Apologies for cross-postings. Elizabeth Dickinson West Side
Subject: URGENT: FLOODWALL BACK IN BILL. PLEASE FORWARD. ACT NOW. Everyone, TODAY at Noon, Wed. 3/23, we rec'd word that the Holman Field Floodwall is BACK in the BONDING BILL at the behest of Governor Pawlenty. PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE. PLEASE CALL St. Paul legislators to express your support for their continued efforts to ensure that this environmental travesty is not funded. Senator Sandy Pappas and Representative Alice Hausman are working hard to remove it from the bill. To contact legislators, you can find their phone numbers and email addresses at www.leg.state.mn.us <http://www.leg.state.mn.us> . If you have friends, colleagues and families in the districts of Bonding Committee Chairs, Rep. Dan Dorman and Sen. Keith Langseth, please ask for their help as well. Below my signature, you'll find everything you need to know about the Holman Field Floodwall, a remarkable document assembled and edited by Ellen Biales, Legislative Aide to Council President Kathy Lantry, with help from Rep. Sheldon Johnson. Please feel free to use in any way that will help stop the construction of the floodwall. Jane Prince, 651/308-4984 FLOODWALL ISSUES Businesses along Childs Road strongly oppose it. They anticipate further flooding and erosion on the east bank of the river. -Morton Salt, Great Western, Cemstone Aggregate Industries, Hawkins Chemicals, and Railroads: Burlington Northern, Union Pacific and Canadian Pacific. Northwest Airlines makes clear in their EAW response that air traffic will increase following completion of the project. Homeowners and neighborhood residents are already negatively impacted by airplane/jet noise and this would obviously make it worse. Dayton�s Bluff neighbors can�t soundproof due to historic designation and architectural integrity. Important to Note: MAC and local governments have absolutely no ability to restrict or alter flight patterns. MAC and local governments can recommend, but the pilot decides. It is an FAA matter. Neighborhood attempts to meet with the FAA to discuss airport noise concerns have met with no response. Spending $30 million on this project is not financially prudent. It has only marginal benefits compared to its enormous costs. -MAC has estimated that the floodwall project will result in a benefit/cost ratio of 1.52. Many have questioned this estimate since FEMA calculates its cost/benefit ratio against �potential future damages avoided� and the MAC appears to have included other external costs into its calculations. Regardless, the Bush Administration�s 2005 proposed budget for the Corps of Engineers speaks to the importance of funding activities that yield the greatest net benefit to society per dollar invested and changes the culture at the Corps �of building unneeded, destructive projects for flood control and navigation.� Flood/Storm Damage Reduction projects that are targeted in the 2005 Corps Budget have net benefits of 2.5 and 3.6 times greater than their costs. -This is not a priority project for MAC and apparently for good reason (if it was they could bond for it themselves). Instead, they are now looking to the city, state and federal government to fund a project that is low on their priority list. -With respect to the airport being shutdown for flooding, Northwest is not on record of having ever complained about any kind of impact in operations during that time. (The airport has flooded only seven times since it was built. 1991-2001 were the wettest 10 years on record. It flooded three times during these 10 years; it was the wettest decade on record.) Environmental: -The Corp of Engineers and other river resource managers are currently making it clear that communities need to reduce the amount of floodplain behind dikes � not increase it. Taking 300 additional acres out of the floodplain is going in the wrong direction for sound ecological river management. (The upper-landing project took 21 acres out of the floodplain). -By law, there is only so much excess flood storage removal capacity for St. Paul�s segment of the river. As originally designed, the dike project was going to exceed the one-half foot limitation; the original design was rejected because it would have created flooding in violation of the state�s floodway criteria. The newly developed modeling purports to keep flooding under the one-half foot limit. -The City of Saint Paul�s own zoning code recognizes the concern about removing excess land from the floodplain � Sec. 68.214. Standards for conditional uses in the RC1 Floodway District states that �Community-wide structural works for flood control intended to remove areas from the regulatory floodplain shall not be allowed in the floodway.� -The question is whether creating this dike is the best use of city�s ability to �use-up� floodplain. Taking this land from the floodplain means that the city�s opportunities to develop other riverfront areas become more limited. -There is great concern about the increased cost of cleanup to city parks such as Harriet Island and Crosby Park as they will receive additional flood waters as a result of up-river flooding caused by removing 300 acres from the floodplain. -Environmental review of the floodwall impacts thus far is lacking. An EIS is needed for this kind of project. Only an EAW was completed. The EAW was done by the proposer of the project, MAC. MAC�s own environmental assessment indicates that additional assessment needs to be performed to determine if the project will have an adverse effect on fish, wildlife, and plants. Concerns and opposition have been expressed by: Friends of the Parks and Trails of Saint Paul and Ramsey County (Effects of excavation, surface water run-off, removal of flood plain) National Park Service (Effects on Mississippi National River and Recreation Area) Friends of the Mississippi River (Overall environmental impact of project) Audubon Upper Mississippi River Campaign St. Paul Riverfront Corporation (Concern about increased flood impact on up river projects) Metropolitan Council (Concern about little information concerning some potential environmental impacts) Ramsey County Soil and Water Conservation District (Concern about wetland impact and storm water run-off) - St. Paul Yacht Club (Concern about the potential for increased flooding) Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad (Increasing water level would exacerbate flood situation for railroad) Canadian Pacific Railway (Concern about increased water level exacerbating flood problems) Union Pacific Railroad Company (Concern about property located upstream from Holman Field including facilities owned by Union Pacific) Northwest Airlines (Concerned about the type, extent and reversibility of environmental effects, cumulative potential effects of related or anticipated future projects, extent to which environmental effects can be anticipated and controlled, cost-benefit analysis provided in the EAW is incomplete and misleading) Daytons Bluff Neighbors (Concern about increased flooding, noise, lack of information about MAC�s long-term operational and development plans at Holman) West-side Neighbors (Concern about potential impacts of flooding on up-river residents and river users) Sierra Club North Star Chapter (Committee has given unanimous recommendation to full board which will consider resolution this month) (Concern about economic feasibility, environmental effects on riverfront) ------------------------------------------------- JOIN the St. Paul Issues Forum TODAY: http://www.e-democracy.org/stpaul/ ------------------------------------------------- POST MESSAGES HERE: [email protected] To subscribe, modify subscription, or get your password - visit: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/listinfo/stpaul Archive Address: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/private/stpaul/
