The Texas Water Development Board has approved nearly $130 million in funding for the City of Dallas to help with flood mitigation on the Trinity River.
The mix of grant funding and financing from the state’s Flood Infrastructure Fund will go towards removing and demolishing old water pumps, renovating and adding new pump stations and improving structural controls in the sump system. The funding will also be used to construct new levees.
“It's a great use of state flood dollars that we have,” TWBD board member George Peyton said during a meeting in Lubbock last week.
Kathy Hopkins, TWDB grant coordinator manager, pointed to theflood in 2022, when some parts of Dallas received more than 13 inches of rain and Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins declared a state of disaster in the county, as a reason for the grant. The flood resulted in an estimated $6 billion in damages and economic loss, according to Hopkins.
The new levees will add to the already existing levees with the Dallas Floodway Extension Project, which provides flood risk mitigation for an estimated $14 billion in real estate and personal property and over 400,000 residents in the city.
Work on the projects is expected to last through 2031. City Council is expecting to vote whether to accept the funding before this summer, according to city officials.
Juan Salinas II is a KERA news intern. Got a tip? Email Juan at jsalinas@kera.org. You can follow Juan on X @4nsmiley
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