Worth Fighting For

Almost 40 years ago, when I moved to Houston, I fell in love with the extraordinary beauty of this City. And nowhere in Houston is more beautiful than the Lake Houston Area. The pictures below show why it’s worth fighting for.

Nature in the Lake Houston Area isn’t a place you go to visit. You don’t have to drive or fly to it. It’s all around you. Step out your back door and you’re already there. You’re breathing it. You’re being it.

Harvey Was an Eye Opener

Right up until Hurricane Harvey, I felt, on balance, this was the most perfect place in America to raise my family. Houston offers career opportunities found in few other cities. And the Lake Houston Area, in particular, offers the things my family and I value.

Harvey didn’t change my mind about those things. But it did open my eyes to some things I should have paid closer attention to. All around us, that perfect environment was quietly and steadily being eroded for decades.

It’s not gone. But it is threatened. Every day. More than a thousand other posts on this web site amply chronicle those threats. I won’t dwell on them here. Nor will I dwell on how “the greatest flood ever” kept being replaced by the new “greatest flood ever.”

What We Need to Fight For

I would like, instead, to share several images that show it’s not too late to preserve what we have. But to do that, we have to fight for it.

We need to fight for:

  • Responsible aggregate mining.
  • Better development practices that respect nature.
  • Upstream floodplain regulations that reduce flooding.
  • Flood mitigation efforts that keep the 100-year floodplain a 100-year floodplain.

Why We Need to Fight

I took all of the pictures below in the last three months. They show what we need to save. All were shot inside America’s fourth largest city, which makes them even more unique.

The Kingwood Country Club’s Lake Course. Can you spot the thousands of homes around it?
West Fork of the San Jacinto with Lake Houston on the horizon. Looking SE.
For decades, development preserved nature. This is the result.
Looking north at Lake Houston across the spillway.
Looking south over the Lake Houston Dam toward the industry that powers America and the world.
Looking east from the West Fork toward the East Fork of the San Jacinto with Royal Shores between them.
Looking north along the East Fork. Kingwood’s East End Park is in the center and Huffman is on the right.
Looking SE. FM1960 cuts across Lake Houston and through Huffman in the foreground
Looking Southwest in the opposite direction from over FM1960, with Lake Houston in background.
Looking East across FM2100 and Huffman toward Kingwood on the other side of the lake.
Looking West. The Luce Bayou Interbasin Transfer Project where it enters into Luce Bayou and the headwaters of Lake Houston.
Looking north from the Commons on Lake Houston toward where the new Grand Parkway is circling Houston (out of sight) near the top of the frame. This entire area could soon be developed.
Looking southeast across Kingwood Park High School. Kingwood, where 70,000 people live, is almost invisible, hidden among the trees between the school and Lake Houston at the top of the frame.
Looking north over Forest Cove, toward I-69 and Insperity, Kingwood’s $4 billion company, all hidden in the trees.
Looking NW from the confluence of Spring Creek and the San Jacinto West Fork. All of this land has been bought by a developer.
Fishing from your back door.

If this isn’t worth fighting for, I don’t know what is.

Bob Rehak

Please join the fight. There’s another legislative session starting in six months.

Posted by Bob Rehak on 7/15/2020

1051 Days since Hurricane Harvey

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