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County, Corps of Engineers to fund levee study
By T.J. Aulds
The Daily News
Published October 7, 2009
TEXAS CITY — While the levee system that rings Texas City and La Marque held during Hurricane Ike, the storm surge came within inches of topping the 17-mile-long flood wall. At 23 feet at its highest point, the 17-mile levee system was built to withstand the storm surge of a Category 3 or small Category 4 hurricane.
City and county officials would like the federal government to consider strengthening the levee to withstand a Category 5 storm.
Before any work could be done, though, a study of the levee system must be completed, and Congress has refused to fund that study, Texas City Mayor Matt Doyle said.
“We’re not talking about a $100 million study,” he said. “It’s $100,000 to protect $5.816 billion in industrial assets.”
About 7 percent of the fuel the nation consumes every day comes from the Texas City petrochemical facilities, including refineries and pipelines, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
“Imagine a storm that breaches the levee,” Doyle said. “What that would do to gas prices in this country? You’d see $4 a gallon gas for a very long time.”
The money for the $100,000 study might come from local tax dollars, as local officials hope Congress would consider funding $250 million to raise the levee.
County Judge Jim Yarbrough said the county at first considered splitting the tab with Texas City. However, County Engineer Mike Fitzgerald found half the funding through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Planning Assistance Study, he said. Yarbrough said the county still would pick up the other half of the bill.
Fitzgerald said the county is working on an outline for the study and expects the Army Corps of Engineers to begin in about 60 days. He anticipates the study to be done by May.
While the study will determine the most effective way to strengthen the levee, Fitzgerald said the quicker and possibly less expensive alternative might be to install a 5- to 8-foot wall along the levee system.
Even if the check were written today, it would take three years of studies and environmental assessments before construction could begin and another 10 years of construction, Fitzgerald said.
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At A Glance
Texas City-La Marque Hurricane Levee System
• Construction started: 1962
• Construction completed: 1987 *
• Costs: $56 million
• Miles of earthen levee: 15.7
• Cubic yards of earthen levee: 8 million
• Miles of concrete flood walls with gates: 1.3
• Area protected: 36 square miles
• Value of property protected: $5,816,046,292 industrial; $1,664,913,091 residential, general business
* Bulk of levee construction completed in 1983. Installation of flood pumps completed by 1987.
SOURCES: Galveston County Engineer’s Office, Galveston Central Appraisal District
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