Laserfiche WebLink
Response <br />Comment <br />Our concern about the Blanco Bypass project being <br />the alarm to elected officials in San Marcos about high volume rainfall events happening around us here in central Texas. Many of these are even more extreme than those that San Marcos <br /> has received in recorded history. The May 2015 event is not the worst that we can expect---it is only about half of the volume of rainfall events around us, based on historical records <br /> of U.S.G.S gauges. We attacha 1 page history of such central Texas events that we have used to educate elected officials since the 1998 flood in, to help calculate the volume of the <br /> floods in other watersheds, compared to San Marcos.included in the infrastructure funding totals for the $25 million from HUD is that the Bypass project will be eventually found to <br /> be impractical, involving extreme cost overruns, delays and perhaps termination of the project. This happens around the country, and often the engineering promises are far from fool <br /> proof. It could simply transfer the flood risk to another set of people.Land acquisition would be extremely expensive with land prices in the IH 35 corridor in Central Texas being high. <br /> Such a bypass would require much acreage in a very flat landscape where the bypass is proposed. Longterm there would be high costs to maintain such a huge structure after flood damage <br /> occurs. Even digging a deep trench to handle floodwater would take large acreages to protect those living downstream along the route, from being flooded once the bypass creates the <br /> new route for floodwaters. The spot where the bypass would then meet the San Marcos River also has many homeowners living on it as well, and they would need to be protected, as well <br /> as all those living close and downstream. It would not be enough for engineers to to just protect all these residents for a 100 year flood event. The city would have to think about <br /> what would happen when the bypass capacity is overpowered by <br />Element <br />Source <br />Date <br /># <br /> <br />