SAWS, Southtown restaurant reach $295,000 settlement on sewage pumping station easements

After months of negotiations, the San Antonio Water System and the owners of a Southtown Tex-Mex restaurant have reached an agreement on four easements that will enable the city-owned utility to build a sewage pumping station near the restaurant. SAWS’ board on Tuesday adopted a resolution to pay Juan and Yolanda Rodriguez, owners of the Piedras Negras de Noche restaurant, $295,000 for the easements on the southeast corner of the restaurant’s parking lot. Those are two permanent easements, an access easement and a temporary construction easement. In December, the City Council authorized SAWS to exercise eminent domain to acquire the easements, and SAWS filed a condemnation lawsuit that spurred settlement negotiations.

The settlement concludes months of tension between SAWS and the Rodriguez family, including numerous contentious discussions in private and at SAWS board meetings. “I’ve been here (at SAWS) long enough that I knew the situation would get resolved,” SAWS CEO Robert Puente said. “We’re very happy that our customers have the infrastructure that they need and that the family can continue on with the restaurant.” The family, which has owned Piedras Negras de Noche since the 1980s, vehemently opposed having a lift station on the property, fearing that the station would limit parking and that the odor from sewage passing through the lift station would impair its customers’ experience. SAWS, meanwhile, said that portion of the parking lot was the best spot for the station and offered concessions, such as doing construction only at night and designing the station to fit the restaurant’s aesthetic.