Notice of Availability (NOA) [English]
The Central City Project is located within the vicinity of the downtown area of Fort Worth, Texas, along the West Fork and Clear Fork of the Trinity River and consists of a bypass channel, levee system, and associated improvements to divert flood flows around a segment of the existing floodway system. Included in the Corps of Engineers (Corps) portion of the project are hydraulic (valley storage) and related environmental and cultural resource mitigation requirements. Federal costs of the Corps portion of Central City Project are defined by PL 108-447 at $110,000,000. The non-Federal sponsor is the Tarrant Regional Water District and the City of Fort Worth is one of the local partners. These entities are also sponsors for the Riverside Oxbow Ecosystem Restoration Project, which encompasses about 1,060 acres along a 3-mile reach just downstream of the Central City Project including a portion of the old natural channel of the West Fork that was severed as a cut-off oxbow when the channel was realigned. Federal Cost for the Riverside Oxbow project is estimated (2002 price levels) at about $8,300,000.
By letter dated 22 June 2006, the City of Fort Worth requested that the Corps conduct an evaluation of the potential benefits of modifying the Central City Project to incorporate the Riverside Oxbow Ecosystem Restoration project area to accommodate valley storage requirements. In response to that letter request, the Corps’ initial evaluation suggested the concept merited additional study. Alternatives considered in more detailed evaluation of the proposal include the No Action Plan, which assumes that each project would proceed separately as currently approved and a Modified Central City Project alternative. This alternative has been formulated to integrate features of the Riverside Oxbow project and includes areas within the Riverside Oxbow project area for replacement valley storage. This analysis considers contingency valley storage sites that could be used in the event that hydraulic analyses conducted during more detailed design indicate that primary storage sites are not sufficient to achieve the required storage. The Modified Central City Project alternative would also involve relocation of the Samuels Avenue dam to a location slightly upstream of the approved dam site. To assure a comprehensive analysis, the total hydraulic system including the Central City and Riverside Oxbow areas and the channels upstream and downstream of these areas was evaluated. The recommended plan in this Supplement No. 1 to the Final EIS for the Central City Project is the Modified Central City alternative.