Texas Water Development Board to look at a statewide plan of flood control

Texas Tribune:

For 60 years, the Texas Water Development Board has been the keeper of a master list of projects that are supposed to meet the state's water needs for the next half century. But the latest list the agency is compiling is not about supplying water — it's about managing it.

Earlier this year in the wake of two major floods that crippled communities across the state — and just months before the remnants of Hurricane Harvey dumped a historic amount of rainfall on southeast Texas — state lawmakers voted to give the agency $600,000 to create the state's first-ever flood plan. The document will broadly evaluate statewide flood risks and detail projects local governments want to pursue to mitigate those vulnerabilities with suggestions as to how the state could help fund or finance them.

“What we are doing over the next year or so is a desktop assessment of who is doing what, what are in the local plans [and] how much is it going to cost,” said Robert Mace, the water development board's deputy executive administrator.

The water development board aims to complete the plan before the Legislature convenes in 2019 so lawmakers will have official guidance as they decide which local projects to support.

While the Legislature approved funding to develop the plan pre-Harvey, Mace said the widespread flooding the storm inflicted on the state underscores the urgency to have a comprehensive document with input from a broad range of voices involved in flood management. He said the agency will soon begin reaching out to municipal and county governments, planning authorities and citizens to learn about their respective local flood strategies and to identify future infrastructure needs to reduce flooding damage.
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In the Houston area, local officials are now discussing a variety of flood control projects that have been delayed for years, such as a third major reservoir to detain floodwater as it travels downstream to the coast. They're also renewing their support for the construction of a physical barrier along the coast to protect from devastating storm surge during hurricanes, noting that Houston dodged a bullet with Harvey, which made landfall farther down the coast. The "coastal spine" project, under review by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is estimated to cost some $5.8 billion for the Houston area alone and at least $11 billion for the entire six-county coastal region.
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The storm surge project seems ambitious.  While it might block the storm surge in some places, it would necessarily also block drainage into the Gulf.  That would have been a bigger disaster for Houston.  I think a third major reservoir is needed or an expansion of existing reservoirs.  They should also look at using the dirt removed from the reservoirs to raise the elevation of some areas that have been flood prone.  It can also be used to channel flood water away from some vulnerable areas.