SPI Insights

The city’s Stormwater Management Department is proposing spending $136 million over five years to mitigate flood risk, ensure system reliability by replacing aging infrastructure and facilities, and produce new flood maps.

The city’s drainage system includes over 900 miles of underground pipe, approximately 230 miles of the engineered drainage channel, over 35,000 drainage inlets, and numerous other drainage facilities such as detention basins, bridge culverts, and bar ditches.

Photo courtesy of Unsplash

Plans for capital improvement on flooding issues include construction and management of new storm drain systems and to relocate the existing storm drain systems to accommodate construction of the Corps of Engineer’s bypass channel. The project locations and funding for 2023 include:

• 5th Street Greenleaf Sump, $2.3 million.
• Bazaar Outfall, $1.8 million.
• University, $1.4 million.
• Viola, $1.8 million.
• Cemetery Outfall and Houston, $949,929.

Over the course of five years, the departments of Transportation and Public Works also will spend $2.4 million on prioritization and development of capital projects and emergency engineering; $42.2 million on projects to mitigate hazardous road overtopping of roadway crossings; $43 million on system wide rehabilitation of drainage pipes due to poor condition; and $10.5 million on prioritization, design, and rehabilitation of channel locations that have severely deteriorated due to erosion.

The city also is producing more detailed flood maps and has released initial maps that indicate areas where flash flooding is the worst. Those include the Cultural District, Meadowbrook in east Fort Worth, and the intersection of Cleburne Road, and West Berry Street.