Re: Jim Schutze Hatches Yet Another Conspiracy Theory
Former council member Veletta Lill has some answers about landscaping on a levee:
Yes, the NTTA is committing to heavy landscape. It is called context-sensitive design, and they can afford to do more that TXDOT (Central) because they have a reliable revenue stream (bond revenue tolls) and the ability to maintain their facilities. TXDOT is more constrained on construction and maintenance based on their revenue stream. TXDOT is tearing out the narrow strip in the center median on Central because it is more difficult to maintain with such a small surface area. They are leaving areas such as the cross streets, etc.
The USACE (Corps of Engineers) would permit containerized trees and those may be in special areas. I suspect, in the end, there will more native grasses on the levees than trees. New trees will planted in the floodway, because the lakes allow the water to move faster so to slow the water down trees will be planted. Therefore, the floodway will be more treed than it is today.
Update: I went back and looked at the drawing that accompanies the story in today’s paper about the press conference yesterday (the drawing, unfortunately, isn’t online). No way are those containerized trees. The story does point out that the Corps can make an exception when it comes to planting on a levee. But as Craig Holcomb said in the story, “top officials of the Corps of Engineers had reviewed the promotional drawings and videos and ‘they did not say yes or no’ to the depictions.” Look, before you go and show drawings that Angela Hunt can say are lies, you need to have some of this stuff nailed down so that when people ask, you can say, “Yup. These trees are approved. We’re good to go.”
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