BIPARTISAN ROUNDTABLE FOR STORMWATER INFRASTRUCTURE

BY BRITTANY SCRUGGS, Fort Worth District

The Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area is growing at a rate of 1 million people every eight years. To support this growth, there are a number of infrastructure planning groups working to ensure infrastructure will be available to serve the increasing population.

Increased risk from flooding associated with severe storm events brought Texas members of Congress together with local, state, and national agencies for a bipartisan roundtable discussion.

Arnold Newman, director of regional planning and environmental center; Kathleen Spillane, chief of civil branch; Col. Kenneth Reed, Fort Worth District commander; and Eric Verwers, deputy district engineer for programs and project management, attend a July 8, 2019, panel presentation about flood-related issues in Texas.

Fort Worth District Photo

“Increased flooding has become a progressively difficult challenge to overcome, with Texas far exceeding other states in flood-related fatalities,” said Fort Worth District Water Resources Chief Jerry Cotter.

The roundtable consisted of approximately 45 key leaders and staff representatives who will become a working group of partners and stakeholders to carry out a comprehensive stormwater planning effort encompassing Wise County and portions of Dallas, Denton, Ellis, Johnson, Parker, and Tarrant counties.

The purpose of the comprehensive planning effort will be to improve delivery of consolidated, adaptive stormwater infrastructure before expected population growth makes addressing these issues more difficult and costly.

According to Cotter, “our focus needs to shift from response to prevention.”

In an effort to make this shift, a six-step cycle of project tasks and cost components will be considered: inventory of relevant data; inventory of stormwater management structures; land inventory and site-specific design considerations; stormwater infrastructure planning; project management and organization; and finally, the development of a broad range of flood-related products and technical tools that can be used by community officials to better manage flood risk.

This project will utilize available data, tools, analysis, and other resources to minimize redundancy and duplication of effort.

“With a funding goal of $10 million, the project will decrease the threat of flooding with state-of-the-art data, tools, and analysis designed for regulating the floodplain and recommending more compliant infrastructure,” said Michael Morris, the North Central Texas Council of Governments director of transportation.

Success of this project is important because tools, analysis, and data developed as part of this study can be used as a roadmap for duplication by other states with flooding concerns.

In this July 8, 2019, file photo, (left to right) U.S. Reps. Colin Allred, Ronald Wright, Eddie Bernice Johnson, and Marc Veasey from Texas weigh in on the bipartisan roundtable discussion related to flood issues in Texas.

Fort Worth District Photo

At the conclusion of the presentation, the Hon. U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson from Texas opened the floor to local, state, and national agencies in attendance for remarks.

Col. Kenneth Reed, commander of the Fort Worth District, began by expressing his concurrence with the presentation.

“We [U.S. Army Corps of Engineers] must get to a point of being more responsive, and we will do our part,” he stated.

Each agency in attendance echoed his sentiments and offered their support of the project in addition to a helping hand when called upon for action.