Local dams to get $3.3 million in repairs

By Janet Jacobs

Navarro County will receive $3.3 million in federal stimulus money to repair dams on Chambers Creek and Richland Creek, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, a part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The three earthen dams are located in three different segments of the county. The first, on Chambers Creek, is just north of Corsicana, off Interstate 45, southeast of Rice. The second, on Richland Creek in western Navarro, is just east of CR 3418, south of Mertens; while the third is in the southern part of the county, northwest of Wortham, and just off CR 2280.

The sites were chosen from a list of endangered small dams around the state, explained Lori Valadez, spokeswoman for the Natural Resources Conservation Service, formerly known as the Soil Conservation Service. The projects on the list are small dams built to prevent soil erosion and flooding, but which now have slope slide, which is when the soil starts to slip down one side.

“They were built over the last 50 years, and their purpose was to complement the flood control program of the Corps of Engineers,” Valadez said. “The Corps of Engineers built huge dams, and we built smaller ones to complement those. They were originally designed to protect farmland in rural areas, but as Texas has grown, a lot of these are now providing flood control in urban areas and urban development.”

The local office of the NRCS inspects each of the dams annually, and ones that need repairs or maintenance are put on the high-priority list, explained Kristy Oates, district conservationist.

“They’re all under 50 years old, so they’re not that old, but they just have slope problems, or structural items that need to be taken care of for them to continue for many years to come,” Oates said.

Navarro was not the only county to get the stimulus money for dams. About $21.5 million will be spent to repair 24 flood-control dams, mostly in north central Texas. Other recipients include Ellis County, $5.7 million; Johnson County, $2.1 million; Hill County, $468,000; Collin County, $2.2 million and Williamson County, $3.4 million.

Nationally, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is providing $84.8 million for 55 projects, as part of the 2009 stimulus plan.

“President Obama is committed to improving water quality, creating more dependable water supplies and decreasing soil erosion, and this funding will make a big difference in the lives of the people who live in these rural committees,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a press release.

It’s estimated that the projects will improve community safety, mitigate floods, control soil erosion, and create about 450 jobs in Texas.

“I think it’s great, and it’s needed, because if you survey our county and see how many of these flood dams we have, without them, there’s so much land that would be useless,” said Kim Wyatt, a board member on the Trinity River Authority Board. “They’ve been very useful, and it’s been good for our county. If something happened to those dams it would be a major disaster.”

The stimulus package, also known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, is a $787 billion spending plan of tax cuts, grants, infrastructure and investment projects designed to jump-start the economy and create jobs.

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