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Liberty County reviews drainage-criteria updates to align with Harris County minimums, seeks balance for unmapped areas
Summary
County engineers proposed adding five minimum drainage standards (Atlas 14 rainfall, 0.55 acre-feet/acre minimum detention for developments >=1 acre, limits on hydrograph timing, no net fill in mapped 500-year floodplain, and 500-year finished-floor elevation) while recommending flexibility where 500-year mapping is unavailable.
Liberty County commissioners spent the morning reviewing proposed updates to the county's subdivision and flood-damage prevention regulations aimed at aligning certain standards with neighboring Harris County. William Conlon of LJ Engineering, the consultant leading the countywide master drainage plan, said the updates respond to a Harris County request that adjacent jurisdictions adopt five minimums to enable interjurisdictional partnership projects.
Conlon described the five minimums as adopting Atlas 14 rainfall rates in drainage calculations, a minimum detention factor of 0.55 acre-feet per acre for residential developments of 1 acre or larger, restricting the use of hydrograph timing as a substitute for detention unless outfalling directly to a major river or bay, prohibiting net fill in a mapped 500-year floodplain, and setting finished-floor elevations to the 500-year level in those…
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