the ~~rps, but they're a federal agency, they do things
one way and only way; there's no gray, it's black and white type of thing. So when you've
~
got somebody that 's been on the project, especially the person who's doing environmental
~
restoration on this thing, they put a lot of heart and soul in this thing, sweat and tears and
stuff, and I don't really buy into all that stuff either sometimesJt's kind of hard for me to get
_/
past some of that.
But l know she'~ a dedicated person. You touch one ofher plants, oh, my goodness gracious .
.vb
You can see this- she's now the project manager of the project so she's had to get past some
of that, she's tried to - before it was (making cracking noise) it ain't going to happen; now
it's well, we've got to think past this kind ofthing. But I can see her face get red and her.~
stand up and everything and start talking about doing something down in the channel. Now,
keep in mind, too, though, any time you do something on a federal project, we have to get
their permission from now on, which it's been that way for a long time.
49
Now, is this an individual who's with the /:orps?
Yes.
I see. Okay. You 've been talking some about the Mission Reach. I had thought you were
primarily involved with the Museum Reach.
Well, I am.
Have you expanded now to the Mission Reach as well in terms of responsibilities?
Yes, yes. Jim Boenig was the program manager. That's me now, that's me now.
And what are those responsibilities?
Just kind of oversight. I'm still the project manager on the Museum Reach which I'm going
to finish up. Mission Reach, there is a project manager that kind of works under me. It 's
their baby, I'm just kind of just real high level.
How are the issues that are involved with that segment different from what you're dealing
.-fl~
with at .thrrt Museum Reach?
Issues, is that what you said?
50
Yeah. Problems, opportunities, all that.
It' s a whole different construction deal. I mean, we're doing a River Walk and they're doing
a restoration rural type situation. So 1 guess the funding things are still issues; I mean, there
1\
are still always funding problems. There are still political problems, there's still public
problems. I guess it's still pretty much the same, just build something different, different
-- kind of people, class of people;jrs a whole different group, different ideas.
What do you think of the whole ecosystem restoration topic or I guess it 's really kind of a
)
movement now in a lot of different areas?
Well, I'm an old-timer, I guess, as far as engineers go, and the idea was to get water out as
fast as you could get it out. The other kind of thing was hard to get used to, but I think it's
kind of neat. I mean, if you can make it all work together, why not?
I guess it kind of started for me when I was the county engineer in Kendall County about
green stuff, and I'm going out and clearing channels and people getting pissed off because
I'm cutting trees and doing stuff like that. So it was a hard thing for me to get into that
mode, but I had to. And then when we got here, some of the neat things you can do as long
as you've got the funding and area to go out and get to make these things happen because it
still takes - you still have to redesign to make it happen. It can't all happen in the space you
had before.
51
Do you see th ere being benefits?}; other words, as long as it meets the requireme11t of
getting the water out, through and out. do you see supplemental benefits to doing it this
particular way?
Keep in mind again, I'm an engineer that looks at how to solve a problem. But from an
environmental standpoint, bringing the animals back to the liver, if you're wanting to deal
with the snakes and all the other critters that come along with that, you know, it's not a park
anymore, it's going to be a - you go south of Mission Espada, and that's the tiver we' re
talking about, you know, not quite that rural but everything that comes with it. Slopes aren't
mowed anymore, you've got these tall grasses that look like weeds to anybody else, they're
native grass, trees that are not trimmed. It's going to be a whole big - it's going to be big
challenge for the public I think personally. We've tried to make everybody aware of that.
But I'm being won over I think.
Are there liability issues that go with that?
From a flood standpoint no, because they've covered all those issues. From a protective
standpoint, I think - we're not going to do that portion of it, we're not going to do the
protection portion, but yeah, I would think so.
What is the protection portion?
52
Policing, that kind of stuff. We're going to create all these trails where people can go now
~
they couldn't go before; they're not going to light the trails because that affec)(he habitat;
you know, light and they're not going to come. So I think the fity - yeah, I think it's a
liability thing, can be if you don't do due diligence, but it can be done.
So who will be responsible for the policing?
It won't be us. (Laughing.) 1 imagine the /:,ity.
Was that something that got worked out? In other words, you said, "Okay. If this is going to
be this way, we don't want to be responsible for the policing. "
Yeah, that's what we did. Now, I don't think it's all been worked out totally, but I think the
,iity recognizes that's not what we do. And they're used to mowing and getting out there
with a low-wage person and taking off down that chatmel and mowing anything that can be
mowed, trees or whatever, even trees that are planted sometimes. So they recognize that it's
a whole different mindset. If we're willing to take that challenge on and take it away from
them -
I need to go into a little bit of explanation here. When the SACIP was built, which is the
I
flood-control portion ofthis project, we've always been the sponsor for the y:;orps to come in
and do this stuff. We didn't always own the properiy, but when we're straightening this river
out, this winding river into a straight channel, we had to go out and acquire property. Well, it
53
does belong to us, we bought it with }County and~ity money, it' s a little bit of"{i~
~there too, but it's in our name. We agreed to do that sponsorship and acquire the
property, but we weren't going to maintain it.
So the agreement we made with thejity back in the )60s, they had to maintain it; they have.
~ ~ 1-{j-,~ +:r-JL~
But that kind of all gets forgotten about in 5o years, 1960 and now. (i~~uffible) they're doing
L
it in the first place when you point back to an old document. But I think - you know, if we
had the money, I think we'd want to do it. ft's our baby now, and we want to see it - we've
got a lot in this too, emotionally, so we want to see it be a successful thing, whatever it is.
A good example, you go down to Eagleland, I don ' t know if you've been down there or not,
but part of that restoration is done down there.
I haven't been down there.
I mean, it's going to look like weeds to you, these large bush-like plants, vegetation. A guy~
on the subcommittee, he backs up to it, this is river property now, he's got that sucker mowed
j~~~~ ·-=-
all the way down to the thing, ~he did it, I couldn't believe it.,.lf.s part ofthe
project. I assume he did it, I don't know ifhe did it. His yard's mowed, that's mowed, I
assumed it was him, I don't know. (Laughing.) And the guy, I just - so my point is, and this
is the end of the rural portion of it, this is kind of a transition piece between the two, between
p~
the River Walk and this Mission draiuage. And the plants were looking gorgeous, actually,
~it's an area that probably had ~~-:_nd it's a pathway to his place, so it's going to be
54
tough.
So is there a public education component with all this?
At every meeting we have, we've always stressed in our pictures, you know, this is a
beautiful picture, looks kind of park-like. But in reality you've got plants and these trees that
you' re seeing there that ar{SO~oo;tall, that's~.)years' worth of growth. We're putting
~ ~ -
them in like this (indicating~,~s going to take a long time to get to that. No matter how
much you say, it never gets there. You don't ever quite get there. Even people we deal with
on a daily basis don't hear it because they want to make sure that we start telling the public
that this is going to change. Well, we've been telling them for - but, you know, that's what
we do. So we continue to do it.
({-'.
Secretly do you (laughing) think tha(!__q}ears from IWW that this sort of solution to the
Mission Reach may be so problematic in terms of maintenance, liability, everything else, that
somebody will say "Oh, we just don 't want to fool with it this way anymore"?
We can't; we've made a commitment. We've made a commitment to - and that's another
reason why we need to maintain it. We're on the dotted line to get this thing done and make
it happen. For the same reason, we couldn't go in and just put a dam in the middle of that
thin&-fthat's a flood-control project, we couldn'tjust do that. We've made an agreement that
this is going to be a flood-control project. But the ecosystem will have - does have the same
kind of agreement, that we have to keep it that way.
55
So no, I don't think that. I mean, things change, l guess, but I don't believe it will. I think it
will be - it's going to be someplace between the Mission Reach - I mean the Mission
rvJ5
Espada rural area and then something that's not park-like, you know, totally wild either.
1\
So was it the jorps that came up with this plantings list, or was it SARA or who?
Theforps for the most part I believe, but the Ladybird Johnson group was also big-time
involved in at least the vegetation, the native plants, maybe not the trees. l think what
(inaudible) came up with, they looked to see what was native to the area. I mean, it could be
something we think is a weed; but if it's native to this area, it's going to get planted. Can't
even think of the name of the tree now., Wse e them in all the fence lines of a ranch, you
know, that's where birds light and that's where the trees grow. Mesquite, we' re planting all
this stuff that people try to get rid of. You know, some of the pecans and cypress and
everything else, too, but anything that we consider part of the river. So for the most part it
/
was the,orps, but they looked to experts like Ladybird Johnson to come up with the
vegetation list and stuff, seed mix.
Are there any equivalent kinds of restoration projects that you 're aware of around the
cowll!y?
That was a hard thing for us because what you're doing is you're competing for dollars. And
I
if there's nothing to even gauge it by, it's a new thing for the rorps, something brand
56
spanking new. The only restoration project that anybody even related to was the Florida
Everglades. That's not us, but it' s a restoration project. And the cost to restore that per acre
~ o:?~-
was cheap compared to us, I mean, not even a comparison. So the yardstick tha~e nsing
. .-!
i,•v.........__, --<~
to get us.som€l of the federal funding, which we're not in, is impossible, dollars per habitat
unit or whatever they equate it to.
So why wasn 't it possible to get into the federal fimding venue?
We try every year, but we never get into the President's budget and probably never will
because the OM ...
OMB.
OMB - thank you. - right now does not think that it's a worthwhile project. But we always
J-..
get our funding through the,orps, and you get all these add-ins. After the ptesident's
budget, you get stuff that happens. And we so far have been successful, Suzanne has in her
previous life here. We'll get plus stuffto get us taken care of through design. That's one of
the reasons why the venue tax got done because we could see that we were never going to be
in thej~esident's budget. It was always going to be a fight to get federal funding.
I
The way this thing works, it's a 65/35; 65 fedenil, 35.local. And there were rules in place,
laws in place that didn't allow you to overmatch and get reimbursed. Right now we can put
in - we're required to buy all the property and some other things, and that goes towards that
57
i;-,~ercent match, it's either in cash or in-kind or whatever you're doing. We could see that ~
and the law said you couldn't overmatch and get reimbursed. Well, we've got that law
changed potentially now that says if the money's ever there, if it's ever budgeted, we have
the potential to get reimbursed for everything we're putting in abovt:.--~·,'percent of this, is
what it amounts to.
/ --.--
Of course, this whole thing started out where the porps was the major fundeJ t they're no
longer the major funder anymore, they're not. It's just us for the most part. We have gotten
about 10 or 12, $15 million out of them for design over the las@ years. But in this
particular one, for instance, the base project was like - estimate was like 23 million; I think
we've got 10 million. I mean, it's a good chunk, but doesn't come close to doing what we
need to do. And then we're going to put in a lot of enhancements, additional trails and stuff,
I
with the venue tax, which we' ll add to the project; the Corps won't participate in that.
I
I
So for you personally, what 's been the biggest challenge for this project?
Mission Reach?
The whole thing.
1.1~--e--- . ~ .
I guess rea y easy answer IS 1lmdmg.
·-tv t¥~
It's just been - they tell you it was always a no-brainer,
/1
it just looked like an impossible task to ever get past. We finally got past it, and it's been a
breeze since then. It's been the fun part)ao_y.way~ p/:- ~.
58
And you know, there are all these different groups and constituencies who have made
contributions. What are your thoughts about the engineering contribution?
From my side?
Uh-huh.
In a project management role, we still hire consultants to do all the engineering and design
work. So 1 didn't - I mean, I'm checking work and I'm looking at work, so I didn't do a lot
of engineering on this project. It's really more facilitating, make sure it all comes together,
make sure the right people get hired and the right team gets put in place and all the public
concerns are addressed and everything's being brought together. That's really my job. So as
an engineer, I really didn't put a lot into it 1 don't think.
But it's still cool to be involved from an engineering aspect in reducing the floodplain,
making sure that happens, get the locks in place, which is a big deal from an engineering
standpoint. So it's still - for me, it's nice to be involved in it.
And I've asked everyone what it is they've enjoyed about working here. You've worked here
the least number of years of anyone that I've visited with, so you're going to have a
particular kind of perspective, I think. But what are your thoughts about that?
59
The best thing about working here to me is just the people you work with. I don't know what
it is, there's some kind of mindset. It must be the way they hire people. Friendly, outgoing,
- - - - ___...
can-1-help-you, in your face kind ofpeopl~ ~ljust blows me away, it really does. It's really a
/r ,-:z::..._,
good group. You feel like - and I've worked for some good places, and the lastQ_?)@J years
of my life, I've always been the top dog. But it doesn't matter to me here, it really doesn't,
that was never - I don't know what it is. I've got a good engineering manager that I'd do
anything in the world forJuzanne and I work because she was involved in the River
Improvement Project;1}eellike we're best buddies, and it's just - I don't know how to put it
into words.
Collegial.
Oh, yeah, just fantastic. And I am sure people get tired of me saying that because I say that
to anybody that asks me. I probably sound like I'm ridiculous, but it's just fantastic.
Well, it almost sounds as if there's a common understanding of a commitment to something,
to a big picture goal.q;-
Yeah, yeah, I guess so. You know, it's kind of funny you say that. I don't realize how
isolated I've been because I've been with this one project my whole career here, which has
been five years now. I'm in a group with Suzanne that she's heading up, a think tank group,
and I listen to these other people talk about issues, whatever they are, you know, somebody's
unhappy about something. And they kind of just - it's foreign to me, you know what I mean?
60
It's kind of weird. And I've told Suzanne, I' ll said, "You know, l realize either how lucky
I've been or how isolated I've been or how in my own little world I've been because, man, I
don't see these issues. I can't believe it."
,...,
I couldn't ask for a better place to work. They pay me well and gjlve me this great place to -
I've got a riverfront office that I look out onto this beautiful river and can walk down the
river and go to downtown, all the eating places you want. It's just fantastic. r::o-v-:k~ .
(End of interview.)
61