Floods

A Better Way on the Trinity Highway

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

As Sandy's Tab Comes Due, It's Time to Rethink Flood Insurance Everywhere (Including Dallas)

Two experts from the Monterrey Institute of International Studies have an op-ed piece in The New York Times this morning advocating the abandonment of the National Flood Insurance Program, which is about to stick us taxpayers for $57 billion in rebuilding costs from Hurricane Sandy. If the experts w ... More >>

You Can't Handle the Truth

Not if you're willing to listen Paul Ryan and his cronies, that is.

The Lies Keep Rollin' on the Trinity River Toll Road

While I was away on vacation The Dallas Morning News published an editorial saying Angela Hunt, Scott Griggs and Sandy Greyson, our three brainiacs on the City Council, are stupid, don't know how to add and came up with all the wrong conclusions about the News' favorite project, the idea of building ... 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 >>

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 >>

Between the Lines in Corps' Trinity River Enviromental Assessment: Don't Blame Us

​Buried between the lines in a 246-page document released by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers today is a significant national story about the future of flood control in American cities. I doubt very many reporters will dig it out. I'll give you the thumbnail sketch. You may wish I had kept my ... 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 >>

It's Been Truly Inspiring to Watch D Apologize for Rah-Rah'ing Trinity Toll Road. Oh, Wait.

​I'm sure at some moment in history, all of the people who had insisted the earth was flat went very quiet. After some centuries of debate, burnings at the stake and loud dinner-table arguments, the jury was in. Everybody knew it was round. The exponents of flat were suddenly extremely reticent o ... More >>

Tom Leppert on the Trinity River Toll Road, Again Slicing the Truth with a Razor Blade

​I'm doing an informal poll. Is there anyone left out there who gives a rat's ass what former Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert did or did not say about the safety of the Trinity River toll road project? Wait. Wait. I'm looking. I've got my binoculars on. A-ha! I do spy at least one rat's ass out there ... 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.

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 >>

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?

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 >>

"Public Safety and Flood Control Always Come First," Except When They Don't

​Earlier this morning, those among Mayor Tom Leppert's nearly 2,000 friends on Facebook were treated to a link to the city's Web site where they could find an official response to a recent story in The Dallas Morning News about the Trinity River Corridor Project. Turns out the statement is an ... 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 >>

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 >>

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

Wherein Jim's Just Begging to Have His Invite to the Bridging the Trinity Party Rescinded

All photos by Jim SchutzeDown at the Margaret Hunt Hill construction site, where, we hope, nobody's in that Porta-John​I had other work to do this morning, but Robert was right: I couldn't stay away from Old Man River. A bit after noon I ventured down to the site of the Calatrava suspension bridge ... More >>

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 >>

If It's Hot Fudge Friday, It Must Be Time for Another Schutze-Rodrigue Throwdown

Natilee DeeYesterday Dallas Morning News managing editor George Rodrigue took issue with my April 1 column in which I took issue with his attack on the Dallas Observer last month. At this point, I'm sure it would be better for everybody if George and I were locked in a sound-proofed room with Nerf s ... More >>

Report on Trinity Levees Shows A Failure of Dallas' Leadership

The latest word from the Army Corps of Engineers is sure to result in one thing: a run on rubber rafts at Costco

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 >>

If only The Dallas Morning News had attacked its Trinity River reporting with the same punch it attacked us.

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 >>

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

Getting to No | Eat Less Live Longer

Corps Values: Tom Leppert and Mary Suhm Aren't In D.C. To Talk About Flood Control

An illustration from the Trinity Parkway Design Criteria ManualYou know what I love? When people live up to their own stereotypes.My column this week in the paper version of Unfair Park is about signs that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers may have grown a backbone in the matter of resisting politica ... More >>

Is the Army Corps of Engineers Having Second Thoughts About the Trinity River Project?

Prediction for 2009: Trinity Toll Road Finally Crashes and Burns for Good

Here's hoping that the next year brings us a big, stinking failure on the Trinity

Sweet/Sour Grapes on Trinity Referendum Results

I'm either happy, sad or still churning out column inches on the Trinity, depending on how things turned out

Digging for Toll Road Facts

Schutze sifts through a mountain of dirt to find the truth

Put Out

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

A Flood of Questions

Go With Your Gut

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

Do Lies Come with that Shake?

Yes, We are "Freewheeling." And Free-Balling. Hey, Tomorrow's Election Day. We're Jacked.

Here Comes the Flood

Rant, Rave

A year-end banquet of my two-bit opinions

Flood Blood

Politicians create flooding, not the Bible

Down the River

Dallas is still using flood control money to scam black people

Sinking Fast

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

By the way...

The News finally reports the danger of the Trinity River project. Did you notice?

$ucker$

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

All wet

Supporters call the Trinity Plan a flood-control project. It isn't.

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.