The presentation begins with a history of the relationship between the Army Corps and HCFCD dating back to 1937. It references past joint projects such as work on the Addicks and Barker Reservoirs; and Brays, White Oak, Little Vince, Cypress, Greens and Sims Bayous.
It also references projects not yet completed such as work on White Oak and Hunting Bayous, and Clear Creek. Finally, it looks forward to future collaboration on Buffalo Bayou, Halls Bayou and a County Wide-Study that “lifts up and empowers our diverse communities to thrive.”
The intro contains graphics that summarize:
Damage during Hurricane Harvey
Atlas-14 rainfall vs previous estimates
Current and Active Army Corps projects
A county-wide map of “Recently flooded” (from Harvey) structures overlaid on a social-vulnerability map
The leave-behind then makes three “asks” corresponding with each of the three major projects.
Buffalo Bayou and Tributaries Resiliency Study
The first ask is for help “finding the right solution for Addicks and Barker Reservoirs.” It talks about managing residual risk and liability. Specifically, it asks for support through the completion of the Corps’ Buffalo Bayou and Tributaries Resiliency Study.
It alludes to policies and processes impeding needed progress. Then it says, we must blaze a trail for a new equitable flood risk management paradigm.
An engineer familiar with Buffalo Bayou told me that the study had been cancelled at one time because of a poor Benefit/Cost Ratio. It wasn’t because, as you often hear, that home values were low. It was because land acquisition costs were so high. Possible workarounds: several proposed “innovations” including:
Flood tunnels
A comprehensive benefits framework that includes more than a strict benefit/cost ratio.
“Emphasis on community resiliency, environmental justice, and climate change adaptation.”
The last update of this study on the Corps’ website is from late 2020. The final report has not yet been released. This post from 2020 summarizes the findings of the interim report.
County-Wide Section 203 Study
Section 203 of the Water Resources Development Act was amended to let non-Federal sponsors conduct feasibility studies that serve as the basis for authorization of new water resources projects, such as flood tunnels. But acceptance of the results is at the discretion of the ASA (CW). One objective of the presentation: to get the ASA(CW) to partner Harris County on a County-wide flood risk study.
The county pitched the partnership as:
A potential “pilot study for Justice40”
Climate change preparedness
Empowering vulnerable communities to withstand and recover from flood events.
Justice40 is a Biden initiative, announced within his first few weeks in office. It uses every lever at his disposal “to advance environmental justice and spur economic opportunity for disadvantaged communities. The “40” refers to Biden’s promise to deliver at least 40 percent of the overall benefits from Federal investments in climate and clean energy to disadvantaged communities. One of the priorities: mitigation initiatives that reduce or eliminate the risk of repetitive flooding.
Halls Bayou Section 118 Study
According to the presentation, the Federal government had a project to study flood-risk management on Halls Bayou from 1990 to 2016 when it was “de-authorized.” The county wants to restart it. Section 118 refers to “Pilot programs on the formulation of Corps of Engineers’ projects in … economically disadvantaged communities.”
Harris County wants the Corps to include Halls on its list of ten nationwide pilot studies for such communities. HCFCD points out that Halls has the highest percentage of Low-to-Moderate Income residents of any watershed in the county (71%). Halls has a poverty rate of 28% and a social vulnerability index of 0.85 out of 1.00. Halls also has frequent, severe, repetitive flooding.
At one time, HCFCD cancelled Halls’ Bayou studies because they all came back with Benefit/Cost Ratios below 1.0. That means costs exceeded benefits. HCFCD hopes to restart those in 2022. Section 118 gives the ASA (CW) a way to apply other criteria that compensate for a low BCR in disadvantaged areas.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 7/7/22
1773 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/20220707-Screen-Shot-2022-07-07-at-12.32.19-PM-2.jpg?fit=1200%2C737&ssl=17371200adminadmin2022-07-07 18:31:582022-07-07 18:33:16HCFCD Asks for Army Corps Help with Tunnels, Halls Bayou, Addicks/Barker
On 6/28/22, the Harris County Community Resilience Flood Task Force proposed yet another formula for allocating potentially billions of dollars in future flood-mitigation funding. It purports to objectively calculate the benefits received by different areas. But it doesn’t in any conventional sense. And therefore, the results can be deceptively counter-intuitive.
In each example below, I’ll hold two of the three variables constant. That makes it easy to see whether “benefit” varies in a predictable direction. And whether that matches what people expect when they hear the word “benefit.”
Cost Example
The value of “10” applied to Risk in each case represents a 10% annual chance of flooding.
If youhold risk and population constant, while increasing cost…
Population = 5000, Risk = 10 and Cost = $100,000, then Benefit = 2
Population = 5000, Risk = 10, and Cost = $1,000,000, then Benefit = 20
…benefit increases by spending morewithoutreducing risk! A taxpayer nightmare!
Population Example
If you hold cost and risk constant, while increasing population…
Population = 2000, Risk = 10, and Cost = $1 million, then Benefit = 50
Population = 5000, Risk = 10, and Cost = $1 million, then Benefit = 20
…benefit decreases by helpingmore people with the same dollars! Again, counter-intuitive.
Both takeaways are confusing. What is this formula measuring?!
I would argue that, in a flood context, most people strongly associate the word “benefit” with “risk reduction.”
But this formula doesn’t measure risk reduction. And it doesn’t measure efficiency either. It measures per capita investment associated with a certain level of flood risk and calls that “Benefit.”
So, the more people you help with any given sum, the more the benefit goes down. Voila! That makes it look as though the highly populated watersheds (that have received the overwhelming majority of prior investments) have received little benefit. And that may be the point of this formula. It will send even more money to those same areas.
In logic, they call this the fallacy of incomplete evidence – more commonly known as cherry-picking. You cherry pick data that favors your argument and ignore the rest. For instance, consider the image below.
Brays Bayou at Calhoun, photographed May 2021.Note abundance of multi-story apartments.
The total population in some areas includes many people in tall apartment buildings or high-rises. For many of them, flooding may be more inconvenient than financially devastating. Yet the formula assumes all people suffer equally.
The formula provides the appearance of objectivity and fairness. But it masks important information by lumping everything into a single number.
But the proponents of this formula don’t even want to discuss numbers. They want to render the results as heat maps, layered with Social Vulnerability Index, LMI and other data guaranteed to mask and perpetuate the lopsided distribution of flood-mitigation funds.
Omitting Benefits to Structures
By defining Benefit as the cost per person to achieve a certain level of flood risk, the formula omits any benefit to structures. That’s the traditional way to define the benefit of a flood-mitigation project. You measure “the value of damages avoided.” Whether one person lives in a house or two people live there, the cost to protect those people and that home remains the same.
For instance, widening a channel can reduce flood risk for a house. But with the proposed formula, that home and its value no longer count – only the number of people living within it. So, doubling the number of people in a representative home cuts the Benefit of a flood mitigation project in half.
Conclusions
The formula is a vast oversimplification. It omits valuable information such as avoided damages.
It’s also confusing and semantically deceptive in that results vary in counter-intuitive directions.
Yet the majority of the Community Resilience Flood Task Force proposes using it to help guide (potentially) billions in future flood-mitigation investments. That could hurt taxpayers, flood victims, future bonds and the credibility of local government.
The formula can deceive people into making bad flood-mitigation investments. But in this case, there’s no Securities & Exchange Commission to protect investors. Only the ballot box.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 7/6/22
1772 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/20210520-RJR_7082.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=18001200adminadmin2022-07-06 20:47:392022-07-07 08:48:23Formula for Allocating Future Flood-Mitigation Funding Deceives
Today, 7/5/22, marked the beginning of the end for the last of the three remaining townhome complexes on Marina Drive in Forest Cove. Demolition began at 4:45 this afternoon on the complex nearest the Forest Cove community center. The job foreman estimates that removal of the two complexes shown below could take a week or more. By then, the third complex nearest the Forest Cove swimming pool should also be ready for demolition. Back in mid-June, Harris County Flood Control scheduled it for demolition on 7/14/22. So by the end of this month, Forest Cove could look very different.
Pictures Taken 7/5/22
The two complexes that started undergoing demolition today. These back up to the new Houston Parks Board Trail that will connect Kingwood with Precinct 3’s Edgewater Park at the NE corner of 59 and the West Fork.
Hurricane Harvey destroyed the townhomes almost five years ago, when approximately 240,000 cubic feet per second of stormwater inundated the homes to the third floors.
The homes became structurally unsound as you can see below.
Destruction wrought by Harvey.
HCFCD began buyouts of the 14 townhome complexes in this area back in 2019. The District completed 80% of the buyouts by February 2020. They expected to complete the remainder by the end of that year. But completing the buyouts took much longer than expected. This story explains why. Basically, HCFCD cannot tear town a complex until it has bought out all units within the complex. And some owners had left the area without forwarding addresses.
First bite into the first of three remaining complexes late this afternoon.The second bite took out the corner of the structure.Demolition will resume in the morning.
Once prized for their river views, seclusion, and laid-back lifestyle, the remaining townhomes will come down this month and then HCFCD will let the area return to nature. It’s not clear at this time whether the county has plans to extend Edgewater Park this far.
More pictures and news to follow as the project progresses.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 7/5/22
1771 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/20220705-DJI_0071.jpg?fit=1200%2C799&ssl=17991200adminadmin2022-07-05 18:46:042022-07-05 18:50:14Beginning of End for Last of Forest Cove Townhomes
HCFCD Asks for Army Corps Help with Tunnels, Halls Bayou, Addicks/Barker
In June 2022, Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) pitched the Army Corps (actually the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, referred to as ASA(CW)) for help with three large projects. They included Flood Tunnels; Halls Bayou; and the Addicks and Barker Reservoirs. This leave-behind summarizes the presentation.
Setting the Stage
The presentation begins with a history of the relationship between the Army Corps and HCFCD dating back to 1937. It references past joint projects such as work on the Addicks and Barker Reservoirs; and Brays, White Oak, Little Vince, Cypress, Greens and Sims Bayous.
It also references projects not yet completed such as work on White Oak and Hunting Bayous, and Clear Creek. Finally, it looks forward to future collaboration on Buffalo Bayou, Halls Bayou and a County Wide-Study that “lifts up and empowers our diverse communities to thrive.”
The intro contains graphics that summarize:
The leave-behind then makes three “asks” corresponding with each of the three major projects.
Buffalo Bayou and Tributaries Resiliency Study
The first ask is for help “finding the right solution for Addicks and Barker Reservoirs.” It talks about managing residual risk and liability. Specifically, it asks for support through the completion of the Corps’ Buffalo Bayou and Tributaries Resiliency Study.
It alludes to policies and processes impeding needed progress. Then it says, we must blaze a trail for a new equitable flood risk management paradigm.
An engineer familiar with Buffalo Bayou told me that the study had been cancelled at one time because of a poor Benefit/Cost Ratio. It wasn’t because, as you often hear, that home values were low. It was because land acquisition costs were so high. Possible workarounds: several proposed “innovations” including:
The last update of this study on the Corps’ website is from late 2020. The final report has not yet been released. This post from 2020 summarizes the findings of the interim report.
County-Wide Section 203 Study
Section 203 of the Water Resources Development Act was amended to let non-Federal sponsors conduct feasibility studies that serve as the basis for authorization of new water resources projects, such as flood tunnels. But acceptance of the results is at the discretion of the ASA (CW). One objective of the presentation: to get the ASA(CW) to partner Harris County on a County-wide flood risk study.
The county pitched the partnership as:
Justice40 is a Biden initiative, announced within his first few weeks in office. It uses every lever at his disposal “to advance environmental justice and spur economic opportunity for disadvantaged communities. The “40” refers to Biden’s promise to deliver at least 40 percent of the overall benefits from Federal investments in climate and clean energy to disadvantaged communities. One of the priorities: mitigation initiatives that reduce or eliminate the risk of repetitive flooding.
Halls Bayou Section 118 Study
According to the presentation, the Federal government had a project to study flood-risk management on Halls Bayou from 1990 to 2016 when it was “de-authorized.” The county wants to restart it. Section 118 refers to “Pilot programs on the formulation of Corps of Engineers’ projects in … economically disadvantaged communities.”
Harris County wants the Corps to include Halls on its list of ten nationwide pilot studies for such communities. HCFCD points out that Halls has the highest percentage of Low-to-Moderate Income residents of any watershed in the county (71%). Halls has a poverty rate of 28% and a social vulnerability index of 0.85 out of 1.00. Halls also has frequent, severe, repetitive flooding.
At one time, HCFCD cancelled Halls’ Bayou studies because they all came back with Benefit/Cost Ratios below 1.0. That means costs exceeded benefits. HCFCD hopes to restart those in 2022. Section 118 gives the ASA (CW) a way to apply other criteria that compensate for a low BCR in disadvantaged areas.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 7/7/22
1773 Days since Hurricane Harvey
Formula for Allocating Future Flood-Mitigation Funding Deceives
How do you fairly allocate flood-mitigation funds? Voters have argued about that since the day Harris County Commissioners Court redefined the conventional meaning of “equitable” with the first equity formula in 2019. Since then the formula has changed several times to ensure low-to-moderate income (LMI) areas continue to receive the lion’s share of mitigation funding, even as some commissioners claim LMI areas get none.
On 6/28/22, the Harris County Community Resilience Flood Task Force proposed yet another formula for allocating potentially billions of dollars in future flood-mitigation funding. It purports to objectively calculate the benefits received by different areas. But it doesn’t in any conventional sense. And therefore, the results can be deceptively counter-intuitive.
Problems With Formula
The formula shows increased benefit when:
The formula is…
On July 2, 2022, I posted about a variety of issues that affect the validity of this formula. Admittedly, the post got complex. So let me give you two simple examples that dramatize these problems.
In each example below, I’ll hold two of the three variables constant. That makes it easy to see whether “benefit” varies in a predictable direction. And whether that matches what people expect when they hear the word “benefit.”
Cost Example
The value of “10” applied to Risk in each case represents a 10% annual chance of flooding.
If you hold risk and population constant, while increasing cost…
…benefit increases by spending more without reducing risk! A taxpayer nightmare!
Population Example
If you hold cost and risk constant, while increasing population…
…benefit decreases by helping more people with the same dollars! Again, counter-intuitive.
Both takeaways are confusing. What is this formula measuring?!
I would argue that, in a flood context, most people strongly associate the word “benefit” with “risk reduction.”
But this formula doesn’t measure risk reduction. And it doesn’t measure efficiency either. It measures per capita investment associated with a certain level of flood risk and calls that “Benefit.”
So, the more people you help with any given sum, the more the benefit goes down. Voila! That makes it look as though the highly populated watersheds (that have received the overwhelming majority of prior investments) have received little benefit. And that may be the point of this formula. It will send even more money to those same areas.
In logic, they call this the fallacy of incomplete evidence – more commonly known as cherry-picking. You cherry pick data that favors your argument and ignore the rest. For instance, consider the image below.
The total population in some areas includes many people in tall apartment buildings or high-rises. For many of them, flooding may be more inconvenient than financially devastating. Yet the formula assumes all people suffer equally.
The formula provides the appearance of objectivity and fairness. But it masks important information by lumping everything into a single number.
But the proponents of this formula don’t even want to discuss numbers. They want to render the results as heat maps, layered with Social Vulnerability Index, LMI and other data guaranteed to mask and perpetuate the lopsided distribution of flood-mitigation funds.
Omitting Benefits to Structures
By defining Benefit as the cost per person to achieve a certain level of flood risk, the formula omits any benefit to structures. That’s the traditional way to define the benefit of a flood-mitigation project. You measure “the value of damages avoided.” Whether one person lives in a house or two people live there, the cost to protect those people and that home remains the same.
For instance, widening a channel can reduce flood risk for a house. But with the proposed formula, that home and its value no longer count – only the number of people living within it. So, doubling the number of people in a representative home cuts the Benefit of a flood mitigation project in half.
Conclusions
The formula is a vast oversimplification. It omits valuable information such as avoided damages.
It’s also confusing and semantically deceptive in that results vary in counter-intuitive directions.
Finally, as I previously posted, the formula is not valid. It masks several apples-to-oranges comparisons.
Yet the majority of the Community Resilience Flood Task Force proposes using it to help guide (potentially) billions in future flood-mitigation investments. That could hurt taxpayers, flood victims, future bonds and the credibility of local government.
The formula can deceive people into making bad flood-mitigation investments. But in this case, there’s no Securities & Exchange Commission to protect investors. Only the ballot box.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 7/6/22
1772 Days since Hurricane Harvey
Beginning of End for Last of Forest Cove Townhomes
Today, 7/5/22, marked the beginning of the end for the last of the three remaining townhome complexes on Marina Drive in Forest Cove. Demolition began at 4:45 this afternoon on the complex nearest the Forest Cove community center. The job foreman estimates that removal of the two complexes shown below could take a week or more. By then, the third complex nearest the Forest Cove swimming pool should also be ready for demolition. Back in mid-June, Harris County Flood Control scheduled it for demolition on 7/14/22. So by the end of this month, Forest Cove could look very different.
Pictures Taken 7/5/22
Hurricane Harvey destroyed the townhomes almost five years ago, when approximately 240,000 cubic feet per second of stormwater inundated the homes to the third floors.
The homes became structurally unsound as you can see below.
HCFCD began buyouts of the 14 townhome complexes in this area back in 2019. The District completed 80% of the buyouts by February 2020. They expected to complete the remainder by the end of that year. But completing the buyouts took much longer than expected. This story explains why. Basically, HCFCD cannot tear town a complex until it has bought out all units within the complex. And some owners had left the area without forwarding addresses.
Harvey destroyed these townhomes so thoroughly that FEMA chose to film a video about the power of Harvey here.
Once prized for their river views, seclusion, and laid-back lifestyle, the remaining townhomes will come down this month and then HCFCD will let the area return to nature. It’s not clear at this time whether the county has plans to extend Edgewater Park this far.
More pictures and news to follow as the project progresses.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 7/5/22
1771 Days since Hurricane Harvey