I'm not nearly as opposed to the proposal to build housing for mentally ill residents in the Salt Creek floodplain as many others seem to be. Population that needs housing + a place for that housing = sounds good to me.
Ok ok, it's not that simple. But why shouldn't it be? The main complaint seems to be that the housing will flood. Well, yeah, it is in a floodplain after all. But aren't there very simple methods to prevent that? Like bringing in dirt and building up the area under the homes? If there's a flood, they'll have their own private island for a while. That doesn't seem so bad.
And even if the houses to flood, it's not like folks with mental illnesses are stupid. They'll just evacuate. Or go upstairs. Of course, if they aren't bringing in dirt, why the heck are they proposing to build there? Because somebody in the flood insurance business has a vote on the City Council?
Unfortunately the news I've seen and heard about the proposal doesn't mention raising the area five feet. I haven't seen any reference to extra dirt at all. If it's true that the plan is just to build in the floodplain and roll the dice, that sounds risky. I think others have already tried that experiment. Early results from the lab haven't looked good.
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My sarcasometer is twitching. I hope its right.
I hope you’re being sarcastic also.
Perhaps something was lost here. My stand is simply this: Homes built in a floodplain = bad idea. Homes built above the most likely flood level = not a bad idea. Where’s the sarcasm in that?
I could be mis-remembering, but doesn’t construction in a floodplain broaden the floodplain upstream of the construction in addition to contributing to increased flows downstream?
Yes. Any part of the area taken out of the floodplain would have to be compensated for. A moat could be fun, for example. (I kid!) I don’t know if there are places in the area we could take dirt from to mitigate the effects.
I’m very cautious about building in flood plains. Even if you build an area up, that only keeps that area safe and pushes the water elsewhere during a flood. The water has to go somewhere, and Lincoln suffers from developers simply pushing the water problems off to some other part of the city. We need to look at the floodplain area as a whole, and not just fix one little area and blithely assume that other areas will somehow magically deal with the diverted flow.
Some of your post sounded like rationalization that is done all the time to marginalize others. “Well, they are US citizens, but we just can’t be sure….lets send them into camps!”, ” Well, they are just Jews, Croats, Armenians, Darfurians, whatever, and we are the better race….”, “Well, they are just women-they’ll adjust…” etc. Im sorry if I missed it. I was having an interesting day yesterday.
Ahh, sorry you got that vibe, Cedric. That’s definitely not what I was going for. My attitude is: if it’s good land, use it, and if not, keep out. That’s really all I was trying to say. The issues surrounding the proposed residents and where they’re able and welcome to live ... well, that’s a whole ‘nother bucket of fish.
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