These Dams Needed Replacing 15 Years Ago. Now Texas Will Drain Four Lakes Instead — Causing Other Problems.

Valley last year.

“We’re going to need to build cities and build communities so that they can get wet every once in a while and it’s not catastrophic,” Gilbert said. “Let’s put a soccer field where there’s a floodplain, not a hospital or a neighborhood. New Orleans and Houston are great examples of us ignoring the fact that things are going to get worse.”

Coody said the lack of communication from the river authority leaves little reason for homeowners to trust that the dams will someday be rebuilt and the lakes refilled if there isn’t a plan in place before the draining.

“Let’s sit down and come up with the right funding vehicle to make [the repairs] happen,” Coody said. “Don’t just drain the lakes and walk away. If we had been working on this three years ago, we wouldn’t even be in this situation.”

Residents want to take control of the dams and form a taxing district to support them, something the river authority said it is open to. But they also say they want a plan in place to do that before the lakes are drained. In the meantime, lawyers representing more than 300 plaintiffs from the region filed two lawsuits aiming to stop the lakes from being drained until a plan is in place.

Gilbert, the UT-Austin professor, said river authority officials could have been more proactive in notifying homeowners in the Guadalupe River Valley of the problems with the dams, but at this point they are in an impossible position. The flood conditions the state faces now are nothing like they were when the dams were built, and the risks of keeping the dams in place are likely too great to wait any longer.

“If they ever got too much water coming into them and the water went over the top of the dam, they’re not designed for that,” Gilbert said. “That flooding consequence could be a wall of water that goes down the valley and causes huge consequences of life loss and property loss.”

Disclosure: The University of Texas at Austin and Rice University have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

Chase Karacostas , a senior at the University of Texas, is a reporting fellow, at the Texas Tribune.This story is published courtesy of the Texas Tribune, a nonpartisan, nonprofit media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government, and statewide issues.