Sugar Land council votes to apply for funding for Brazos River flood mitigation projects

The Southwest Fort Bend Star
By Ken Fountain
Dec 26, 2022

The Sugar Land City Council at its December 20 meeting voted unanimously to authorize city staff to submit a grant application to the Texas General Land Office for funds to two erosion mitigation projects in order to reduce flooding along the Brazos River.

After the major flooding events of 2015 and 2016 and Hurricane Harvey in 2016, the city and Fort Bend commissioned two erosion studies for 13 critical areas of the Brazos River, which concluded that in less than 30 years erosion could threaten homes, city and county infrastructure, parks and highway bridges along evacuation routes, senior engineering manager Jorge Alba reminded Council members.

The city and county responded by creating Project Brazos, a multi-jurisdictional effort to address the causes of erosion along the Brazos's riverbanks. Two of the critical areas identified in Sugar Land were at Memorial Park and the U.S. 59/IH 69 evacuation corridor, Alba said.

As part of the the Texas Community Development Bloc Grant Mitigation Action Plan, Sugar Land received $4 million and the county received $56 million for mitigation projects. Under the resolution, the two entities would combine their funding for projects at the two locations, Alba said.

In October, City Council approved contracts with consulting firm Huitt-Zollars, Inc. and Pubic Management, Inc. to support city staff with their application for the block grant funding. The application is due January 9, with an anticipated contract award by June 1, 2023.

Mayor Joe Zimmerman noted that Sugar Land originally initiated the project as lead agency in 2014, before the later flooding events.

"Through it all we've stayed the course and finally gotten funding, for only a portion," Zimmerman said. An estimated $1.4 billion is needed for 26 projects across the county, he added, "so this is only the start." Fort Bend County has another critical project in Simonton, Zimmerman said.

In response to a question from Council member Carol McCutcheon, Alba said the studies showed that the river's banks along Memorial Park have eroded approximately 200 feet since 2015.

Answering a question from Council member William Ferguson, Alba said the U.S. 59 project will involve modification to expand the bridge across the river by the Texas Department of Public Safety. The TxDOT expenditure is $70-75 million, according to another city employee.

Council members also voted unanimously to approve two interlocal agreements with the county for distribution of the funds, once approved. Under the agreements, Fort Bend County will use $38 million and Sugar Land will use $4 million for the two projects.