Civil Engineering

A Better Way on the Trinity Highway

Let's build a road on the river, not a wall.

The Corps of Engineers Wants to "Armor" the Trinity River, Despite the Fact That it's a River

Democracy in action last night. Never a pretty picture. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is in charge of flood control in this country, held a meeting at City Hall to update the public on the Trinity River Project, a massive campaign of public works that has dragged on without significant p ... More >>

The Power of Lobbying: Trinity Levees Are Unsafe SUPER Safe, the Corps Says Now

OK, wait, wait, before we start the party, can I ask a couple questions? Could we maybe just try to put ourselves in a global context first? In July, 2011, the city of Copenhagen was ravaged by the worst flood in recorded history, rated by scientists as a "1,000-year" flood, meaning it could be ex ... More >>

City Agrees to Repay U.S. Army Corps of Engineers $7 Million (And, If Need Be, More)

​Back in September it was revealed that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wants back $15 million it gave to the city for the Dallas Floodway Extension project, insisting those federal funds were improperly advanced beginning with the first payment made back in '04. In the words of Col. Richard J. M ... More >>

Trinity Levees: Will the Feds' Money Crunch Leave Us Low and Wet?

​Am I in the happy-news business? Does a bear use air freshener in the woods? Look, I'm just bringing it to you like it is. As bad as the situation with the Trinity River levees may look locally, you should see what it looks like when you put it in perspective with national levee problems. We ... More >>

Take Time to Study Corps of Engineers' Massive Dallas Floodway Environmental Assessment

Click to enlarge this cross-section of the cutoff wall -- seen in this appendix -- the city and HNTB say will bring the levees back to acceptable.​Schutze's must-read of the winter has finally arrived: the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Dallas Floodway Environmental Assessment, in which we finally ... More >>

Deep Into the Corps: Agency's Own Leaky Docs Express Doubts About City's Levee Fixes

​On November 10 I wrote a column for the paper about documents leaked to me from within the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers indicating that the corps has no faith in repairs to the Trinity River levees being proposed by the City of Dallas. I can show the documents to you now. They tell quite a st ... More >>

City 1, Corps 0 In Fight to Fix Trinity Levees

From Monday's briefing docs prepared for the council's Trinity River Corridor Project Committee​What you see above is the new plan to improve the Trinity River levees, which is markedly different than the one outlined on Page 46 of the April 2010 Dallas Floodway System briefing that showed the so- ... More >>

Insuring the Insurers: What Something Called "Faktor K" Could Mean for Big D

​Writer and radio journalist Julia Barton, a regular reader of Unfair Park, tipped me today to a really fascinating piece published September 1 by BusinessWeek, called "The God Clause and the Reinsurance Industry." It's about an arcane industry located in cities far from Dallas, but Barton spied t ... More >>

Mooney River: Once Again, D Magazine Misses the Trinity River Toll Road Story

​Hey, I was out of town last week when the August issue of D hit the streets -- well, given the magazine's target demo, perhaps we should say it hit the winding lanes and parkways -- with an essay titled "Let's Ditch the Trinity River Toll Road." Wow. Pretty remarkable. From the time of the ... More >>

Hey, Mike Rawlings, Pick Up a Damn Paper, Will You?

Because in it, you'll find everything you need to say no to the Trinity River toll road.

While We Wait For Our Trinity Docs, We Dig Into Those Levees Repairs With the Corps

Brigadier General Thomas Kula​Two small but important bits of information from a long U.S. Army Corps of Engineers press gathering this afternoon: First: In order to fix the Trinity River levee system, Dallas will have to build an impervious concrete-like barrier between the levees and the river. ... More >>

Wait a Sec. There's Something Wrong With the Levees? Somebody Tell Carolyn Davis ASAP!

Photo by Sam MertenThe six-headed Trinity monster (from left to right): Jill Jordan, Kelly High, Rebecca Rasor, Liz Fernandez, Col. R.J. Muraski and Kevin Craig​If little else, attending Trinity River Corridor Project Committee meetings is a constant reminder of the jaw-dropping ignorance of c ... More >>

Send us Your Earmark: Could Congress Turn off the Tap on Trinity Money?

What Two Sentences in The WSJ Suggest About the Future of the Trinity River Project

U.S. Army Corps of EngineersFrom the Dallas Floodway Extension Project Description, this 1989 photo: "US175 blocked by water backed up into White Rock Creek. Normally, this is a busy traffic artery leading to the central business district."​Wilonsky sent me an interesting Wall Street Journal artic ... More >>

What This Town Needs is Some Good Ward Heelers.

Dallas City Fathers And The Army Corps Of Engineers Don't Speak The Same Language When It Comes To the Levees.

Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson: The Latest In A Long Line Of Pols To Dance To The Mayor's Tune For The Trinity River Project.

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison Took A Meat-axe To Federal Law To Get The Mayor His Toll Road. But Did She Even Think About The Consequences?

Mayor Tom Leppert Should Just Fess Up: The Trinity Toll Road Is Dead And Done

So, No Solar-Powered Water Taxis, Then? But ... But ... But We Were Promised!

Mayor Tom Leppert, seen here during the Trinity River toll road referendum​So tomorrow, on some page of The Dallas Morning News (I assume Page One), Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert will concede that the Trinity River Project has hit the wall. Wall, wall, wall. A story posted on The News's Web site this ... More >>

Dallas May Get Soaked by Soaring Insurance Premiums if the City Keeps Dawdling on Fixing the Levees

Premium Content: While We Argue Over a Word, a Risk Still Runs Through the City

George Gimarc sent us this photo. Taken in April 1957.​Got a little e-mail debate going with Frank Librio, the spokesman for the city of Dallas, which I thought I should share with the Friends of Unfair Park. Always good to get a second opinion. Maybe people will agree with Frank that I have been ... More >>

While Waiting for Corps' Report on Calatrava Bridge, a View from the Collapsed Levee

Photos by Patrick MichelsCrews are out at this very moment trying to repair a section of the Trinity River levees that collapsed yesterday.​Pins and needles here.At 2:30 pm the Corps of Engineers releases its report on the city's proposed fix for the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge. They're doing it no ... More >>

Who Will Deliver the Coup de Grace to the Trinity toll road, the Corps or NTTA?

Convention Center Hotel Promoters are a Bunch of Get-Along Business Guys Who May Not Even Realize Their Own Deception

Caution Bordering on Gloom at Last Night's Soul-Sapping Trinity Toll Road Hearing

Patrick MichelsDuring last night's hearing, Angela Hunt tweeted that "the NTTA & TXDOT are still doing their slideshow. Mind-numbing. They shoulda done this earlier so there'd be more time for public comment."Last night's four-hour "hearing" on the Trinity River toll road was one big toothache ... More >>

Very Simply Put, the Trinity River's Levees Keep Looking Worse With Every Corps Answer

The Corps of Engineers tells Schutze, ya know, it's not quite sure how much sand's buried in the Trinity River levees. Well, I think I got some interesting stuff here.The city keeps telling people they're going to "fix" the Trinity River levees. Don't much think so. Looks to me like a whole lot of ... More >>

Nyah, Nyah, Nyah: We Told You the Trinity Project Wouldn't Work

Corps of Engineers' Yogi Berra, "This Project Isn't Going to End Until It's Completed."

Courtesy the City of DallasThe Pantanal arriving in Houston with the first shipment of steel for the Margaret Hunt Hill BridgeJudy Schmidt at Dallas City Hall forwards along the following message from Mayor Tom Leppert: Till he hears otherwise, Santiago Calatrava's Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge is getti ... More >>

Destiny Does Dallas, or: Why the Corps' "Unacceptable" Levee Rating is a Blessing

Back during the campaign season for the 2007 referendum on the Trinity River toll road, Dallas Morning News columnist Steve Blow and I got into this really high-flown intellectual debate where I said, "Steve, you're stupid," and he said, "Jim, you're dumb," and I said, "Steve, you're a ninny," and ... More >>

Somewhere, Jim Schutze is Off Doing a Happy Dance

Sam MertenMayor Tom Leppert and Kevin Craig of the U.S. Army Corps of EngineersMayor Tom Leppert reluctantly addressed local media this afternoon regarding City Manager Mary Suhm's earlier announcement that the Trinity River levees will be rated "unacceptable" in 34 of 170 areas by the U.S. Army Co ... More >>

Toll You So

The Trinity River Project should be floating right along. Instead it's sinking under the weight of its own folly.

Council Today to Vote on White Rock Spillway, Deep Ellum Improvements

Toll Road Hard and Put Up Wet

Read This While We Decide Whether to Get Out of Bed This Morning

Gunfight at the Trinity

The biggest shoot-out in Dallas' political history

Politicians Uniting Behind the Trinity Toll Road

The "Vengeance" of the Trinity Pavers

Innocence Project|Jail to Inmate: F You|Katrina Waves

When the Levee Breaks|God's Gyroplane|White Mavs Can't Jump

Wait -- Schutze Asks For Calm?

Angela Hunt Sends Wick Allison a Note; Smelled a Little Like Vanilla Maybe?

Do Lies Come with that Shake?

The River of Death Gets State Funds. Because It's The River of Death. Well, It Used to Be.

Been There, Done That

For supporters of an improved and expensive Trinity River, everything old is new again

Ron Kirk's Crying Game

When he said it was time to end the blame game, he meant that he had won

$ucker$

Forget Brooklyn -- Dallas' own Trinity River boosters aim to con you out of tax dollars for seven silly bridges

Bait and switch

The Trinity Project hits some expensive setbacks, but leave it to the News to look on the bright side

Flood money

The Trinity River Plan's billion-dollar vision of levees, parks, and ponds has Mayor Ron Kirk--and most of Dallas--spellbound. But engineers warn it could lead to a flooding catastrophe and destroy the same poor neighborhoods it's designed to help.