最新杏吧原创

The 65-year-old Maryland Heights resident has walked, biked and paddled there. She鈥檚 seen the water rise and fall. She saw hundreds of trees downed and dozens of acres scraped flat by bulldozers a couple of years ago when the county planned to build an ice rink in the park but was stopped because the entire process had bypassed federal and state environmental protections.

鈥淲e eventually lose when we attempt to tame the natural world, whether it is levees, dams, mining operations,鈥� Armstrong says. 鈥淚 watched in dismay, but not surprise, the flooding in northwest Missouri as levees were breached or broke earlier this year.鈥�

When that water, from massive rains throughout the Midwest that flooded the entire Missouri River basin and much of the upper Mississippi River Basin, made its way to 最新杏吧原创, the area near where Armstrong lives, the floodplain that surrounds the Creve Coeur park, turned into a virtual 鈥渂athtub,鈥� she says.

That water has subsided, though upstream in Nebraska and the Dakotas river watchers are already sounding alarm bells about the potential for more flooding this winter and spring.

Now city leaders in Maryland Heights, eyeing a pot of retail gold promised by developers, want to create a $151 million tax increment finance district to build levees and pumps to empty the bathtub and replace it with asphalt and roofs from big-box stores.

It鈥檚 madness, Armstrong says.

鈥淚 lived in 最新杏吧原创 in 1993 and remember the floodwaters in Maryland Park Lake District,鈥� she says. 鈥淲hen is the next catastrophic flood that breaches the levee?鈥�

David Stokes knows the answer to that question.

It could be this spring. And if not next year, then the year after that. Or maybe a couple more years. But it鈥檚 coming.

鈥淭heir action,鈥� Stokes says of the Maryland Heights City Council, 鈥渨ill make flooding worse. The city doesn鈥檛 care at all.鈥�

Stokes is the executive director of the Great Rivers Habitat Alliance. The nonprofit organization has been working for years to raise awareness about how bad development policy 鈥� particularly when cities offer tax incentives to build in the flood plain 鈥� makes flooding in the 最新杏吧原创 region worse, and also does little to raise the economic performance of the region as a whole.

He鈥檚 urging the 最新杏吧原创 County TIF Commission to turn down the Maryland Heights proposal. The commission will hold a hearing on the issue at the Maryland Heights Government Center.

鈥淭hey鈥檙e never going to be able to answer the question about the next time a big rain comes during a time that the river is up. Where鈥檚 that water going to go?鈥� Stokes asks. 鈥淚t鈥檚 going to flood somebody.鈥�

For Stokes and other flood plain preservation activists, it鈥檚 a lonely battle standing up to elected officials who can鈥檛 see beyond the sales tax revenue promised by developers and their phalanx of experts. They have the economic research and the flood policy research on their side. Building retail developments in areas destined to flood again, and using taxpayer dollars to do it, is throwing good money after bad. But all over 最新杏吧原创 鈥� and the country 鈥� elected officials turn their backs on the data time after time.

鈥淚t鈥檚 so frustrating to have all the research on our side and have it completely ignored,鈥� Stokes says.

A on the habitat alliance website show the effect the Howard Bend Levee in Maryland Heights has had on the rising water across the Missouri River in St. Charles County. Regular flooding is getting worse in the Main Street area of St. Charles, in part because of what is happening in 最新杏吧原创 County.

Building more levees, and adding more pumps, might keep the water off Highway 141; it might allow Marine Avenue to remain open during high-water events, but the water has to go somewhere, Stokes says.

And that鈥檚 precisely what should happen to the proposed retail development.

If the 最新杏吧原创 region can sustain it, then build it somewhere else. Not in a flood plain. Not with taxpayers padding the developer鈥檚 pockets, Stokes says.

For Armstrong, there鈥檚 another issue.

Her daughter graduated from Parkway schools. It was a good education, she says. But what happens to the next generation when the tax dollars within the financing district start being diverted from Parkway and Pattonville school districts?

Who wins then?

鈥淭he winners won鈥檛 be the residents of Parkway and Pattonville school districts, or the residents of Maryland Heights, or taxpayers, or the users of Creve Coeur park,鈥� Armstrong says. 鈥淭he beneficiaries in the short run could be the landowners who have gambled in paying for a levee as the flooding risk increases each year. Should the taxpayers reward that gamble? I think not.鈥�