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<br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />EXHIBIT 1 <br /> <br />Histon <br /> <br />Ever since March of 1998, the City of La Porte has used the Development Ordinance 1444-A <br />to regulate the filling, alteration and/or raising of elevation of acreage land within the City <br />Limits. <br /> <br />Over the past several months there has been a flurry of activity regarding fill dirt operations in <br />La Porte which is due mainly to the construction of the Harris County Flood Control <br />District's (HCFCD) regional detention basin BSI2-01-00 in Deer Park. The contractor <br />digging the regional detention pond has been offering, at a low price and sometimes free of <br />charge, to haul in fill to La Porte citizens' land and grade it out. In all cases the policy has <br />been to hold the landowner responsible for ensuring that the proper drainage ditches/trenches <br />are constructed by their contractor. The Ordinance does not currently call for or dictate the <br />need for an upper limit to any fill operations. <br /> <br />In compliance with the Texas State Water Code, the City of La Porte Development Ordinance <br />contains stipulations that when a property is filled "Adequate drainage shall be provided as to <br />reduce the community's exposure to flood hazards with respect to adjacent... developments." <br />Furthermore, the Development Ordinance states that "The protection of adjoining property <br />shall be accounted for in the design of the drainage system.. . " <br /> <br />According to the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) the City of La Porte is ranked as a <br />high risk area due in part to the high number of repetitive loss structures within the City <br />limits. The act of filling land contributes to the raising of grade thereby either taking land out <br />of the floodplain or reducing its flood risk. The Lomax area of La Porte has been an area of <br />traditional drainage problems. As such the philosophy over the past five years has been to <br />allow property owners to improve their land by filling it as long as the protection of their <br />neighbors was accounted for the in the process. <br />