Project Challenge

The goal for the City of San Angelo Hickory Water project was to build the well site connecting system for a critically needed $9,500,000 well field expansion project located on the 55,000-acre Ford Ranch in Melvin, Texas.

Additional challenges in order to complete this project included working on a rugged and isolated West Texas working cattle ranch and working around large areas of the ranch that Federal and State agencies designated as Endangered Species Habitat.

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The Solution

Since this project took place on a rugged and isolated West Texas working cattle ranch, we regularly had to work around several hundred heads of cattle as they were herded through our work areas to different rotational grazing pastures.  Federal and State agencies designated large areas of the ranch as Endangered Species Habitat.  Much of this restricted habitat ran for miles along the pipeline easement, severely limiting our available work area for heavy equipment.

Keeping all of this in mind, the City of San Angelo selected selected the Housley Group’s municipal utility construction department to build the well field expansion project that included adding seven (7) additional 3,000 ft. water wells, which connected to a sixty-three (63) mile thirty (30) inch transport pipeline running from the Ford Ranch to a newly constructed water treatment plant in San Angelo.  The well site pipeline collection system consisted of over eight (8) miles of 20”, 16”, 12” and 8” PVC pipe, which connected the seven new well sites to the 30” transport pipeline. 

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Outcome

Meeting the customer’s critical timeline for the completion of this well expansion, working around herding schedules, and preserving areas of endangered species areas were absolute requirements that were successfully met.