Secretaría de Obras Públicas

The Department of Community Development is a government department of the Republic of Bexar, with the responsibility of maintaining and improving the services and facilities that support the day to day economic activity of Bexar. Infrastructure includes roads, electricity, telephone service, public transportation, sewers, bridges etc….

The Department was formed in 2009, and brought together in one department the responsibilities of several seperate agencies in an effort to improve efficiency and cut costs.

Organisation
The Department has five operating divisions:


 * Transportation Division
 * Energy Division
 * Water Management Division
 * Communications Division
 * Environmental Division

Transportation Division
The Transportation Division has responsibility for the functions of the former Department of Transportation:
 * Road and highway networks, including structures (bridges, tunnels, culverts, retaining walls), signage and markings, electrical systems (street lighting and traffic lights), edge treatments (curbs, sidewalks, landscaping), and specialized facilities such as road maintenance depots and rest areas
 * Mass transit systems (Commuter rail systems, subways, tramways, trolleys and bus transportation)
 * Railways, including structures, terminal facilities (rail yards, train stations), level crossings, signalling and communications systems
 * Canals and navigable waterways requiring continuous maintenance (dredging, etc)
 * Seaports and lighthouses
 * Airports, including air navigational systems
 * Bicycle paths and pedestrian walkways
 * Ferries

Energy Division
The Energy Division looks after the functions of the former Department of Energy:
 * Electrical power network, including generation plants, electrical grid, substations, and local distribution.
 * Natural gas pipelines, storage and distribution terminals, as well as the local distribution network.
 * Petroleum pipelines, including associated storage and distribution terminals.
 * Specialized coal handling facilities for washing, storing, and transporting coal.
 * Steam or hot water production and distribution networks for district heating systems.
 * Electric vehicle networks for charging electric vehicles.

Water Management Division
The Water Management Division was a division of the former Department of the Environment and controls:
 * Drinking water supply, including the system of pipes, storage reservoirs, pumps, valves, filtration and treatment equipment and meters, including buildings and structures to house the equipment, used for the collection, treatment and distribution of drinking water
 * Sewage collection, and disposal of waste water
 * Drainage systems (storm sewers, ditches, etc)
 * Major irrigation systems (reservoirs, irrigation canals)
 * Major flood control systems (dikes, levees, major pumping stations and floodgates)
 * Large-scale snow removal, including fleets of salt spreaders, snow-plows, snowblowers, dedicated dump-trucks, sidewalk plows, the dispatching and routing systems for these fleets, as well as fixed assets such as snow dumps, snow chutes, snow melters
 * Coastal management, including structures such as seawalls, breakwaters, groynes, floodgates, as well as the use of soft engineering techniques such as beach nourishment, sand dune stabilization and the protection of mangrove forests and coastal wetlands.

Communications Division
The Communications Division operates the services that were part of the former Post Office Department:
 * Postal service, including sorting facilities
 * Telephone networks (land lines) including telephone exchange systems
 * Mobile phone networks
 * Television and radio transmission stations, including the regulations and standards governing broadcasting
 * Cable television physical networks including receiving stations and cable distribution networks (does not include content providers or "networks" when used in the sense of a specialized channel such as CNN or MTV)
 * The Internet, including the internet backbone, core routers and server farms, local internet service providers as well as the protocols and other basic software required for the system to function (does not include specific websites, although may include some widely-used web-based services, such as social network services and web search engines)
 * Communications satellites (in conjunction with the Department of War)
 * Undersea cables
 * Major private, government or dedicated telecommunications networks, such as those used for internal communication and monitoring by major infrastructure companies, by governments, by the military or by emergency services, as well as national research and education networks
 * Pneumatic tube mail distribution networks

Environmental Division
The Environmental Division was also absorbed from the former Department of the Environment and is responsible for:
 * Municipal garbage and recyclables collection
 * Solid waste landfills
 * Solid waste incinerators and plasma gasification facilities
 * Materials recovery facilities
 * Hazardous waste disposal facilities

Earth Science Division
The Earth Science Division was formed by the merger of the former Meteorological Survey Agency and Geological Survey Office of the former Department of the Interior. It manages:
 * Meteorological monitoring networks
 * Tidal monitoring networks
 * Stream Gauge or fluviometric monitoring networks
 * Seismometer networks
 * Earth observation satellites
 * Geodetic benchmarks
 * Global Positioning System (in conjunction with the Department of War)
 * Spatial Data Infrastructure

Links

 * Bexar
 * Cabinet of the Republic of Bexar