Controlling floods top priority

Bill King says the failure to complete Project Brays on time is an example of the lack of focus on the problem, which may have long-term effects.

Harvey again has underscored there are consequences for our public policy priorities.

While we might forgive our elected officials for not anticipating a storm of Harvey’s epic proportions, it should surprise absolutely no one that Houston has suffered widespread flooding that has claimed lives yet again. Even a much smaller storm would have generated similar pictures of residents being plucked from the rooftops and wading through swamped streets because we continue to fail to prioritize flood projects.

A perfect example is Project Brays, a $550-million project designed to lower the Brays Bayou floodplain by 1 percent. Hardly an earth-shaking improvement, and by public works standards, not particularly costly. Believe or not, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers made the original finding of the need for the project in 1988. It was supposed to be completed by 2014, some 26 years later. But we could not even maintain that snail’s pace. Supposedly the project will now be completed in 2021.

So why has Project Brays taken so long and why is it not finished? The answer can be summarized in one word: money. Or perhaps more accurately, it has languished because of inadequate and inconsistent funding. The City of Houston attempted to jump start the completion with an innovative loan from the Texas Water Resource Board earlier this year, but its application stalled in Austin. Part of the problem is that our state leaders dismiss infrastructure in favor of inconsequential wedge issues. Of course, the city is not without blame. It could have been come up with most of the needed money by devoting less than half of the drainage fee the it collects in ONE year. That, of course, would interfere with raiding that fund to balance its budget.

There is no silver bullet to mitigate flooding in a region built on a flat coastal plain. That said, had Project Brays been finished in 2014, many homes along that bayou would have been spared in the 2015 Memorial Day floods and in this storm. But not nearly all.

If we are ever to get a handle on flooding in Houston it is going to take a long-term commitment to a multi-faceted strategy. We will need more projects like Project Brays. We will need new, no tolerance development rules prohibit new building from making the situation worse while requiring some positive improvement. But most important, we need to build every cubic meter of runoff detention possible. These types of improvements will be expensive and they must be relentless pursued for decades to make a real difference.

The problem with keeping up this kind of discipline and focus on flood projects is that floods by their nature are episodic. We trudge through the waters. We dry out. We rebuild. And somehow the horror fades and we move on to other issues.

Perhaps Harvey will be the event that finally steels our resolve. It certainly feels like a tipping point. And one has to wonder how many corporations are going to think twice about relocating here after weeks of nonstop coverage of Harvey’s wrath.

The real tragedy will be that if we don’t act, there will be another and another and another generation of Houstonians rescued from their homes on some distant, rainsoaked night. I say — this one is enough.