Panther Island hires new coordinator. Will things change for $1.17B Fort Worth project?
Mark Mazzanti, a 35-year veteran of the Army Corps of Engineers, will serve as the new coordinator for Panther Island, the $1.17 billion project that aims to reshape the Trinity River north of downtown Fort Worth.
The Trinity River Vision Authority board approved a contract with Mazzanti on Wednesday for up to two years at $25,000 per month. Either party can opt out with a 30-day notice.
This position was a key suggestion from Dallas-based management consultant Riveron, which was hired to assess the project after the federal government skipped funding Panther Island last year. It marks a transition away from J.D. Granger, the executive director of the TRVA and son of U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, as a public leader of the project and move toward the authority taking on more risk assessment. It is the last Riveron recommendation the board adopted.
The goal is to clear up confusion about the project and improve transparency with the hope that Washington will fund the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer’s portion of the project.
“I think what you’re going to see, quite frankly, is greater detail about the steps we need to do to get funding,” said G.K. Maenius, Tarrant County administrator and TRVA board president.
Most recently Mazzanti was the director of programs for the Army Corps’ Southwestern Division based in Dallas. He oversaw $6 billion worth of Corps programs and led the emergency response to Hurricane Harvey. He retired about a month ago.
From 2011 to 2016 he worked out of the Corps’ Washington, D.C., headquarters where he prepared the budget for the Civil Works Program, the traditional way projects like Panther Island receive funding. In that role he prepared other senior Corps staff for testimony in defense of the budget on Capitol Hill.
Mazzanti said he was familiar with Panther Island, which the Corps calls the Central City Project, from his time in Dallas and Washington. He wouldn’t say how likely he thought it was that the project would receive funding in the 2020 appropriations bill Congress has yet to pass. The Army Corps could receive between $2 billion and $3 billion for a project like Panther Island, but it’s unclear where Panther Island stacks up in priorities.
“When there’s $2 to $3 billion there is a chance the funds will be allocated,” he said. “The leadership here is behind this project. It has been shown from the Corps that there is a danger.”
Congress in 2016 authorized up to $526 million for Panther Island, but the Trump administration has been unwilling to provide new money. The Corps, in coordination with the water district, has asked for $30 million to $40 million each year but has received just $68 million since 2006.
As much as $250 million could come to the project after Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price met with Mick Mulvaney, the White House budget director and acting chief of staff, along with U.S. Rep. Roger Williams in July. So far the Corps has not received funding for the project for fiscal year 2020.
Through June 30, local partners have spent almost $328 million to get the 800-acre area ready for the Corps to dig a bypass channel along the Trinity River. That includes purchasing property, environmental cleanup and expenses related to building three bridges.
Riveron didn’t outright say whether any of its recommendations would lead to more federal dollars, but local officials hope they would.
The convoluted nature of the project, an effort of the city, the water district and the Army Corps of Engineers, has been confusing to the public, Riveron suggested. It’s seen as entertainment, flood control and economic development.
That might hurt chances to receive federal dollars since the Corps can only participate in flood control projects.
The authority has already taken several steps, in line with Riveron recommendations, to clarify the project goals. Granger and the authority will no longer handle economic development on the future island. That responsibility lies with the city. And the water district has absorbed recreation and river events.
James Hill, a Tarrant Regional Water District board member who also sits on the TRVA board, said Mazzanti would add a greater level of credibility to the project.
“This is an independent person with Corps experience who can say ‘Here’s how I would set this up,’” he said. “If nothing else we have a voice in the room who can be open and honest with us.”
Jim Oliver, water district manager and TRVA board member, said Granger would continue as the district’s Panther Island project lead, coordinating with Mazzanti and working with the Corps. His duties will include planning drainage canals on the island, negotiating property buyouts and finishing environmental cleanup, he said. Previously Granger, who was an attorney before getting involved in the Panther Island project, led those efforts while coordinating with the city and promoting Panther Island events.
Panther Island
Also known as the Central City Project, the project calls on the Army Corps of Engineers to cut a roughly 1.5 mile bypass channel in the Trinity River north of downtown Fort Worth, creating a 800-acre riverfront island prime for development.
Federal funding for the project, spearheaded by Kay Granger, has been parceled out through the years.
The bypass channel is meant to prevent upstream flooding along the Trinity River by allowing the two forks of the river to meet before a large U-shaped bend that slows the flow of water.
The Corps and local project leaders have said it’s a more viable alternative to raising levees and should pull roughly 2,400 acres out of the flood plain for what the Army Corps of Engineers calls a “standard project flood,” the most severe flood considered possible for a region.
This story was originally published November 13, 2019 at 6:36 PM.
