City approves cell phone tower, discusses moving intake station

The Cameron City Council approved a special use permit that will bring better cell phone service to the area and heard a presentation about options for fixing the city’s water intake station issues during a meeting Dec. 2.

The council voted unanimously to allow Cingular Wireless PCS, LLC, a special use permit to place a cell tower on lots 9 and 10 of the Cameron Business Park on Lafferty Avenue.

Cameron Industrial Foundation Director Ginger Watkins said this is a project that the EDC has been working on to put a cell tower in the back part of the business park.

“I am super excited about this,” Watkins said. “This will provide improved cell service in our area from AT&T. It will be 5G. I think the location is ideal for the project.”

The tower should begin construction in about a year.

The new tower should help with capacity in the area and will help with a dead spot in the service area. AT&T will be the first tenant, but others will be able to locate on the tower after a certain amount of time.

The council also heard a presentation from Alan Hutson with Freese and Nichols about options for improving or moving the water intake station for the city. 

The city’s water intake station is currently located on an area of the Little River that is in an oxbow and could be cut off from the river as it meanders over time.

The city began discussing this topic in August and hired Freese and Nichols to look into options for the project.

“There is a lot of erosion along the Little River and it has put your pump station at risk,” Hutson said. “That erosion is creating an oxbow. That is when a river cuts off and leaves a segment without water. We are looking at erosion trends and what may happen in the future.”

Hutson said they are looking at options other than putting in a new pump station that would stabilize the erosion.

“When we looked at the river we saw three concerns,” Hutson said. “The obvious one is what we call a necked cut-off and the potential for the river to continue cutting along the banks and connecting the river at a point and cut off access to water.”

He said that if it were to cut off it would cut off water to the pump station.

“The Little River and the Brazos River are known to meander quite a bit and it is going to continue to do that,” he said. 

Some of the alternatives they are looking at are driving sheet piles into the banks of the river to stabilize the banks of the river; rock riff-raff lined along the banks that will protect the banks; and relocating the pump station to another part of the river.

He said there is 13,000 to 14,000 feet of bank that needs to be stabilized to protect the river.

He said they are looking at a new channel dam and intake station to take the water back up to the water treatment plant or potentially putting a deep gravity intake to the old pump station.

Hutson said they are recommending a new pump station.

Council also approved hiring Stratmont Group for IT services.