eHT provided the City of Big Lake, Reagan County, developers, individuals and oil companies the necessary engineering services to deal with the many issues that were associated with the rapid growth from an oil boom. eHT provided the City with surveying, planning, design, geotechnical engineering, permitting, construction administration, civil engineering, environmental engineering and inspection services for infrastructure improvements, including water line improvements, sewer collection system expansion, a WWTP expansion and paving improvements. eHT also provided plan review services, assisted in revising ordinances, and provided surveying services for annexation of developing areas targeted by the City for incorporation into the City Limits. eHT assisted numerous companies in site plan development, site utilities and the required extensions or upgrades to the water, sewer and gas systems to serve a specific site.

The City of Big Lake purchases well water from the Reagan County Water Supply District (RCWSD). The RCWSD operates a well field approximately 18 miles north of Big Lake and the field contains 19 wells. To ensure a reliable supply of water to the City and to accommodate the increasing demand for water, the RCWSD replaced the transmission line from the well field to the City and rehabilitated a pump station and storage tanks. The RCWSD also saw a significant impact on their current well production capabilities as a result of an increase in the number of water wells installed by oil companies in the area to supply their water needs for drilling and “fracking”. To offset the loss of production capacity, the RCWSD drilled all new wells at the sites of their existing wells to a greater depth and plugged all the existing wells.  The new, deeper wells resulted in an increase in overall well pumping capacity from 860 GPM in 2012 to the current well field capacity of 1780 GPM. These four projects have an estimated cost of over $9.6 million.

The City also needed to add to their water distribution system and sewer collection system to accommodate the growth in the City and within their ETJ. Over a year’s time, the City and developers installed over 17,000 feet of water and sewer lines. These distribution and collection system improvements were approximately $1 million.