Page 16 THE BATTALION
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23, 1980
Houston’s growth may be impeded by flooding
United Press International
HOUSTON — Some of this rapid
ly growing city’s shiniest subdivi
sions ended up under floodwaters
more than once last year and blame
for this cloud on Houston’s horizon
has focused on inadequate drainage
and unregulated developers.
Critics take for granted the vio
lent, semi-tropical weather that
without warning can turn noontime
to midnight and the flat, cldse-to-
sea-level terrain where car-stalling
street overflows are about as com
mon as rain.
But they are unprepared to accept
the flooding that scarred more than
2,400 homes and caused at least $138
million damage in 1979. Everyone
agrees more flooding will occur be
cause improved drainage costs big
money and takes years.
The political commitment to take
corrective action has been slow to
form in a city that historically favors
free-wheeling growth and frowns on
taxes, public works and government
regulation, including planning.
“In Harris County, you can get a
permit to build if you can show you
can get water off your land,” says
lawyer Larry Doherty, representing
homeowners suing for flood damage.
“There’s no requirement for en
vironmental impact statements.
Why, shut my mouth, that would be
contrary to growth.”
The flood problem, of course, is in
large part natural. Houston, which
averages 48 inches annual rainfall,
often receives its rainfall in short,
torrential bursts and has little help
from nature in draining the runoff.
“Houston has flooded since Hous
ton began,” says Cecil Palmer of the
National Weather Service. “We live
in an area susceptible to a 12-inch
rain at any spot along the coastline.
“When you live on the coastal
plain near the Gulf of Mexico where
you have abundant moisture avail
able and warm temperatures prevail
ing to make the air hold a lot of mois
ture, you’re susceptible to heavy
rains at any one time. ”
“We have little fall (slope) across
the county,” adds acting Harris
County Flood Control Director Jim
Green. “It’s about 136 feet in 60
miles. The floor in this room (his
Montana
faces suit
over coal
United Press International
HELENA, Mont. — Midwest
utility companies, casting Montana
in the role of a Saudi Arabia, want to
bring the state to trial and force it to
lower its high coal tax. Montana, in a
countercharge, says the utilities are
interfering in states’ rights.
The litigation before the Montana
Supreme Court pits the state against
14 utilities and coal companies that
strip Montana’s high-energy, clean
burning coal from the prairies.
Company lawyers, led by former
Attorney General and Secretary of
State William P. Rogers, seek a rul
ing granting a trial on their claim that
the state’s 30 percent tax on coal is
unconstitutional.
The court took the issue under
advisement Monday and was ex
pected to rule at a later date on
whether a trial was warranted.
Rogers said the tax, the nation’s
highest mineral severance levy, in
terferes with interstate commerce
and hinders national policy to prom
ote use of the country’s vast coal re
serves.
“Montana is not Saudi Arabia,” a
Rogers’ associate, William R. Glen-
don, told the five-member court
Monday. “It is a member of the Un
ion and is not an independent
barony. ”
Montana lawyers argued the tax is
a small price for coal consumers to
pay in light of the social and econo
mic toll the coal boom exacts on
Western states.
Deputy Attorney General Mike
McCarter said the coal companies
“would take one national policy —
energy — and give it a mail fist to
strike down another policy, the right
of a state to act to protect its people
and its resources.”
Montana holds 25 percent of U.S.
coal reserves, and 75 percent is own
ed by the federal government. In
less than six years, the state has
earned roughly $86 million from the
tax, half of which it puts into a trust
fund for future use. Officials concede
the vast majority of the tax burden is
passed on tbe utilities’ customers out
of state.
A lower court judge at Helena dis
missed the lawsuit last year, ruling
the issue did not deserve a trial. The
judge adopted the state’s arguments
that because the tax was applied at
the mine mouth, and before the coal
entered interstate commerce, the
federal Constitution did not apply.
Montana increased the tax from a
few cents a ton to 30 percent in 1975,
and Rogers accused the state legisla
ture of capitalizing on the energy cri
sis and the Arab oil embargo and
“taking advantage of the situation to
impose an excessive, exorbitant tax. ”
Texas Attorney General Mark
White, appearing as a “friend of the
court” on the companies’ side, said
the tax hampers “our clearly stated
national policy to achieve independ
ence from foreign oil. ’’
“We do not come to this market
place because we favor coal,” White
said. “We are forced by federal poli
cy to use your coal.”
office) has more fall than that.”
In addition, much of Harris Coun
ty has been sinking, although a 7-
year-old agency seems to have
slowed subsidence by regulating the
withdrawal of underground water.
Still, the hardest hit area has sunk 10
feet since 1910.
Rapid growth clearly aggravated
the problem. Palmer says every new
acre of roof and parking lot adds 18
million gallons to runoff from a 1-
inch rain, merely a heavy dew by
Houston standards.
A recent Corps of Engineers study
indicates Brays Bayou, engineered
WE
for a 500-year flood in the mid-1960s,
could now handle only a 30-year
event because of development in its
watershed.
“The more you develop where it
floods, then the more houses you’re
gonna have flooded,” Palmer says
simply.
But Doherty charges “complete
lack of planning by responsible coun
ty officials and too easy (construction)
permitting” allowed growth to out
strip drainage.
“There is no good scheme or plan
for development of drainage in this
county or city,” Doherty says.
Consulting engineer Don Van
Sickle disputes the total noplanning
charge, saying two-thirds of the
county and “most” urban areas have
been drainage-planned but agrees a
“problem has been not implement
ing the plan.”
As an example of inadequate plan
ning or implementation, Doherty
cites a ditch completed last May up
stream from the major subdivision
where his south Houston clients
were flooded in July and September.
Doherty charges Houston Light
ing & Power Co. was permitted to
straighten, widen and deepen the
ditch before related improvements
were made downstream.
In the process, Doherty charges
HL&P expanded the watershed and
poured more water toward his
clients’ subdivision, which had not
flooded in 10 years. HL&P strongly
denies blame, but Doherty says he
has evidence.
“Our hydrology reports are saying
it contributed about 25 percent to
the problem,” Doherty says, noting
there has been no flooding there
since the highway department put a
small retention dam across the ditch.
Doherty also complains subdivi
sion developers were allowed to
build in a flood-risk area with insuffi
cient drainage work. He says some
ditches intersect head-on or at right
angles and “that’s idiocy as far as
flowing water.”
Doherty says buyers “were lied
to” and had no flood insurance be
cause they did not know they needed
it. The U.S. Small Business Admi
nistration doled out $93 million for
uninsured flood damage in Harris
County last year.
Green’s response is that 1979,
when parts of Houston flooded three
and four times, was a freak. The year
featured Tropical Storm Qm
since classified as oneoftlie r(
storms ever to hit the Unitedt
Alvin, a suburb immediateltj'
Houston, recorded 44 inclfii
Claudette on July 26,
“We review drainage plan, :
everything within Harris
and we even carrysome eil
rial jurisdiction in otherJ
Green says. “One of (lie
Houston does not havethali
like the rest of the world hi
ing. People say thatifwejJ
zoning we wouldn’t havel),j
don’t agree with that.”
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