Panther Island board gambles by turning down federal study money. Will it pay off?
Imagine that you’re trying to persuade your uncle to invest in a major project that you’ve been working on for nearly two decades.
And suppose your uncle — let’s call him Sam — wants a detailed study of your idea before fully committing to invest. The study will be expensive, but just a fraction of the total you’re seeking, and he’ll pay half the cost of the review if you match it.
Worth it? Apparently not to the board overseeing Fort Worth’s Panther Island flood-control project.
The consultant that the Trinity River Vision Authority board hired to coordinate the project, Mark Mazzanti, recommended that the panel ignore the $1.5 million offer from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a feasibility study. The goal is for the corps to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to dig a bypass channel for the river, eliminating the risk of a disastrous flood and creating an island of prime real estate with business and recreational opportunities.
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At first blush, it’s confounding that the Trinity authority would thumb its nose at the first federal movement on the project in a while.
But local officials have always insisted that an economic impact study isn’t necessary because the flood-control imperative is clear and Congress has signed off on the project. And the entities who are partners on the project have already been squabbling over more local spending, so the $1.5 million to match the Corps funding is significant, especially during a recession.
Mazzanti explained Friday that, in essence, the request for the study is odd because it’s out of the usual order of business for a Corps project. A feasibility study usually precedes congressional authorization of a project.
“A new-start feasibility study is confusing for [local officials] to understand when they have executed a considerable amount of their responsibilities” under previously struck agreements with the Corps.
Noting that the Corps has been a “tremendous partner,” he added: “We’ve asked the Corps to provide the objective and scope of what the study would accomplish. Why do you need it for an authorized project?”
Mazzanti and the board have a point. The trouble is, who can say at this point what the strategy is to finally get the river channel dug? What happens if the waiting game stretches on? And might the decision to decline the study read as a sign that local project leaders fear it would reflect poorly on the economic need or environmental impact of the proposal?
What’s increasingly clear is that there’s either a fundamental disagreement about the project or a big communication breakdown with Washington. After an independent review was done at the behest of Mayor Betsy Price, project leaders acknowledged that the messaging emphasis on flood control had been lost.
Changes were made, including shifting the recreation and economic development portions to other entities and hiring Mazzanti, a decades-long veteran of the Corps of Engineers. Mazzanti said that project officials “regularly ensure we’re consistent with” the recommendations of the independent review.
Rep. Kay Granger, Fort Worth’s powerful congressional veteran who is the top Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, told us earlier this year that the holdup rested with Mick Mulvaney, the White House chief of staff who was also overseeing the president’s budget office. Mulvaney was shifted out of the White House in March, but nothing has changed for Panther Island.
Each year brings another budget opportunity, so perhaps the board is betting that 2021 could bring a change of heart by a re-elected President Donald Trump or a better chance under a President Joe Biden. Gambling on that could make sense, given that the feasibility study could take at least three years.
But with the ongoing pandemic and economic slump, federal dollars will only be harder to come by. In the meantime, what local work continues, including bridges that will now clearly carry traffic over dry land for perhaps years.
Mazzanti said that completing local tasks “certainly shows our commitment to the highest, most important critical things we can do.”
But Fort Worth will have to wait still longer for leaders from City Hall to the regional water authority to Washington to figure out a way out of this mess.