Drainage District 7 Manager Phil Kelley had a chance to present plans to ease some flooding in and around Port Arthur during a town hall meeting this week.

Kelley said in order to get more projects done, the district would have to hire more people, which will mean a tax increase.

“Last year at this time, my board approved a tax increase,” Kelley said. “That was about 30 percent … . That brought us in more money this year to try and help restore some of that fund balance, but I feel like going into next year we’re going to have to have another tax increase to bring in more revenue to help us maintain the system. You can expect a tax increase this year.”

More resilient

Assistant City Manager Ron Burton said the objective is to make Port Arthur more resilient.

“Our focus is on resiliency and mitigation,” he said. “What we have to do is continue to put forward a plan that makes us more resilient to upcoming storms. We are continuing to look at our policies we have in place. We have to look at the acreages as they continued to be developed and what we are going to require of developers as far as retention and detention ponds.”

Burton said that the city would also look at their building ordinances.

“We have ordinances that requires builders to build one foot above the base flood elevation,” he said. “We have to make sure that that we follow the flood zone protocols by FEMA. After Hurricane Ike, we built 450 houses fully funded by FEMA. They told that they were not going to keep doing it at no cost to the taxpayers.

“What does that mean? It means that when we face the next storm we have to be prepared to take on the burdens because the federal government might not always be there to share that burden with us.”

New approaches

One way Port Arthur will try to mitigate some of the local flooding is by putting floodwater into the golf course, city of Port Arthur Engineer Alberto Elfano said.

“We also will be updating some of the pipes and culverts,” he said. “In the next couple of weeks or so we will also be getting the Port Acres study done. We’ll be doing a lot of the same things like updating the drainage and the pipes to make sure we have enough flow for the DD7 cannels.”

Kelley said that after Hurricane Rita, DD7 was successful in getting a Hazard Mitigation grant through FEMA to build a new pump station.

“That pump station is under construction, but yet to be completed,” he said. “This new pump station will have six 250-gallon pumps installed that will add an additional 1.5 million gallons a minute.”

Sediment concerns

As for recent flooding concerns, Director of Public Works Armando Gutierrez said that floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey carried a lot of clay and silt and stayed in the drainage after the waters reseeded.

“That’s what we are doing now,” Gutierrez said. “We’re going to clean the pipes and inlets out, but it’s going to take a while. You have to understand that we have miles and miles of pipes and hundreds of inlets in the city and hundreds of manholes, so it’s going to take a while. It is our No. 1 priority.”

After a question about increasing the city’s workforce to speed up the process, Burton said people have to keep in mind taxes would have to rise.

“To increase the workforce, we would have to make a request for an increase in taxes and nobody’s happy,” he said. “You try to live within your means and provide effective and efficient service to the customers.

“Let me say this as well. Each and every one of us in here are taxpayers and decent citizens. We need to share with our neighbors not to put their trash in the drain. When you cut your hedges and your foliage, please don’t put them in the drain. At the end of the day, it sediments the entire system. After 10 or 15 years, we have to come back and vacuum the same culverts that you have been part of.”

No lags

Precinct 3 County Commissioner Michael Sinegal said he would like to see all of the Mid County cities and DD7 form a committee so that there is not a lag in communication when discussing evacuating people in the case of an emergency.

Burton said that he walks around and sees cardboard boxes in the drain so that the garbage truck can pick them up.

“At the end of the day, we are all going to be the ones who suffer,” Burton said. “We need to keep each other accountable. I understand people are hurting and people are being flooded. I think its part of the education process that we have to share responsibility.”