CITY-WIDE DRAINAGE SWAT TEAM POSSIBLY BANKROLLED BY HEIGHTS WATERWORKS SALE 
Mayor Turner announced plans for a dramatically monikered Storm Water Action Team at this week’s council meeting, along with 22 projects at the top the program’s initial list, based on metrics of urgency like frequency of 311 calls. The goal of the program is to deal with non-bayou-centric flooding issues like collapsed culverts and junk-clogged drainage ditches; flood czar Steve Costello said after the council meeting that the city wants to resolve the fixable issues at each site within 90 days of a site visit and initial drainage triage. Meagan Flynn writes this week that the $10 million currently budgeted for the program comes mostly from a one-time sale of city land; that land might well be the Heights Waterworks properties at W. 20th and Nicholson streets, which were sold to apartmenteer Alliance in mid-December for a reported $15.2 million. [Houston Press; previously on Swamplot] Draft map of 22 SWAT project locations: City of Houston SWAT program materials
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Only detention ponds will save neighborhoods from flooding. This plan is a joke.
This little projects will help local, neighborhood flooding. My question is this, are ditches and basins that are being cleaned out and repaired – who will maintain them so that in 2050 they are not part of a SWAT program? Most of these issues are from lack of maintenance – either by the City, HCFCD (since the Ditches have HCFCD designations they are in their system) or homeowners (you have to maintain up to the pavement, including removing overgrown weeds in the ditch). I know maintenance is the first part of the budget cut and it’s not a political plus to allocate funds there, but this is what it results in – a $1 in maintenance saves $2.50 in swat programs that highlight projects that should just be day to day work and not news.
This map seems a bit esoteric for the Anglo Arrow to make an appearance. Alas, there it is
Our water bills were increased and there was a tax that supposedly was for drainage, where’s that money going. I pay so many fees and taxes I forget.