What's more important?

Flooding or recreation?

A program sponspored by the COG and TCEQ.  WHAT could possibly go wrong with that?

A public meeting to discuss the preliminary results of the Recreation Use-Attainability Analysis (RUAA) Study for numerous streams in North Central Texas will be held August 16, 2011. The meeting starts at 1:00 p.m. at the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG), Centerpoint II (Tom Vandergriff Conference Center) Regional Forum Room, First Floor. The NCTCOG offices are located at 616 Six Flags Drive, Arlington, Texas 76011.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality will be soliciting public comment on a Recreational Use Attainability Analysis Report for a project conducted on streams in the Trinity River basin in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. If you would like to comment on the report or have information on current or past recreation activities occurring on the water body, comments will be accepted until September 9, 2011. The report is located on the TCEQ website at http://www.tceq.texas.gov/waterquality/standards/ruaas/ multitrinity08. Comments can be submitted via email to Joe Martin at Joe.Martin@tceq.texas.gov or mailed to Joe Martin, MC-234, P.O. Box 13087, Austin, TX 78711.

Please share this information with other interested parties.

List of Streams
Sycamore Creek, 0806E
Cottonwood Branch, 0822A
Grapevine Creek, 0822B
Walnut Creek, 0838C
Copart Branch Mountain Creek, 0841E
Cottonwood Creek, 0841F
Dalworth Creek, 0841G
Delaware Creek, 0841H
Estelle Creek, 0841J
Fish Creek, 0841K
Kirby Creek, 0841N
West Irving Creek, 0841U

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WHO floods?

And WHO makes the call?

In the articles about all the states being flooded by the Mississippi River we noticed they said the same thing we heard in the Up a Creek movie.

One major factor at work is a seemingly innocuous one: concrete. Arthur Schmidt, a hydrologist and engineer at the University of Illinois, said paving over soil that would naturally absorb rainwater means that water has to go somewhere else — into the efficient network of drainage pipes beneath cities and towns that keeps streets dry.

"That issue of paving our towns isn't just right by the river, it's anywhere that you have a stream that eventually connects to that river, which is a huge portion of the country," Schmidt said.

Are you listening, Fort Worth?  Do you see what's happening to these people?  The Trinity River runs through the heart of Texas including but not limited to Fort Worth, Arlington and Dallas.  How many people live along this river and the tributaries?  The numbers are staggering and remember, all the political promises in the world can't stop the rain.  (And we wouldn't want to be standing next to one in the lightning). The Trinity River Vision is more than just a threat to your pocketbook.

An article on MSNBC might put it in perspective for you.  What if it was YOUR house they were flooding to save someone else?  What happens to food prices if all the farmland is flooded? 

"So I guess it's all about saving the rich and burying the poor?" he asked.

In addition to threatening densely populated areas, lower Mississippi flooding was a risk for as many as eight refineries and at least one nuclear power plant alongside the river.

The Army Corps of Engineers has taken drastic steps to prevent flooding. Engineers blew up a levee in Missouri — inundating an estimated 200 square miles of farmland and damaging or destroying about 100 homes — to take the pressure off floodwalls protecting the town of Cairo, Ill., population 2,800.

Bless them all.

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