Travis County Commissioners Court
April 12, 2005
Item 13
Let's call up 13, to consider and take appropriate action on walnut creek erosion plan.
>> all right. In the time we've had, we've pulled together as much information as we could on the situation. And we'll be making some recommendation, but it's not with a real rich body of knowledge on the subject. So I want you to take it with that in mind. What we'd like to do first is kind of lay out the programs that do exist already. And to give you some context. And does it fit in with what we are doing. And from there we go into what specific recommendations we would have for the walnut creek ion. I want you to be clear in your own mind why we do that. And within that context I want to go on and describe walnut specifically. So with that i'll have stacy and melinda describe what we have been doing for the last three to four years with fema and with the corps of engineers.
>> basically there's three types of grant programs that we've been doing with fema for floodplain buyout. We've got the hazard mitigation grant program. That's a post-disaster program when we're federally declared a disaster. To date we've got 44 properties. All of the properties we've got to date were through this program. The other types of grant programs are called flood mitigation assistance. These are small grants through the water development board. We've received a grant, I think, to buy eight properties. We received one grant that wasn't related to a disaster to buy six to eight properties, and that carries a 25% match like the others. And we've applied for one more grant, a new program called predisaster mitigation that fema started last year. However, there are only 80 properties that really competed. It's nationally competitive and these tend to be properties that have flooded numerous times. To give you an example, there's 6,325 structures within the floodplain of Travis County.
>> in all of Travis County?
>> in all of Travis County.
>> 625,000?
>> 6025 structures.
>> I know how that can be.
>> another thing we would like to add, and just emphasize, is that any kind of grant funding that we have ever received for buyout was related to flood, and we're all tied to federal programs but consider cost benefit very carefully and that's how they compete. Which means when we're buying in a low income subdivision, like timber creek, the properties -- they've been flooded numerous times and they're not expensive properties and so it's easy for them to meet the cost benefit standards. When we get in to Lake Travis where we are right now, we have a hard time meeting these standards. Or typical Austin residential homes, unless they flooded several times, may be hard to get buyout funding for.
>> as a rule of thumb for the fema buyouts, it's the 25 year floodplain, which is well within the 100 year.
>> all right. So the first program, the first programmatic part that we do is related to our flood program, flood insurance program, and our ability to issue permits to all development in Travis County based on whether or not they're in the floodplain. So we have a program called flood insurance. By virtue of that and by virtue of the fema's assistance, we can do buyouts, primarily for flood damage and primarily for the structures within the 25-year flood area. That's smaller than the 100 year. That's one program. The other program we're involved with is with the corps of engineers, with the n oncreek -- onion creek basin. And that's a separate program. Describe that one.
>> basically the corps studies are very long studies. They have four phases. They start out in reconnaissance, and a cost share, 50/50 cost share feasibility study. If a project -- if the corps identifies a project and feasibility, it goes into engineering design and then finally construction of the project. These can be funded up to 65% federal and as little as 35% local. Again, these -- the cost benefit ratio on these projects is the 25 year floodplain. Anything above and beyond that, the local sponsor would have to pay for.
>> and what criteria does the corps consider now to determine feasibility?
>> they look at all sorts of things. Now, understand the corps is also looking at structural improvements, dams and levees and all that stuff as well as buyout. On your options are widened, but they also -- and they do a fairly complex analysis of economic benefit. Quite often what happens, though, is a recommendation is for buyout over structure. I would say that's more predominant than what we've seen in onion creek, especially in the target areas and unincorporated areas, they would recommend buyout over structural improvement.
>> do we know how they arrive at those decisions.
>> it's very complicated. They have an economist, they consider socioeconomic benefits, recreational benefits.
>> is the answer to my question no? Do we need to contact the corps and get that information?
>> we can get that information for you. It's a fairly complex formula. The other thing with this, the corps, is there is condemnation involved. Remember, the fema was purely voluntary. If the residents do not want to participate, they don't have to, we go on down to others. In the corps, though, you can use condemnation to buy because it's mandatory. They move out and they force the removal of properties in the floodplain. We have not yet -- we are approaching the point where we're going to be asking congress for money for the projects. Up to this point it's been purely study. We've been in this process now for over three years. We're now to the point where the corps of engineers has conclusions that they can recommend to the congress at budget for the larger -- the actual remedy. But in short the corps program is a long duration. You have to hang with them over a series of years to get the studies done to justify the congressional appropriations. It's a much more complex process, but thorough. Thorough in terms of it looks at the entire watershed, not just in particular one area. If they do the whole thing, they do it very well, but it takes time.
>> it's important to note that the purpose of these studies, the primary purpose, flood damage reduction.
>> all right. We have not mentioned in any of those two programs, either fema or corps of engineers, erosion, because that is not the purpose of either one of those programs. They're trying to get people out of the harm's way who are living in the floodplain. Finally, we have one program that we approached, but we did not execute on, and that was the erosion along the colorado river where we had public infrastructure at stake because of erosion. And that was the first time that the corps ever considered joining -- that the court ever considered joining in the corps of engineers in an erosion project. Let me have someone describe that for you.
>> okay. I'll take it. You're talking about the garfield project.
>> correct.
>> and john kuhl can fill us in a little more if I don't describe it well, but basically we're talking about a community with a road and infrastructure that was threatened, and so the corps of engineers came out several years ago and met with our staff and analyzed it and offered to submit a project, as I understand it, in cooperation with us. So we brought it to court looking for matching funds to do a study, and then to look to the corps to tell us whether we could do something to repair the banks of the colorado river, to I guess preserve the access to the community, the road, as well as the water system.
>> there's a single in and out entrance into the community of garfield and there is also a water supply well there run by garfield water supply corporation. And essentially it was just a huge high bank on the colorado river. It got to the point of arriving at a cost, 35% share for the county, brought it to the budget process, I think it was 1999 if I recall correctly. And the court didn't see fit to fund it that particular year and it's kind of been shelved for right now.
>> so we have three basic programs where we have business going on or near business. The fema buyout, the corps of engineers buyout program literally along onion creek, a program we did not execute, but we came close to that was related to preservation of public infrastructure because of erosion. Now, with those three in place we overlay walnut creek. And we went out and did four elevations on all of the properties that were mentioned last week or two weeks ago to find out do they fit in any of these categories. We found one property of those that -- along that target area that may qualify for the buyout program, the fema program. I say may because we still have to verify some other stuff. It was not -- and we also did a survey asking the residents whether they would voluntarily want to participate in a buyout program should one become available. This one group did say they would be interested in a buyout and may well qualify if all the data turns out to be correct. Unfortunately, what our floor elevation survey shows for the most part, however, is that these properties are not in the definition of the existing programs. They're not within that 25-year floodplain. They have erosion and none of our current programs really address that issue. So it's a situation in where you're probably talking about a new program, for the most part. And a new program that deals with -- that deals with properties that aren't in the traditional buyout program that we have been doing up to this point. So you probably would not expect to get a federal participation in this buyout along onion creek -- along walnut creek, unless we watched a program with the corps of engineers, and in their information it came to the conclusion that some of these properties might qualify for buyout. But that is a long-term prospect. The city of Austin did ask the corps of engineers to include walnut creek as part of their watershed studies. The corps agreed to put it on their list of priorities. It is not funded for this year. It's probably at least another fiscal year away of getting congressional funding for the study part of it. If that happens, they will be looking for the city of Austin and Travis County to financially participate in that study. Keep that in mind because it becomes relevant here in a minute. The one other program we have is with tceq on the 200-dollar special environment project, sep money. We know that that can be spent on erosion mitigation, but it cannot be spent on studies. So if we get to the point where we want to put that amount of money into a structural repair or something like that, it is eligible for that purpose. We have a letter from tceq that says it would be. But to get there you are going to have to spend some money to define what it is you want to do with the money and probably do some engineering design. So we're to the point where you have a couple of options. One is to proceed to an ad hoc buyout program, 100% funded by Travis County with select properties along walnut creek. And you make up the guidelines for that program. Most likely you will not qualify for any federal presentation. And I would recommend to the court that you do set up some sort of guidelines to decide what it is and how it is you're going to select one property and not another. And to what extent you're going to participate in a buyout program. Is it going to be the 100%, 50%, what is it that you want to pay for in that buyout program. So it would be a new program. I think you also, just like what I call the substandard road program, we have 300 miles of road out there that were not built to county standards, but we fixed that by creating a program, and we made a certain amount of money available to fix not all of it, but some of it. So I think that's what you're talking about here. You're trying to get a program because there's likely to be a lot of properties in Travis County that are suffering some sort of erosion on their property. And you will not likely have a program that's going to fix all those programs. You want to be clear in your mind about not only what kind of program you want to launch, but how much money you want to dedicate to that purpose. And we'd be happy to work with the corps in setting up that program. The other issue is for this particular problem on walnut creek, it would probably make sense for the corps to allocate somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 to $200,000 to do an engineering survey of this problem on walnut creek in such a way that we can continue to use even the sep money from tceq smartly. This cannot be done, just go out and throw some money down on the ground. I think you'll end up with perhaps a worst situation by putting in some walls not knowing what the consequences of that might be, just like the bypass channel, it worked for a period of time, it is no longer working. Well, what happened? I think you ought to look at that as an example of what could go wrong by just going in and doing what you think will be a remedy, only to find out that it wasn't what -- the net result didn't last. So perhaps in our study, we would look at what the city might have to do for a bypass channel and what else might have to be done on the other side along these properties that are at risk. So we would suggest that you spend some money to do that study, even to enable the use of the tceq money. On the other side of that, however, I think you will be much smarter for deciding whether to proceed with the buyout program or to put money in other type of structural improvements along that bank that's eroding right now. That's kind of laying out the framework for a decision. And we have, like I say, in two weeks we've gathered enough information from various experts, surveys in the field, to have perhaps a reconnaissance level knowledge of a problem. Our reservations is we do not have a resident expert and we can't say we know what the problem is and how to solve it. And I think that's where we would hope to hire somebody who does have that expertise to assist us in proceeding from this point forward.
>> it sounds to me just from listening to all of the presentations of the information that the common denominator here is erosion. And so how to deal with that issue first, and then see if it means going into buyout and how we would approach that. But it sounds like the erosion issue is what needs to be done. In the past I know they've gone through the corps of engineers, even the one at boggy creek and govalle, which I agree with you, I wish they hadn't laid all that concrete. That's how they did it in those days. But that too was -- I don't know that there was buyout, that issue, but I don't remember. I know that the erosion is what I see going from there.
>> I think any money that the county spends looking at the erosion and looking at the hydrology of walnut creek could go toward any match the county might have to make if we involved the corps of engineers in a future date. We would hope not to just spend our money 100%, but be able to leverage that with the corps of engineers, but again, that's probably at least one fiscal year away, but I think we can smartly spend our money in order to qualify it as a match later.
>> joe, you brought several things to light in few of what we've heard from the community who I think are held hostage to possibly losing their homes to the creek. The ad hoc portion of this program to possibly buy out those residents who are in harm's way or in danger right now of losing a property I think is something that i'd like to see that we go in the other direction because I think that is in my opinion immediate relief. However, in looking at the big picture with the army corps of engineers getting involved and maybe accepting walnut creek into the study is long range. As you've stated. My question is to leverage maybe the experience of a buyout ad hoc program, if that's what the corps wants to do, to get other partners involved to assist in that buyout, such as the city of Austin. I think the bypass channel, a lot of other things that have been done, it's not just the responsibility of Travis County, you have other jurisdictions that I think played a role in part of the problem that I think that occurs in this particular watershed. My question to you is has the fiscal, financial approach been presented and shared with the city of Austin city council, city manager as far as what we're trying to here to bring some immediate relief while also looking at the long range remedy to this problem? And further, going into this to look at how many pieces of property are in the floodplain? I think somebody said it was six thousand some-odd? It would be good to know if there are future development projects that are in line or in tune with a lot of these flooding problems that we are experiencing as far as preventive type situations so we can maybe be ahead of it instead of being react active, to be pro -- reactive, to be proactive. It would be good to know where these are, I think. We've identified them, but what are the major projects that may cause similar types of problems and we have to be right here again addressing the similar type of problems. The question is has the city of Austin been informed to any shape, form or degree other than offering maybe some technical support to ensure that they may be asked to help us finance that if a buyout -- ad hoc buyout program is the way the court should proceed. Has anything been shared with the city as far as sharing some responsibility?
>> I certainly have not spoken with the councilmembers or with the city manager about their participation in a buyout program. I have not.
>> john, have you had any contact with the city?
>> not with the elected officials. I certainly have with their technical staff at the highest levels. And they've informed me just what you indicated there, that they were happy to help in a technical way, but we're not at the staff level able or willing to say that they would be a fiscal party. It has not gone to the elected body.
>> it has not gone. That's something that we may need to reconsider. I really don't know, but I just think that it's another leverage point. Because joe I think you mentioned a couple of points as well, 50% participation, da, da, da. Since it is an ad hoc program, as you suggested, for the remedies, maybe we could look at that possibility. And I think it very possible.
>> it might be of interest to the Commissioners court to find out what the city's program is.
>> we don't want to reinvent the wheel. They may already have one going. They may be able to use their criteria and evaluation and just appendage a program that already exists.
>> and let's be clear here. This may not be part of the city of Austin's jurisdiction; however, this is not a stand alone section of walnut creek. It connects and there's an upper watershed that is absolutely within the jurisdiction of the city of Austin, and they have had similar kind of problems in the upper part of this. And in fact, we heard testimony from some of our residents the last time they were here that even some of the ways that they were handling some of the diversion of water in the upper part of the watershed might be contributing to problems down below. So I can understand them saying, listen, any kind of jurisdictional issues related to buyout, that's properly yours, but in terms of what's going on in the entirety of the watershed, it seems like we're all partners in here. And a mace to get -- and a place at the table, the city of Austin is starting what will be about a little more than a year-long process related to bonds, which include drainage and flood control issues for the city of Austin. And so I think we need to keep an eye on not only what's happening right here, right now in this part of the jurisdiction, I may have other things that are contributing to what's happening downstream that ought to be brought to the attention of their citizen's bond committee. And I think they have made a request when I visited with mayor wynn last night, of having a Travis County representative. They want representatives from all five counties in the envision central Texas area to weigh in and talk about this. So their bond process is just beginning. I just think we just haven't had the opportunity.
>> they probably need to start their own bond process and address the ones within the city limits. I remember voting for bond projects for drainage before in the city of Austin, and then we can maybe partner with them, address outside of the city limits.
>> certainly partner as well on the entirety of the walnut creek watershed because again, the problem flows from elsewhere.
>> what's the recommendation on source of funding if we pursue the buyouts?
>> this would have to be general fund. I don't think the study, per se, would qualify under the bonds. It would probably come out of reserve. I think I heard christian just say something.
>> well, I mean, we're -- you're right, related to the study, that can't come out of bonds, but we're in the midst of our own citizens bond committee, and it seems like this stuff needs to appropriately be turned over to our citizens bond committee for a more holistic view of this because it is not just the only area that has some issues and we need to bring it up in context. Unfortunately, remember how long it took for boggy creek. I think it had to go through 10 legislative sessions before he was able to secure all the dollars. There is no such thing, as much as we would like it, that there's anything called immediate relief. It doesn't exist. The city is still doing relief on the damage that was done in the 1981 floods, 24 years later, they're still working on it. It's a work in progress.
>> I think we need to find a way for us to go ahead and try to find a solution ourselves. And I think what better than the bonds, the bond committee, and then also talk to the city bond committee to see if we can coordinate.
>> if we had a committee of staff looking at the people -- are we looking at the people that would be on the committee?
>> yeah.
>> can we get two residents to be on this committee? It would be probably to come up with a specific plan. And Commissioner Davis I guess would be, of course, a representative on there for this onement.
>> and I would like to, too, judge, since it's all downstream.
>> that would be fine.
>> so two or three residents? I see one volunteering. Can we give residents a chance to get together and come up with three names for us?
>> yes.
>> why don't we do that? That may be the way we make it.
>> one of our options here, I think the mitigating process where we basically try to figure out what our goals are immediate and long-term, then which ones we can eliminate because they don't fit. And then what we're left with and how to proceed. And the challenge would be to get this done in, i'd say, two to four weeks and not two to four months. Because if you go to the advisory committee, I assume at some point we can go to them with a number even without a strategy, but then why would they -- if this is going against other numbers, why would they approve that? And if our role is just to get the study done, then it immediately becomes a reserve issue or an '06 budget issue for us and the general fund.
>> I think it's a real good suggestion.
>> the other thing is if you engage the city in addition to having the right staff person there, I think you need one of the assistant city managers that covers this area in this kind of project, at least come to one or two meetings and see what the city position will be. And I think this is how we get to the next point.
>> judge, in addition to that, john, if we possibly can, there was a letter from the united states congressman mccaul and part of the continued backup that we had. He did mention an amount of money that you're trying to get through the water resource development act to do certain things. Could we find out where we are on that source of funding, if that's something that we can maybe look readily in this particular year as far as acquiring that fund, where we are on that? Because I haven't heard anything else back from them on that, and I haven't --
>> i'll follow up on that.
>> let's be looking at that and see where we are.
>> I will. I'll follow up on that. Stacy may want to speak to it. He seems to have a good feeling that that particular item was not funded in their fy '06.
>> was not?
>> in their budget.
>> this is the corps study of walnut creek?
>> no, there was a letter. John, if you would share that letter from united states congressman mccaul where they're actually specifying to put walnut creek into -- to come up -- specifically we wrote the language to be sure that walnut creek is included in the water resource development act.
>> I wasn't sure that they were going to have an order this year. I know they've been working on one. We'll certainly look into it.
>> look into it and find what the status of that is and we'll at least know if it's in or at as far as immediate acquisition of bonds.
>> so please find out from tceq whether we can have another, i'd say, probably four, five, six weeks, let them know exactly how that would be spent.
>> we've got until November of this year to get that spent. So it's fine to give an update quarterly, which we will do, and we will touch base with them and let them know what our plans are. I don't think -- if they know we're working on a solution and that the money is going to go to a call that is so closely aligned with what the original purpose was, I suspect we'll be okay. We just need to as always be making progress and showing that. But I will double-check with them and let them know.
>> tceq (indiscernible) that means November of '05.
>> we're supposed to have it all spent by then. That's the way -- it's the regular turn around with that particular funding mechanism.
>> if we could have this committee to do some additional work on this, Commissioner Davis and Gomez for the Commissioners court, four staff members, the residents will appoint three residents to serve on this committee. Our goal will be to further refine the strategy that fits walnut creek. It also will mean that one or more of these homes probably ought to be placed on a hot list because a couple more heavy rains will wash it away between the erosion to the back of the homes, probably so close that it's not safe to stay there. So in the long-term it would be the best way to get on that. I don't know that we can get more done on that today. Any comments from residents? I think this is how we can make the call. That was seconded by Commissioner Davis? Any more discussion? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank y'all.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, April 13, 2005 10:09 AM