Texans dig in to push Ike Dike
Lawmakers see slog ahead to get funding for coastal barrier
WASHINGTON — Members of Texas’ congressional delegation are gearing up for a “marathon” effort to secure funding for a longsought barrier to protect the Texas Gulf Coast from catastrophic storm surge.
That’s because it’s unlikely much, if any, of the resiliency funding in the $1 trillion infrastructure bill that President Joe Biden signed into law this month will go toward the $29 billion project.
The effort will begin in earnest next year, when Texans in both chambers will push to include federal authorization for the socalled Ike Dike in a massive water resources bill that Congress passes every two years. But members of the delegation are bracing for what will likely be a long, difficult push for as much as $18 billion in federal funding.
“This is going to develop over a number of years,” U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican, told Hearst Newspapers. “This is going to be a marathon.”
Cornyn said he doesn’t anticipate trouble getting the federal OK for the project in the 2022 Water Resources Development Act, a biennial, typically bipartisan bill that helps pay for flood mitigation infrastructure across the country.
But the water bill typically doesn’t pass Congress until fall or winter, and it isn’t expected to include funding for the coastal spine.
“That’s going to be a heavy lift because, unfortunately, it’s easier to get money after a natural disaster than it is to prevent one,” Cornyn said.
The project draws its name from Hurricane Ike, a catastrophic storm that hammered Galveston and the Texas Gulf Coast in September 2008. Ike rampaged
through 26 Texas counties, leaving dozens dead and causing nearly $30 billion in damage before turning north.
The proposed coastal barrier calls for a gated structure stretching across the mouth of Galveston Bay and the Houston Ship Channel. It also includes 43 miles of dunes protecting the Galveston and Bolivar Peninsula coastline; a “ring levee” that would protect the north side of Galveston Island; and ecosystem restoration extending southwest to South Padre Island. Once fully constructed, the Army Corps of Engineers estimates, the project will save $2.2 billion in storm damages every year.
The proposed gates are expected to take up to 20 years to design and build. How useful they will be then — or over the half-century or more that the structure is expected to operate — remains to be seen.
The U.S. Office of Management and Budget is preparing to present the project to Congress for authorization and appropriations, said Lynda Yezzi, a spokeswoman for the Army Corps.
Members of the Texas delegation earlier this year had hoped to get a jump on funding as they pushed to include a dedicated stream of money for coastal resiliency measures like the Ike Dike in the infrastructure bill.
“Now is the time to be innovative and strategic and to spend our resources preparing, in partnership with our local stakeholders and capable federal partners,” Texas members of Congress led by U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, a Houston Democrat, wrote to leaders of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in May.
That didn’t happen. Instead the package included funding for $47 billion for a wide range of resiliency projects, including coastal projects, but also to help brace against flooding, droughts and wildfires and bolster cybersecurity.
The bill also included about $9.6 billion in funding for the Army Corps, which is overseeing the project. But the Army Corps has a deep backlog that currently includes more than $100 billion worth of work.
“This is why we need to continue to advocate for more opportunities,” Fletcher said in an interview with Hearst Newspapers.
Fletcher said the resiliency funding in the $1 trillion infrastructure package — some of which is targeted to states that have been affected by federally declared disasters, including Texas — is a “good start.” But she said the delegation needs to continue to push for a dedicated funding stream for coastal resiliency projects.
“We’ll really have to have a strong statewide message from
our state delegation about the importance of making sure we’re getting annual appropriations, fighting for this project to get priority from the Army Corps,” Fletcher said. “There’s a lot of money in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, we just know this is a huge project, so we need to think creatively and the delegation needs to work together for this to happen.”