Houston Chronicle by Zach Despart and Jasper Scherer 10/11/2019
The Federal Emergency Management Agency on Friday approved initial funding for a $131 million flood mitigation project that would cut a new channel in downtown Houston and improve several bridges over White Oak Bayou, allowing water to flow freely beneath them during floods.
The new channel, dubbed the North Canal Bypass and first envisioned in the 1970s, would reroute water just upstream from the convergence of Buffalo and White Oak bayous, where stormwater often builds up during storms. The new channel also would lower White Oak Bayou’s water level by four feet downtown.
FEMA on Friday committed $2.7 million to the project, which officials said would go toward engineering and design on the project. Eventually, FEMA is expected to contribute a total of $46 million once the city clears administrative hurdles, including as a cost-benefit analysis, said Alan Bernstein, spokesman for Mayor Sylvester Turner. The federal money eliminates the main obstacle that has prevented the project from progressing beyond the design phase, as none of the government agencies involved had volunteered to foot the whole bill.
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