Another Trinity River Vision Opinion

This morning's Fort Worth Star-Telegram letters to the editor had another letter that tells me I'm not alone in noticing something is a bit askew with how this project has come to be.

I now realize I'm not the only one who noticed that this started out solely as an economic development. A plan to build a little lake at the north end of downtown Fort Worth.

Funding became a problem.

So, a scheme was hatched to turn the Vision into a flood control project. The Army Corps of Engineers signed on. Fort Worth's U.S. Representative, Kay Granger, helped turn the Vision into a classic Pork Barrel project after her inexperienced son was hired to run the Vision. There were some complaints of nepotism.

Eventually the Vision added canals, a flood diversion channel and wetlands restoration. The price tag, as in the $ the rest of America will be paying to build this, has increased from the original Vision.

As for the flood control part that got the Army Corps of Engineers involved. They'd already been involved and you already paid for giant flood control levees, built to protect the same area as the Vision, after devastating floods 60 years ago. The levees have done their job all that time. But now the Vision will replace them with a diversion channel.

Below is the letter from Layla Caraway of Haltom City. Haltom City is a suburb of Fort Worth where killer flooding and home destruction has taken place several times in recent years. So far no Vision has occurred to fix those problems, which is currently an issue due to the expected heavy flooding from Hurricane Ike tomorrow. Meanwhile millions of your dollars are scheduled to be spent fixing a non-existent flooding problem.

Layla Caraway's letter.....

Fix real flooding problems, too

I attended the “public” signing ceremony of the Trinity River Vision project last Friday — notably the public was missing — and watched with great sadness as very powerful and wealthy individuals praised each other for getting this almost $600 million project going with “lightning speed.”

I can’t help but ask why we are allowing a few people to affect so many others people’s futures? What about the hundreds of residents in our county still displaced because of last year’s floods? Many experienced repeated flooding, rapid erosion and a tornado.

No solutions, no help, no money, just stress, rhetoric and red tape. How do you explain to them we cannot help you move on, rebuild, or start over when a few miles down the road we are going to move bridges and levees (that have so far protected us for 60 years)? Reroute the river and build a city right in the middle of it?

Have we not learned anything from experience? Man doesn’t control a river, no matter who you are or how much planning you do. Calling it a flood-control project doesn’t make it one. It just gets you federal dollars. And combining it with one to get it pushed through lacks integrity. How does this economic development project, later dubbed as flood control, take precedence over the projects that all are aware are dangerous ongoing issues?

We have creeks that are out of control, causing havoc in many cities, but instead we will focus on revitalizing the river. Yes, the river that connects to some of those very dangerous creeks. But I have been told no one upstream or downstream should be affected. Nor any wildlife harmed.

We can no longer afford to neglect the waterways in our cities. I don’t have any objections to bettering Fort Worth. It just seems if that much money is available, the same amount should be for true flood control projects and for the residents whose lives and properties are threatened when it rains — the public, those who will probably never set foot on anything built at Trinity Uptown.

— Layla Caraway, Haltom City