South McAllen drainage project to protect 1,500 acres from flooding

City of McAllen leaders hope a newly retrofitted section of its drainage system on the south side will protect 1,500 acres, or about 2.3 square miles, of residential and commercial properties from severe flooding. 

The city’s Balboa ditch sluice gate improvement project replaced five manual gates with automatic gates, each equipped with valves to prevent backflow during heavy rain. 

The $610,000 construction project took about seven months to complete, wrapping up in September. The general contractor was Brownsville-based Diverse Construction, and the engineering firm was Perez Consulting Engineers.