Engineering

Citizen Council PAC Paves Way for Trinity Toll Road

City council members grilled over whethere they support a boondoggle

ERCOT Says There May Not Be Enough Juice in the Power Grid To Prevent Rolling Blackouts This Summer

Just in case all this temperate whether has lulled you into the perception that the Texas power grid doesn't have the thinnest margin of safety between lights on and lights out anywhere in the country, here's a reminder: Summer is coming. ERCOT, the grid operator for most of Texas, says the odds th ... More >>

The Trinity Toll Road Just Keeps Rolling on the River

The highway between the levees is the Christopher Lee of bad ideas.

U.S. Electricity Grid Watchdog to ERCOT: You Aren't Doing Enough to Keep Lights on in Texas

Gerry Cauley, the chief executive of the North American Electric Reliability Council, the national, industry-funded grid-integrity watchdog, is pretty worried about Texas. Power-reserve margins here have slipped below the levels recommended to meet peak demand, and future projections show it will on ... More >>

From Russia With Glub, a Warning About the Trinity Toll Road

Want to know what's really going on in Dallas? Keep an eye on Krymsk. Last Saturday more than 170 people died in flash floods in this southern Russia city. Today The New York Times reports that angry survivors think the Putin government is lying to them about a big release of water upstream from th ... More >>

The Corps Should Make Up Its Mind About the Levees and Explain Itself

Economides: Texas Lost $7.7 Billion By Not Using Natural Gas To Keep Lights On

Dr. Michael Economides, author, CNBC regular and University of Houston professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, says Texas lost out on some $7.7 billion between 2005 and 2011 primarily because we didn't use natural gas for electricity. Economides, it should be noted, is a vocal industry ... More >>

Tomorrow, the Dallas City Council Will Explore How We Keep the Lights From Going Out

In light of a few things -- namely the one-year anniversary of the most widespread rolling blackout in Texas history; the razor-thin reserve margins that left the state teetering on the verge of more rolling blackouts during that hot-as-hell summer; and ERCOT's assertion that there aren't enough pla ... More >>

Keeping the Lights On In Texas is Really Starting to Scare State Lawmakers

We watch a three-hour House State Affairs Committee hearing so you don't have to! Seriously, though, the future reliability of the Texas electrical grid is really starting to freak state legislators the fuck out. The watchword these days is "resource adequacy" -- bureaucrat-ese for "Remember those o ... More >>

On Flood Control, Dallas Better Think Nationally or Be Ready to Drown Locally

Man, talk about whistling past the graveyard. At yesterday's Dallas City Council meeting, council members Tennell Atkins and Delia Jasso asked good questions about the city's flood control plans, and City Manager Mary Suhm and her assistant, Jill Jordan, gave good answers. But it was all deck chairs ... More >>

Want to Understand Politics, the Economy, Everything? Follow the Levees.

​Figured it out. I can tell you why the Republicans keep assassinating their own nominees. It all goes back to the Trinity River levees. What? You think I can't connect those dots? Stand back. Right now the GOP rivals are reducing Newt Gingrich to road-kill in Iowa with Super-PAC attack ads o ... More >>

What Does City Hall Have to Say About Levee Report? No. Really. I'm Asking.

​This is Day Two of Trinity River levee stories from me, which I realize is Day Too Many, but ... well, sorry. I'm just sorry about it, but I cannot let this moment pass without making an observation. Possibly an observation and a half. It'll be over quickly. First, half an observation. I sta ... More >>

Dear Corps of Engineers: Save the Fancy Talk and Just Tell Us If We Should Build an Ark

​All right, class, today our lesson is: "Logical Wormholes and Semantic Corkscrews: Translating the Language of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Into More or Less Plain English, or, You Know, Spanish. Whatever. Language How People Talk." But first an ironclad guarantee. This is not a homework ... More >>

Drowning in Lies About the Levees

Corps of Engineers documents contradict city's claims that everything's hunky-dory with plans to fix Trinity levees.

What a Litttle Protection Between Friends? Corps, City Differ Over Levees Safety Standards.

​Wow. I think Dallas Assistant City Manager Jill Jordan broke a major national story at today's meeting of the Dallas City Council Trinity River Corridor Project committee. She told the committee that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers -- the quasi-military agency in charge of the nation's flood con ... More >>

Pardon, the City Owes the Corps of Engineers $15 Million For Floodway Work?

​The new-look Trinity River Corridor Project Committee meets for the first time this afternoon with two items on its to-review list: Dallas Floodway Extension Repayment Agreement Discussion and Trinity River Corridor Project Overview of Flood Control Components. Shortly after they were posted Frid ... More >>

Documentary About New Orleans' Killer Floods Draws Uneasy Parallels to Dallas.

Dallas Citizens Council will once again try to anoint our next mayor: There are good reasons to give a damn.

The City's Set to Meet With Trinity River Property Owners About FEMA's Flood Maps

This is the picture of the Trinity the city included in its FEMA floodplain remapping postcard.​Last week, Jim and Sam wrote all about how City Hall's done fed up to here with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and their demands that Dallas repair the hell out the Trinity River levees before they ge ... More >>

A New Dance Step at City Hall: Mayor Tom, Dave Neumann Are Doing the "Levee Slide"

Among the myriad levee slides depicted in the Corp of Engineers' 2007 report on the Trinty River levees​The Dallas Morning News's City Hall blog today carries two items in which Dallas city council member Dave Neumann and our mayor, Tom Leppert, alternately bitch about and then sort of pooh-pooh t ... More >>

Is It Finally Curtains for the Trinity River Project?

Why's Leppert So Pissed Off at the Corps of Engineers? Because He Can't Handle the Truth.

​O.K., I've been laughing up my sleeve over the mayor's whining remarks last week, complaining that certain unnamed "federal partners" aren't being very nice to him. Hanging around City hall last week for various dumb events, I was able to chat up a couple of people who are keeping quite close ta ... More >>

The Horror, The Horror Behind the Latest Trinity River Piece in Dallas's Only Daily

​Trinity River Project stories are The Dallas Morning News on mescaline. The city's only daily does so well with other coverage. But then they drop one of those Trinity River tabs, and the walls go to rubber. This morning The Dallas Morning News publishes a story saying the federal share of the Tr ... More >>

Talkin' Shit About the Calatrava Bridge

Patrick MichelsInside one of the center arch sections of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge​D has posted an item on its blog, FrontBurner, reporting that I traveled by kayak out to the Calatrava bridge site and defecated on the bridge to show my disapproval. The item, written by D Major Domo Tim Rogers ... More >>

Talkin' Trinity With the Corps Because Dave Neumann's Committee Clearly Doesn't Want To

Sam MertenLeft to right: Kevin Craig, Mayor Leppert and Dave Neumann.​Ever since Mayor Tom Leppert, City Manager Mary Suhm and Trinity River Corridor Project Committee chair Dave Neumann fired off a missive in which they claimed "public safety and flood control always come first," we've been t ... More >>

Now That Army Corps of Engineers Doesn't Want Trinity River Toll Road, It's Time to Shift the Blame: Preservationists!

​The story in today's Dallas Morning News about possible historic designation for the Trinity River levees falls squarely in the Unintentionally Hilarious category. It says the idea of building the Trinity River toll road project between the flood control levees may be in trouble because the U.S. ... More >>

Regarding Those Levees, Let Me Break Out My Tin-Foil Hat And My Crystal Ball

​In the weeks ahead I'm going to be tied up with some stories that will demand a lot of my time, so, I'm sorry, I'm just not going to have time to do my regularly predictable clockwork swat-down reaction pieces to Dallas Morning News stories on the Trinity River project. I wondered if it would be ... More >>

What in the Wide World of Sports Does a HUD Secretary Know About Levee Safety?

HUD deputy secretary Ron Sims has quite the résumé, but what does any of it have to do with the Trinity River?​Unintentionally hilarious item in The Dallas Morning News today: "Council's Frustration Spills Over," by Rudy Bush on the Metro front, in which council member par excellence Ron Natinsk ... More >>

We Need a Boatload of Money for the Trinity, and It Ain't Coming from Washington

That Makes Two Administrations in a Row Not Fond of Funding the Trinity River Project

Patrick MichelsRemember the levee collapse in December? Sure you do.​Interesting story inside The Dallas Morning News today about cuts in the federal budget for the Dallas Trinity River levee project. I'm not saying The News story is any kind of propaganda. Just saying there's more there than meet ... More >>

Why the Trinity River Project Could Be a Windfall for the Lawyer Who Sues the Army Corps of Engineers

The Easy Answer to the Trinity River's Levee Problems? Just Blame Katrina.

Sam MertenKevin Craig of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wasn't given a chance to speak when Mayor Leppert and other politicos announced a two-year, $29 million levee study.After Mayor Tom Leppert announced the need to pony up $29 million to study Dallas's levees resulting from "unacceptable" ratings ... More >>

Who knew sand flowed under the Trinity? Everybody but the folks building bridges there.

Would somebody just tell Mayor Leppert? His Trinity River toll road doesn’t have a prayer.

Corps Approved Bridge Without Geotechnical Data, Still Trying to Solve Sand Mystery

Sam MertenKevin Craig of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers flanks Mayor Tom Leppert as he tells the press about the levees' "unacceptable" ratings.After the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released its report on the city's levees, we were baffled to learn that construction on the Margaret Hunt Hill Bri ... More >>

Corps Warns that Trinity River Levees Pose a Flood Risk to Downtown, but is City Hall Listening?

Getting to No | Eat Less Live Longer

Mary Suhm Tells Council: "The Corps Has Rated the Dallas Floodway as 'Unacceptable'"

Merten just got back from City Hall, where the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers just got through telling reporters that 34 of the 170 areas of the Trinity River levees are "unacceptable." Sam will have more to come shortly -- including a surprise cameo appearance by Mitchell Rasansky, who had his ow ... More >>

Trinity Chairman Sees "Many, Many Obstacles" With Turnpike Project

Sam MertenFrom left to right: Gene Rice and Kevin Craig of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Dan Chapman of HNTB and project manager for the NTTA and Rebecca Dugger, director of the Trinity River Corridor Project As Schutze mentioned earlier, the council's Trinity River Corridor Project Committee m ... More >>

Crazy Fish May Redefine Computer Industry

He claims to have invented e-mail. He holds a world skydiving record. But his current invention promises to top them all

Why Ya Just Can't Trust Tom Leppert

Fine, Trinity Toll Road Pimps -- Schutze is Just Begging to Be Marginalized

Leppert Answers Our Levee, Tollway Questions

Put Out

If Dallas doesn't give the boys their road, they want the jewelry back

Go With Your Gut

Do you really see a freeway somewhere out in that flood?

Sam Coats Calls for Trinity Toll Road Vote

That Trinity Thing You Doo-Doo

Here Comes the Flood

Levees Are Not an Act of God

Sinking Fast

The $2 billion Trinity River Plan looks like the Russian sub of local politics