Dallas City Councilmember Angela Hunt » USACE

Good Houston Chronicle Op-Ed about Court Decision Against Corps

Angela — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 23:08:32 +0000

There was an interesting op-ed in the Houston Chronicle today about the recent federal court decision in New Orleans against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The authors of Catastrophe in the Making: The Engineering of Katrina and the Disasters of Tomorrow argue against so-called “economic development” projects designed at the expense of the environment. Good advice as the Corps considers the Trinity Toll Road:

At the center of the lawsuit is a shipping channel — the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, or “Mister Go.” New Orleans sits 120 river miles from the Gulf of Mexico, and Mister Go was intended to provide a 75-mile long channel, straight to the Gulf.

Building Mister Go was a massive effort, moving more dirt than did building the Panama Canal. Politicians called it the “key to the region’s economic future,” providing a busy outlet for commerce.

Local critics predicted that, instead, it would be an inlet for marsh-killing salt water….

Unfortunately, while the flood concerns were largely on-target, the economic claims were not. Mister Go never delivered the boon it promised. What it did deliver, with every high tide and every storm, was salt water. That killed plants in formerly healthy wetlands. Once the plants died, soil would slump into the channel, after which we taxpayers would pay to dredge it again….

In hindsight, it all seems implausible. Unfortunately, it’s not just plausible — it’s being repeated all across the country. New developments in California sit below sea level and atop fault lines. In Missouri, strip malls and industrial parks have paved over floodplains. In North Carolina, tax dollars help speculators build expensive homes on fragile barrier islands.

That’s how the Growth Machine works. Ignoring environmental warnings and promising great economic rewards, a small number of speculators push projects that usually don’t help the economy and that, in the most severe cases, can actually destroy lives, costing billions of dollars.

That’s also the real significance of the judge’s decision in New Orleans: When politicians support economic growth at the expense of the environmental systems that protect and support us, we need to know that they may be talking about a kind of growth that we probably can’t afford.

We owe it to ourselves to learn that lesson before we fall for the same empty promises again.

Trinity Toll Road Update

Angela — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:27:57 +0000

Just a few updates on the Trinity Toll Road, for those playing along at home:

First up, excerpts from Michael Lindenberger’s article in the Dallas Morning News, “U.S. postpones decision on Trinity toll road to evaluate levee problems”:

Problems with the Trinity River levees have prompted the Federal Highway Administration to postpone a decision about where to build the controversial Trinity toll road….The agency will take until April or May reviewing how the levees’ problems could affect the toll road’s cost or environmental impact….On the toll road, [FHWA Texas Division Chief Janice] Brown said, the FHWA will weigh any additional costs associated with putting the road between the levees when it issues its final decision….”Additional costs will be a factor,” Brown said. “But we don’t yet know how much more the road will cost as a result of the levees.” If costs for building the road between the levees become too high, that could prompt the agency to order the route changed or cancel it altogether.

The FHWA’s new study comes after the agency spent years evaluating the toll road’s alternative routes as part of its draft environmental impact statement….

Once the new report is issued, the FHWA will open a period of public comment – a lengthy process that requires the agency and its partners, including the North Texas Tollway Authority, to respond to every comment related to the proposed toll road. Such responses can take months, or longer, depending on their volume and complexity.

Next, over on the DMN Opinion Blog, Editor Sharon Grigsby discusses “Trinity Fatigue“: “Today the Federal Highway Administration makes headlines with the news that it is postponing its decision on where to build the toll road because of the levee problems….It’s been eight years or more since now former Dallas Morning News reporter and Trinity expert Victoria Loe Hicks warned us that, with so many agencies in the approval process, it would be a miracle if they could ever all get on the same page.” She asked Ms. Hicks about her assessment of the current situation:

There’s a word for creating a new product from scratch or creating a product in a radically new way that has never been tried before: prototype.

Whether building a high speed toll road in a floodway is a good idea or a bad idea, it’s never been done before, so the Trinity (so-called) Parkway is a prototype. And, as anyone familiar with R&D will tell you, prototypes are expensive and time consuming. Not sometimes, always. It takes time and money to solve problems never before solved, and all prototypes encounter unforeseen problems.

So what did the TP’s backers tell us? That building this prototype would be the quickest, cheapest way to relieve congestion on Stemmons. There’s a word for claims that run directly counter to logic and experience: nuts.

Lastly, excerpts from Sunday’s DMN frontpage report: “Corps’ caution on Trinity collides with desire to go forward“:

Dallas’ most complex and aggressive public works project ever is mired by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ concerns about something in the Trinity River bottoms as old and common as dirt. Sand, to be exact….Their worry: Water could seep through the sand and undermine the levees. Construction could also create gaps in the hard clay covering the flood works, and a big-enough flood could force enough water through the sand and erode the levees from within….So the city recently extended the Trinity project’s timetable by 20 months to analyze the soil.

Last Night’s Trinity Meeting

Angela — Wed, 06 May 2009 21:44:24 +0000

Last night, the North Texas Tollway Authority and Texas Dept. of Transportation held a “public hearing” on the location for the Trinity Toll Road. I put “public hearing” in quotes because (1) you can’t see me doing air quotes, which are obnoxious anyway, and (2) it was anything but a public hearing.

I won’t use the word “sham” because it’s loaded and a little heavy-handed. But here’s what happened:

There was an open house from 4pm – 7pm, when the public could wander around inside the Dallas Convention Center Arena, gander at maps and charts and such, and ask questions of NTTA and TXDOT staff.

At 7pm, the public hearing portion of the evening was to begin. Well, that’s what the flyer said, but that’s not exactly what happened. From 7pm-8:40pm, we were treated to a mind-numbing barrage of slides and information presented by staff, none of which was new to anyone who’s been watching this issue.

After the slideshow, there was a 20 minute intermission.

After that, elected and appointed officials got to speak (I spoke and so did Michael Morris of the North Central Texas Council of Governments).

THEN, finally, at about 9:15 or so, the public got to speak. By this time, more than half the crowd had left, exhausted and drained.

The night was best summed up by former Councilmember John Loza, who so eloquently explains:

“[A]s one who attended last night, the arena wasn’t the only Soviet-style aspect. The whole meeting itself was like a Soviet version of “letting the people speak”. Two and a half hours of eye-glazing, ass-numbing bureaucratic speak followed by a chance for us poor plebes to speak for three minutes while being glared at by one of the bureaucrats herself.

This is the type of thing that turns people off to government. This seemed like such a sham (yeah, I said it). Just going through the motions to be able to tick off the “held public hearing” box on the federal government’s transportation application.

If the goal was to get as much public input as possible, here’s what should have happened: They should have done the slidewhow from 5pm to 6:30pm so that the people who wanted that info could have gotten it. The public hearing, where actual, public comment was taken, should have started at 6:30pm so those of us who just wanted to put our comment into the public record could do so some time before midnight. Most importantly, they should have publicized the agenda and explained ahead of time how the meeting was going to work.

Trinity Toll Road Public Hearing on Tuesday, May 5

Angela — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:51:04 +0000

In recent months, several facts have come to light that suggest that Dallas should reconsider its decision to locate the Trinity Toll Road in our city’s floodway.

First, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced that Dallas’ levees failed to meet their new, post-Katrina safety standards. The Corps also discovered sand in our levees, which presents a problem for toll road construction. Further, the Corps indicated concerns about allowing the toll road’s large concrete piers to pierce the levees, which could weaken them.

In addition, the North Texas Tollway Authority acknowledged that there is a billion dollar funding gap for the toll road. No additional funding sources have been identified.

Despite these serious problems, the city refuses to consider other locations for the toll road that would allow us to move forward on other long-delayed aspects of the Trinity Project, including critical levee improvements, the highly anticipated Trinity Park, and the desperately-needed reconstruction of S.M. Wright Freeway.

If you are concerned about the city’s decision to construct the Trinity Toll Road in our floodway, you will have the opportunity to make your voice heard. The federal government has yet to sign off on this location, and part of their analysis includes public input.

At 7 p.m. on Tuesday, May 5, the North Texas Tollway Authority and the Texas Department of Transportation will hold a public hearing at the Dallas Convention Center Arena (650 S. Griffin St., Dallas, 75202). I hope you will plan to attend and speak on this issue. (There is no need to sign up ahead of time.)

Corps Report Much More Damning Than City Admits

Angela — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 17:44:57 +0000

At yesterday’s briefing on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ report on Dallas’ levees, city staff and the mayor downplayed the gravity of the Corps’ findings that our levees have critical failures and have been cited as “unacceptable.” The consequences of this report are extremely serious, but you wouldn’t know that by listening to the city.

Michael Lindenberger at the DMN’s transportation blog has a great run-down of the Corps’ more serious findings and their repercussions moving forward.

Regarding our flood control levees:

The city’s briefing report argued that the levees are some 14 feet higher the river crested in 1990 — arguing, by extension, that we’re still safe. But if the levees are breached, it won’t matter how tall they are, or were, before the flood.

The levees have to be fixed first. And those fixes could cause big delays and huge costs for the city. The flaws that the Corps has pointed out are more worrisome than we expected from the city’s extremely positive reading of the findings last month. They could lead to massive rebuilding projects — projects that could require enormous sums of money, money that the city would have to find.

And on the Trinity toll road:

So can the toll road still be built? Maybe, depending on what is learned about the extent of the problems in the levees. The problems that are most pressing are ones we knew about, but hadn’t realizes were as extensive as they appear to be from the corps’ report. The sand layers are big, the report says, and very close to the base of the structures that are worrying the corps — just six feet below the base of the bridge, for instance, there is a layer of sand as deep as 25 or so feet.

UPDATED: Corps’ Levee Report Reveals Multiple Failures

Angela — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 21:40:57 +0000

The Corps of Engineers just released their report analyzing the safety of Dallas’ levees. The news is not good. See Dallas Morning News Transportation Blog for details: DMN’s Corps to City: Trinity Levees failures are extreme, could prompt FEMA action

We must fix our levees immediately. We cannot let the toll road continue to delay our levee improvements.

UPDATE: Here is a link to part of the Corps’ report.

We Must Fix Our Levees NOW

Angela — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 16:55:54 +0000

I was very concerned to see that the U.S. Corps of Engineers has deemed the safety of Dallas’ levees “unacceptable.” The Corps revised their safety standards after the Katrina tragedy, and re-evaluated Dallas’ levees under this new system. They announced the results of their review yesterday.

I was surprised that our levees failed to meet the new standards since the Mayor just got back from lobbying our Congressional delegation to pressure the Corps into speeding up their safety evaluation of the Trinity toll road, which is to be built within the levees. If you’ve been following this issue, you know that no major road like this has ever been built within a levee system. Knowing that our levees do not meet the Corps’ new safety standards, I think it’s irresponsible to lobby the Corps to speed up what should be a thoughtful, deliberate safety review of an untested engineering design like the toll road. Rushing to pour millions of tons of concrete into an already unsafe levee system is a dangerous plan that could have dire consequences.

In light of the Corps’ safety analysis, it is clear that we need to fix our levees NOW. Not next year, not five years from now, not after a catastrophic flood, but today. But the toll road is holding up our levee improvements. We cannot fix all the safety problems with our levees until the design of this toll road is completed. As long as the toll road is part of the equation, all those parts have to be built to work together, and if we don’t have the design for the road, we can’t plan the design for the levees, and we certainly can’t fix them.

The fact is, this toll road project is dead. There’s no funding for it. Despite the Mayor’s assurances during the Trinity referendum to the contrary, the NTTA just admitted that the toll road is facing a billion dollar funding shortfall. If the Corps is allowed to do their job without political manipulation, the toll road will likely face even more delays as a result of their new safety review. If we continue on this course, if we ignore the obvious warning signs and stubbornly plow ahead, the safety needs of our levees will continue to languish and be held hostage by this white elephant of a toll road for years to come. The dirt will not fly. The Mayor’s 2013 deadline for toll road completion will come and go, the toll road cost will double again, and the funding gap will increase exponentially.

In another ten years, 2019, future city officialls will reluctantly admit that putting the toll road between the levees is not a viable, fundable option. The toll road will finally die with a whimper, and we will have wasted twenty years and tens of millions of taxpayer dollars without the levee improvements we so desperately need. It’s time to change course and admit today that this toll road won’t work, and find a better way to address our transporation needs without delaying or compromising the safety of our flood levees.