
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, May 13, 1990                   TAG: 9005130146
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: DALLAS                                LENGTH: Medium

THIS YEAR, THE GAMBLE DID NOT PAY

Texans who live along the 550-mile Trinity River came out on the losing side of an annual gamble this year: Reservoirs were kept full of water for the hot, dry summer, not lowered for a chance of spring floods.

Hundreds of angry landowners criticized the Trinity River Authority for failing to provide a safety margin in the level of Lake Livingston as water flowed downstream from record flooding in northern Texas.

About 300 people who attended an authority meeting two weeks ago claim the agency could have prevented emergency heavy releases that will add to flooding below the dam.

"I am fearful that push will come to shove on this thing. People all up and down the river are adamant about it - they're mad and highly upset," said Liberty County Judge Dempsie Henley. "They're making all kinds of threats, including wanting to file lawsuits."

But TRA spokesman John Jadrosich said the flooding cannot be controlled.

"To build a lake to provide proper flood control to the lower Trinity would be of almost unimaginable size. It is doubtful you could do it," he said.

"This is a flood plain," Jadrosich said. "It will flood again next year. It has done so since time immemorial, and there's absolutely nothing the Trinity River Authority can do to provide relief to these poor, beleaguered people downstream. We are doing everything we can do at this point."

The discharge of water over the spillway at the Lake Livingston dam, normally about 20,000 cubic feet of water per second, increased Saturday as the leading edge of the flood arrived to 48,200 cubic feet per second, said Jim Mitchum, Liberty County emergency management coordinator.

But later Saturday, TRA officials increased that estimate to 90,000 to 100,000 cfs because of rain Friday night upstream and said a flow above 75,000 cfs would be sustained for up to nine days. Jadrosich said the previous record flow over the dam, built in 1969, was 75,000 cfs in June 1973. Niagara Falls has a mean annual flow of about 212,200 cfs.

Henley said a flow of 40,000 cfs is enough to cover an acre of land one foot deep in one second.

Mitchum said most people felt that, although the dam is not intended for flood control, water should have been released after the heavy rain in the Dallas-Fort Worth area so the reservoir would have had more capacity when the flood water arrived.

But Jadrosich said that because Lake Livingston is so large - with a surface of 90,000 acres - it would have taken several weeks to make a dent in the lake level.

And, he added, considering the size of the Trinity's flood: "If Lake Livingston was completely dry like it was in 1969, it would fill completely up and would still produce a flood downstream."

by CNB