With $2.5 billion, you could run each of Houston ISD’s 284 schools for a year, cover the Astros payroll and still have enough left over to buy the River Oaks mansion of your choice.

Or you could undertake the largest concentrated flood control effort across Harris County in decades.

That is how much Harris County Commissioners Court decided last week to put before voters on Aug. 25, the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Harvey’s landfall and subsequent deluge of southeast Texas, in a bid to harden the area against similar, or worse, flooding in the future.

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And county officials are asking residents how to spend that money. Through at least two-dozen public meetings across the county’s watersheds, County Judge Ed Emmett said residents have a crucial role to play as they provide feedback for the projects they think most will benefit their neighborhoods.

“As that comes in, Flood Control can make adjustments,” Emmett said. “You could have some projects just completely dropped. You could have some projects added we hadn’t thought about.”

The bond vote is an all-or-nothing gamble by Commissioners Court, whose members hope residents will commit to strengthening flood infrastructure after Harvey flooded 11 percent of the county’s housing stock this past August. If the bond passes, Harris County will have access to as much as $2.5 billion to make, over the next 10 to 15 years, the largest local investment in flood infrasctructure in the county’s history. If the bond fails, engineers will be limited to the flood control district’s annual operations and capital budgets, which total a paltry $120 million in comparison.

“This is the most important local vote I can remember in my lifetime,” Emmett said. “We either step up as a community and say we are going to address flooding and make our community resilient, or we kind of drib and drabble on, and it wouldn’t end well for anyone.”

A preliminary list of projects includes $919 million for channel improvements, $386 million for detention basins, $220 million for floodplain land acquisition, $12.5 million for new floodplain mapping and $1.25 million for an improved early flood warning system.

Also included is $184 million, coupled with $552 million in outside funding, to purchase around 3,600 buildings in the floodplain - more than the flood control district’s buyout program has bought in its entire 33-year history.

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The draft list includes $430 million — nearly a fifth of the total — for contingency funding and “opportunities identified through public input.”

Upcoming community meetings Halls Bayou — June 20, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., North East Harris County Community Center Hunting Bayou — June 23, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., Kashmere Multi-Service Center Jackson Bayou — June 25, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., Crosby Community Center Spring Creek — June 27, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., Big Stone Lodge at Dennis Johnston Park Spring Gully/Goose Creek — June 28, Baytown Community Center

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Matt Zeve, the director of operations for the Harris County Flood Control District, said that is where projects submitted by residents and given the green light can be funded.

“As we get new projects and the flood control district determines they are feasible, we add them to the proposed bond program and the contingency is reduced,” Zeve said.

The bond would not finance the construction of a third reservoir in west Houston, but does include $750,000 to study, with the Army Corps of Engineers, whether another reservoir is necessary.

Other line items call for de-silting channels that lead into Addicks and Barker reservoirs, or possibly providing funding to the Army Corps to remove silt and vegetation from the reservoirs. Addicks and Barker are managed by the Army Corps, not Harris County, leaving any decisions about the future of those basins in the hands of the federal government.

COMMUNITY MEETINGS: Emmett promises public will have input on $2.5B flood bond

The flood control district plans to work through the summer on the list of projects the bond would fund, and Emmett has pledged to publish a complete list by the time early voting begins in August. Until then, Emmett said plans may continue to change based on input from residents.

The county held just two public meetings before Commissioners Court set the bond amount this past Tuesday, which prevents the flood control district from proposing bond projects in excess of $2.5 billion. Emmett said scheduling the meetings earlier would not have made sense because the county had yet to determine what state or federal dollars may be available to help fund some of the bond projects.

“We just weren’t ready,” he said. “Until it came time for us to put a bond out there, we didn’t have anything to talk about.”

Here are some of the major projects in each of the county’s 23 watersheds. Many, especially proposed buyouts, include additional outside funding.

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Addicks Reservoir

$9.4 million for a stormwater detention basin on South Mayde Creek near the Grand Parkway

$30 million to rehabilitate channels upstream of Addicks Reservoir

$25 million to reduce flooding along Bear Creek

Armand Bayou

$2.5 million for improvements along Horsepen Bayou

$3.75 million for channel improvements

$3.75 million to build the Red Bluff regional stormwater detention basin

$1.5 million for 30 buyouts

Barker Reservoir

$30 million to rehabilitate 20 miles of upstream channels

$8.3 million for Barker subdivision drainage improvements

$10 million to rehabilitate channels inside Barker Reservoir

Brays Bayou

$32.5 million for Keegans Bayou improvements

$2.9 million for 40 buyouts

$30.5 million for improvements along the Fondren diversion channel

Buffalo Bayou

$10 million to improve stormwater detention volume

$30 million to impove local drainage issues

$4 million for Spring Branch Creek stabilization

Carpenters Bayou

$140,000 for drainage improvements

$12,000 for 16 repair projects

Cedar Bayou

$74 million for channel improvements and a detention basin upstream of FM 1960

$33 million for channel improvements along Magee Gully

$23 million for channel improvements along Adlong Ditch

Clear Creek

$9.7 million for 170 home buyouts

$7.4 million for a Dagg Road detention basin

$6.1 million for Hughes Stormwater detention basin

Cypress Creek

$100 million to buy land along creek to preserve channel or restore floodplains

$46.8 million for 450 buyouts

$25 million for detention basins in buyout area

Goose Creek

$25 million for channel improvements to Spring Gully

$540,000 for Goose Creek/Spring Gully subdivision drainage improvements

Greens Bayou

$28.4 million for Greens Bayou subdivision drainage improvements

$24.5 million for 810 buyouts

$2 million for channel improvements

Halls Bayou

$34.4 million for 830 buyouts

$4 million for Aldine Westfield detention basin

$11.7 million for channel improvements

Hunting Bayou

$2.9 million for 90 buyouts

$10 million for Wallisville Outfall

$10 million for Army Corps partnership project

Jackson Bayou

$10 million for watershed drainage improvements

$750,000 for Jackson Bayou subdivision drainage improvements

Little Cypress Creek

$111.8 million for additional creek volume and stormwater detention basins

$30 million for Little Cypress Creek frontier program

$2.4 million for 30 buyouts

Luce Bayou

$10 million for watershed trainage improvements

$10 million to purchase land to restore natural floodplains

San Jacinto River

$28.2 million for 470 buyouts

$25 million for drainage improvements of West Fork watershed

$15 million for drainage improvements of East Fork watershed

Sims Bayou

$12.5 million for detention basin and channel improvements

$15 million in additional channel improvements

$4.5 million for South Post Oak detention basin and channel improvements

Spring Creek

$250,000 for drainage improvements

$75,000 for several buyouts

Vince Bayou

$5 million for watershed drainage improvements

$100,000 for several buyouts

White Oak Bayou

$30 million for White Oak channel improvements

$35 million for Brickhouse Gully channel improvements

$29.8 million for 660 buyouts

Willow Creek

$30 million to purchase land for floodplain restoration

$21 million for channel improvements

$525,000 for 10 buyouts

zach.despart@chron.com

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