The 'everything climate change' approach undermines policymaker accountability
Harvey's flooding upstream of Addicks and Barker dams was foreseeable and intentional
I
The all things climate change approach waves away much of policymaking history and turns attention towards climate change imaginaries.
And when people unfurl the climate change umbrella to explain real world economic and humanitarian problems with long complicated histories, what they are really doing is undermining the ability of the public to hold policymakers accountable for bad decisions.
It is a diversion. Perhaps it is for one’s own political gain or to sell wares within the climate change apocalypse genre.
A week ago, the New York Times ran a lengthy piece by the essayist Jake Bittle about flooding in Houston from Hurricane Harvey.
Bittle specifically covered flooding in a neighborhood upstream of the Addicks of the Barker Reservoir. He explained Harvey and the flooding via climate change- “a bill coming due… for the industrialized world” for our sins of fossil fuel combustion.
Ultimately, the essay is a means of stoking hype for Bittle’s forthcoming book about climate change induced migration in the United States. So, apocalypse genre.
However, it so happens, that several homeowners in the area featured in Bittle’s story, upstream of the Addicks and Barker Reservoir, were the 2019 winning party of a lawsuit against the US government alleging the “flooding easements” on their property constituted a taking under the 5th Amendment of the Constitution.
Upstream Addicks and Barker (Texas) Flood Control Reservoirs (2019) homeowners won because, as the Federal Claims Court details, the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) has planned since roughly the 1940’s to flood that area in the likes of a storm the likes of Harvey. There was so much foresight, intentionality, and planning in flooding the upstream neighborhoods that the court ruled a permanent taking occurred and the US government is now paying just compensation.
II
In preparation for their takings analysis, the court review nearly 100 year backstory for the Corps development and maintenance of the Addicks and Barker reservoir.
The Corps first proposed the project in 1940 in response to major flooding events in the area. In particular, there was a 1929 storm that dropped 6-12 inches White Oak and Buffalo Bayou basin, and a 1935 storm that dropped about 15 inches throughout the basin. At that time, the Corps reported that it was only by chance that the 1935 storm did not center on the basin. Had it done so, the flooding would have been far more severe.
According to the court, “[t]he real possibility of a storm even larger than these events raised serious concern.” So, the Corps pitched a dam idea to the US government.
In planning the dams, the Corps estimated that the “maximum probable storm” was the 1899 Hearne storm, the largest US rainfall on record at the time occurring just 90 miles from Houston and dropping 31.4 inches over three days.
By way of comparison, according to the court, Harvey brought 33.7 inches of rain over a four day period within Harris County.
The purpose of the Addicks and Barker Dams was “to provide complete control of floods” on the Buffalo Bayou watershed and protect Houston. On numerous occasions the Corps explicitly stated that the dams were to protect valuable downstream development. Although it was recognized that upstream flooding beyond the government owned land of the reservoir was possible, it was not considered a major concern at the time because the land was predominantly agricultural.
III
Scientific advancement and urban development in the 1970s and 1980s stirred concern about upstream flooding.
Beginning earlier in the 1970’s, meteorological advancements led to increased concern within Corps that “flooding beyond government land was highly probably, if not inevitable.” In 1973, an internal Corps memo suggested that “the project engineer research the background of the existing situation and develop a history and rationale for our operating concepts of imposing flooding on private lands without benefit of flowage easement or other legal right.” By 1977, further research indicated that the maximum size of the reservoir pool far exceeded its design capacity.
At least by 1981, the Corps was granting land developer requests to improve upstream development water movement by draining into the government owned reservoir. The court states that providing the outgrants helped fuel rapid urbanization of the upstream area.
These “outgrants” created negative consequences for the Addicks and Barker Reservoir:
increased inflow of sediment in the reservoir and reducing capacity
increased speed of runoff into the reservoir resulting in more frequent impoundment
“larger impoundments”
“increased flood damages resulting from reservoir impoundments”
Out of concern that water would the dam and embankments would fail, the Corps decided to modify the dams. Consistent with the original intent to protect downstream property the modification plan chosen was explicitly focused on preventing the grave consequences downstream in Houston should the dam fail. The Corps raised the main embankments and bolstered the auxiliary spillways- neither of which increased the capacity of the reservoir. The work was completed in the late 1980s.
Throughout the 1990s the Corps and Harris County worked to inform the public of the flooding potential upstream of the reservoir. One report from the Harris County Flood Control District emphasized that, “the maximum flood pool levels of the Addicks and Barker Reservoir extend far beyond the limits of the government owned land… more than 8,000 acres are within the reservoir ‘fringe’ areas between the limits of the government owned land and the … maximum flood pools.”
Not only was it established that flooding of the upstream housing developments was certain at some point, but it was also explicitly the plan to flood that area in order to protect downstream Houston. According to the 2012 Water Control Manual, the Corps was restricted in how much water if could release via the dams (to protect downstream properties). During Harvey, the Corps was unable to release water fast enough to protect upstream properties.
IV
The 5th Amendment taking cause puts forth the notion that the government cannot force some people alone to bear public burdens which should fairly be borne by the public as a whole.
In its taking analysis the court repeatedly pointed to its findings described above to find that:
The taking the government had established a permanent right to inundate the properties upstream and there is certain that flooding will happen eventually again.
The government foresaw and intended to invade the land
“It is true that Tropical Storm Harvey was a record setting storm. But the evidence markedly shows that pools of this size and the attendant flooding of the private property were, at a minimum, objectively foreseeable.”
“Intent is present here because, like foreseeability, intent is not measured at one singular point…The Corps subjectively knew by the 1940s and particularly by the 1960s, that storms larger than the design storm were likely to occur over Addicks and Barker… Indeed, by 1973 the Corps expected the possibility of flooding off of government owned land to become a public concern.”
The government deliberately caused the flooding- not by need but out of choice: “the government had made a calculated decision to allow for flooding these lands years before Harvey, when it designed, modified, and maintained the dams in such a way that would flood private properties during severe storms.”
V
In order to sell a story on climate migration, Bittle misses a whole story on government culpability. The story is probably a pretty good one. The development boom of the 70s and 80s is the stuff of legend mixed in with some Reganomics and drama in financial markets.
Update 2/25: Bittle points out that he mentioned the findings of the case in his story. That he does. I apologies for my error. The way the ads broke up the article I missed his discussion of the case. I have learned a valuable lesson about dealing with ads and my own journalistic responsibilities.
However, while it is true that attributions of climate change to Harvey’s rainfall can coexist with bad land management decisions, I maintain that leading with climate change to tell the story of upstream Addicks, or disasters generally, is inappropriate.
Historically, irresponsible land management at the very local level has been a major problem for effective flood management. But in this case, it appears as a local-federal agreement that led to the situation.
What kind of pressure the Corps was under (if any) to agree to the outgrants. And if there wasn’t pressure, why did they decide to knowingly exacerbate the flood potential of the area? What was in it for them?
Moreover, according to the court, the dams saved Houston $7 billion in damages. Even if, as one news outlet suggests, it costs the US government $1 billion in just compensation, it or we, saved money by purposely flooding upstream. That sounds like an uncomfortable trade-off well worth openly discussing.
The climate change apocalypse genre directed attention away from the leading cause and intentionality of the upstream flooding. This is not a story is not a story of a climate change Houstonian diaspora. This is a story of bad governance infringing on the well being of the public.