Mouth Bar Dredging: First Pictures of Next Phase

Earlier this month, the State, Harris County and City of Houston announced the next phase of West Fork mouth bar dredging. Late last week, it got underway in earnest.

West Fork mouth bar on Monday 1.20.2020 before mechanical dredging started.

How Mechanical Dredging Works

Rachel Taylor took the ground-level pictures below earlier today from her back yard in Atascocita Point. They show mechanical excavators eating away at the mouth bar and loading the spoils on barges.

Sunday afternoon, 1.26.2020, two mechanical excavators worked the western end of the mouth bar. They loaded the spoils on waiting barges (right). Photo courtesy of Rachel Lavin Taylor.
Service boats then pushed the barges upriver. Photo courtesy of Rachel Lavin Taylor.
Barge loaded with spoils passes the Deerwood Country Club. Photo courtesy of Rachel Lavin Taylor.
Barges then anchor at Berry Madden’s property on the south side of the West Fork opposite River Grove Park. That black object jutting into the photo from the lower left is the skid of the helicopter. Photo taken 1.20.2020.
From there, other trucks move the spoils inland. For orientation, that water tower in the upper left is south of Kings Lake Estates. Photo taken 1.20.2020.

Mechanical dredging is slower and more labor intensive than hydraulic dredging, but can mobilize faster. In hydraulic dredging, dredgers pump the spoils to a placement area via pipelines. That is faster, but has higher overhead. It also creates more noise.

Hydraulic Dredging Options

The hydraulic pipelines can stretch miles. In the case of the first phase of West Fork mouth bar dredging, they stretched 10 miles upstream. It took five booster pumps to get the material all that way to a sand mine on Sorters just south of Kingwood Drive.

Luckily for us, the pipe from the first phase of mouth bar dredging is still at the Army Corps dock opposite Forest Cove.

Pipe from the first phase of mouth bar dredging still sits at the former Army Corps command post and could be rewelded into longer sections if needed.
The Great Lakes Dredge also remains at the dock. Here you see the pieces below and behind the crane.

At some point in this project, dredging may switch from mechanical to hydraulic. The fact that the Great Lakes dredge remained here bodes well. It chewed through 500,000 cubic yards of debris at the West Fork mouth bar in less than three months. Officials expect mechanical dredging of 400,000 cubic yards to take 8 -12 months.

Additional Dredging Targets and Financing

Other targets reportedly include the East Fork Mouth Bar and several mouth bars that have formed at the mouths of ditches or streams leading into the lake.

State Representative Dan Huberty helped bring $30 million to this phase of dredging via an amendment to SB500 in the last legislature. That money will funnel through Harris County via the Texas Water Development Board. The County also included $10 million in the 2018 flood bond. And the City is applying $6 million left over from a FEMA/TDEM grant for debris removal from Harvey.

For more details on this next phase of dredging, see the previous post on this project.

Two Phase Project Outlined In Grant

Harris County’s proposal for the grant from the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) calls for splitting the project into two phases. 

  • Phase One will focus on the West Fork Mouth Bar using the City’s $6 million and $10 million from the TWDB grant.
  • Phase Two will focus on the East Fork Mouth Bar using the remaining $20 million from the grant.
  • The $10 million from the County flood bond will fund surveys, formulation of specs, bidding, project management and more.

Progress Result of Pulling Together

All this is great news for the Lake Houston Area. The entire community worked since Harvey to make this happen through all levels of government.

As we look at other flooding problems in the area, it’s important not to get discouraged and to remember that we can make progress if we all pull together.

Posted by Bob Rehak on 1/26/2020 with photos from Rachel Lavin Taylor

880 Days since Hurricane Harvey