Woodridge Village Excavation, Taylor Gully Updates
Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) says that, as of 10/31/22, Sprint Sand and Clay has hauled off 66,094 cubic yards of dirt from Woodridge Village. That means, despite the slowing real estate market, that the company has exceeded its Excavation and Removal contract minimum within nine months of the first year.
Objective of Excavation
The objective of the contract: to get a head start on the removal of up to 500,000 cubic yards of dirt from what will eventually become the sixth stormwater detention basin on the Woodridge Village property. Woodridge forms the headwaters of Taylor Gully.
The Woodridge property flooded up to 600 homes in Elm Grove and North Kingwood Forest twice in 2019. That happened after the a developer clearcut the property before installing sufficient stormwater detention capacity.
Since then:
- HCFCD and the City of Houston purchased the property
- Perry Homes finished building five floodwater detention basins, but left the property about 40% short of the capacity needed to meet Atlas-14 requirements.
- HCFCD began excavating additional detention capacity in January 2022.
- HCFCD hired Idcus to perform a preliminary engineering survey on flooding in and around Woodridge and Taylor Gully.
- Idcus completed the initial draft.
- HCFCD reviewed it.
- Idcus tweaked it.
Community Meeting Will Reveal Findings of Engineering Study
HCFCD is now planning a community meeting to share the results with affected residents before the end of the year.
It’s not clear yet exactly:
- How much additional detention Woodridge will need
- How much channel widening Taylor Gully will need
- Whether any bridges need to be replaced
- How upstream improvements will affect residents farther downstream.
The preliminary engineering report should address all those questions.
Photos from September and October
In the meantime, a parade of dump trucks visits the Woodridge site most days to haul off dirt from where the sixth basin will go. The sixth basin could double stormwater detention capacity on the site – if Sprint excavates all 500,000 CY.
As of mid-September 2022, Sprint Sand and Clay had removed 57,785 cubic yards (CY). Currently, they have removed a total of 66,094 CY. That means they removed 8,309 CY in the last 6 weeks. And that in turn means the current monthly rate is about 5500 CY.
Sprint’s contract calls for them to remove a minimum of 60,000 cubic yards per year or 5,000 per month.
The September and October pictures below show how far Sprint has come in the last six weeks.
See pictures taken below from the reverse angle. The majority of the work now takes place at the far end.
Groundwater appears to be seeping into excavated areas.
HCFCD did not confirm WHY Sprint appears to be digging shallower. Amy Stone, a HCFCD spokesperson, did say however that the site contains multiple types of soil. The volume removed in a particular location may relate to demand for a particular type.
More news about the community meeting and study findings when it becomes available.
Posted by Bob Rehak on November 1, 2022
1890 Days since Hurricane Harvey
