Is a lack of funding to blame for Monday’s flooding of Brays Bayou?.
Is a lack of federal funding to blame for Monday’s flooding along Brays Bayou?
“Acts of God” are what we call those violent forces of nature outside humanity’s control.
The floods that struck Brays Bayou during Monday’s storm, however, feel a bit like an act of Congress.
Floods are nothing new for the neighborhoods near those muddy waters, but after Tropical Storm Allison the federal government united with the Harris County Flood Control District to improve water retention and flood prevention in the Brays Bayou watershed. The project began with optimistic expectations, working off a bipartisan local-federal framework established by former Houston-area U.S. Reps. Tom DeLay, a Republican, and Ken Bentsen, a Democrat. However, the promised federal funding has been hard to come by. Groups such as the Bayou Preservation Association have had to engage in letter-writing campaigns to convince the federal government simply to reimburse the flood control district as promised. As the funds have tightened, the construction along Brays Bayou has slowed to a trickle. Now a project that was supposed to be completed last year has been pushed back to 2020, according to Dr. Phil Bedient, director of the Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disaster Center at Rice University. That’s six years of potential floodwaters — including Monday’s flood — that could have been significantly reduced.
How many flooded homes and businesses would have survived if the project had been completed on time? It is a question that’s hard to answer, but in a speech during Wednesday’s City Council meeting Councilman Larry Green placed the blame at the feet of our representatives in Washington.
“We know that if Project Brays is fully funded it will allow for the widening and will provide Brays Bayou the opportunity for more capacity,” said Green, who represents District K in southwest Houston. “I implore our federal representatives to stop playing partisan politics when it comes to infrastructure investment.”
We live in a time when elected representatives care more about playing to primary voters than delivering for their district’s needs, and when any spending — no matter how necessary — can be dismissed as pork. But try telling that to the residents of Meyerland, or owners of grocery stores that sat underwater, or congregants at flooded synagogues.
This is a problem all across Texas. While Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick clamor for tax cuts, we still have no statewide flood-control program. And according to The Economist, only 12 out of 27 Army Crops of Engineers flood-reduction projects in Texas received federal funding, often due to a lack of local dollars.
Meanwhile, greater risks loom over the horizon.
“We’re about to head into hurricane season,” Green said at Council. “What are we to tell our residents?”
We’ll tell them it was an Act of God — but politicians helped.