The federal government is set to distribute more than $40 million for Houston-area flood control efforts.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers outlined details of the new rounds of funding in its fiscal year 2018 “work plan” on Monday.
Locally, $18.5 million will go to repairs at the Addicks and Barker Reservoirs, a project that was ongoing even before rains from Hurricane Harvey filled the reservoirs the record levels last year. Homes near the reservoirs and downstream in Houston’s core were flooded as a result.
A flood control project along Greens Bayou in northwest Houston is getting more than $4 million. Almost $15 million will be used to reimburse the Harris County Flood Control District for ongoing infrastructure work along Brays Bayou. Another $2.8 million will go to routine operation and maintenance of infrastructure along Buffalo Bayou.
This month, Harris County received a separate $26.5 million from FEMA to purchase 169 flood-prone homes, the first round of buyout money from the agency’s hazard mitigation grant program.
Still, a lot of post-Harvey infrastructure money hasn’t arrived yet.
At a Tuesday commissioners court meeting, the flood control district’s executive director Russ Poppe said the county is still hoping to get its hands on about $260 million for flood control projects from applications it submitted after Harvey.
“Some stormwater detention basins, some channel improvement projects, so we’ve got a good range of projects that we’ve submitted so far,” he said. “We are still waiting on responses on a good number of our applications.”
Separately, the Army Corps is putting more than $38 million into dredging the Houston Ship Channel, along with other improvements. Another $23 million from the Corps will be used to widen and deepen the Port of Corpus Christi, a project aimed at making room for massive crude oil export tankers that can’t currently navigate the channel.