More Water Whoa's

Water is not the only thing rising in Tarrant County. The drainage fees are once again.

Since 2006 the fee has been raised three times. Does it still flood in the same places when it rains? Do people still drown in these locations? The answer is yes.

Last week the Fort Worth Star-Telegram daily newspaper stated "Fort Worth will have to delay $142.7 million in roads, drainage projects and other long-term capital spending until at least 2011 and maybe as late as 2015 because the city can’t afford to take on that much long-term debt."

Today the Star-Telegram says the city wants to increase the fee, again.

"When it was installed, it probably wasn’t big enough to carry all the rain that fell in the neighborhood. And as the city grew, the problem only got worse. More rooftops, more roads and more parking lots mean more runoff. These days, parts of Arlington Heights flood whenever there’s a heavy rain.

The biggest factor in the fee increase is the cost of fixing existing flooding problems, many of which were caused by imprudent development and made worse by neglect.

But the city lacked modern standards for handling storm water from new development, even as the city’s size and population nearly doubled during the 1990s and early 2000s.
"They hadn’t been revised since like, 1964, and here we are one of the fastest-growing cities in the country..."

Fort Worth has $1 billion dollars worth of backlog flooding issues. Isn't $1 billion dollars about what the unnecessary Trinity River Vision is costing?