Quote:
Originally Posted by lzppjb
I'm hoping the next big project is a tunnel for Shoal Creek.
|
That's a lot harder to accomplish and would cost significantly more, but I am in favor of finding a good partial solution if not necessarily a tunnel. A tunnel could never capture the percentage amount of water needed from what the Shoal Creek basin captures (which is many many times more than Waller Creek) due to size constraints and would have to be sufficiently upstream to do any good for the areas that need it most (downtown).
I think a smarter idea might be developing a series of catchment basins and a series of unique damn designs in tandem with those new catchment basins along with a series of strategic city buybacks and eminent domain of property that would be adversely affected by the catchment basins in the event of a severe flood. That's what we're doing here in Columbia to deal with redeveloping the areas along the creeks that heavily flooded (inc. my neighborhood) and it is actually a very smart idea. What's interesting, I think, is that Columbia and Austin share a great deal geographically: they're both along the edge of a major fault (the Balcones and the eastern fall line) in the terrain, they've both got damned major rivers that are prone to heavy flooding even in light rain, and the creeks that feed them are also prone to heavy flooding. Shoal Creek, in particular, is in almost identical terrain to the creeks that suffered the worst flooding here in Columbia and where these plans city leaders think will lead to a better flood control.