Manvel Drainage Pond

The Manvel Drainage Pond is a joint effort between the City of Manvel, Brazoria County Conservation and Reclamation District #3 (C&R3), Brazoria Drainage District #4 (BDD4), and Brazoria Drainage District #5 (BDD5) to detain heavy rainfall and minimize catastrophic flooding along State Highway 6 (SH6). View the Manvel Drainage Pond Rendering.

What is a Detention Pond?

A drainage pond, or "detention pond," is a constructed depression that receives and stores stormwater runoff from a specific drainage area. The Manvel Drainage Pond will provide many benefits to the City, including the reduction of ponding water on SH6 during extreme flooding events. The runoff that gathers in the Drainage Pond will be detained safely away from the highway and drain in its natural course through the C12 waterway to Chocolate Bayou.

History

The need for the Drainage Pond was highlighted in 2017 during Hurricane Harvey. During the Hurricane and for many days after, State Highway 6, a main thoroughfare through Manvel and a designated Hurricane Evacuation route, had been rendered impassable, leaving many Manvel residents stranded. While the City of Manvel suffered no loss of life and no serious destruction of property, the severity of the hurricane brought a pressing issue to light.

In 2020, with concerns for similar events in the future in mind, the City of Manvel began seeking solutions to flooding along SH6, and later that year purchased 117 acres of land near the intersection of Masters Road and Jordan Road. These 117 acres of land are strategically located in Flood Zone AO3, and share a southern boundary with the Gulf Coast Water Authority Canal which acts as a levee to back up water in the C12 waterway. The site also works in conjunction with Twin Lakes and Bluewater Lakes which have approximately 24 and 15 acres of detention land respectively.  

After the purchase in 2021, the City selected Lentz Engineering, LC to investigate, model, and design a drainage pond for the area that could assist with both detention and floodplain mitigation. Lentz completed the H&H Modeling and Construction Plans in late 2021, and in January 2022, the City of Manvel and C&R3 approved the construction plans, gaining additional blessings from BDD4 and BDD5.

On June 21, 2022, the City of Manvel and its collaborating entities broke ground on the much-anticipated Manvel Drainage Pond, and work on Phase 1 of the 2-Phase project began. 

Phase 1

Phase 1 of the project will focus on realigning the C12 ditch and building up the 20-foot-wide berms and much of the 13 feet of overburden. [More detailed description of Phase 1]

At the current rate of work, Phase 1 is estimated to conclude by the end of 2025.

Phase 2

[Description of Phase 2]

Once complete, the detention pond will sit 13 feet below natural ground level and provide over 1,000 acre-feet of storage capacity (roughly 326,000,000 gallons of water).

Follow along with the project's progress via our drone updates on Youtube!