Woodridge Village E&R contract

Woodridge Village Excavation Rate Ticks Up

The excavation rate of a sixth detention pond on Harris County Flood Control District’s (HCFCD) Woodridge Village property increased during the last month of 2022. That brought the total for the year to 73,745 cubic yards of soil removed under Sprint Sand and Gravel’s Excavation and Removal (E&R) Contract.

The reported total at the end of November was 67,529 cubic yards. That means the total for December was 6,216 cubic yards, the most for any month since last July. Compare the previous totals below.

Woodridge Village E&R totals
Weekly totals through November

Excavation under E&R contracts varies depending on demand for fill dirt. Sprint’s contract with Harris County Flood Control District lets it take dirt basically for free and then sell the dirt on the open market to make its money.

The work could more than double the stormwater detention capacity on the site that flooded Elm Grove and North Kingwood Forest twice in 2019.

According to HCFCD, E&R agreements provide an opportunity for making progress in advance of future basin construction. These agreements essentially provide a head start in the excavation process before the detention basin is designed and constructed. In these agreements, an excavation company agrees to remove soil from a basin site during an agreed upon time period for minimal compensation. This is a cost-effective way for the material to be removed and it also provides significant savings by minimizing trucking and disposal fees. 

Pictures Taken 1/03/23

Looking west toward the site entrance on Woodland Hills Drive.
Contractors appear to be leaving some existing concrete culverts in place that will allow the new pond to drain into the old one at the top of frame.
Looking NE. The pond could eventually extend as far as the grove of trees in the distance.

Part of a Bigger Package of Improvements

Last month, HCFCD held a virtual public meeting to describe how this would eventually contribute to flood-risk reduction on Taylor Gully.

HCFCD expects that Sprint will excavate the full 500,000 cubic yards stipulated in their contract. That will expand the current stormwater detention capacity by 166%. The property only needed 40% more to meet Atlas-14 requirements. So this will provide a considerable margin of safety.

Other improvements include:

  • A concrete-lined, low-flow channel within the existing channel to expand conveyance from 350 feet downstream of Creek Manor Drive to 1500 feet downstream of Mills Branch Drive. The concrete portion would be four feet deep and 20 feet wide.
  • A new clear-span bridge at Rustling Elms to replace the current bridge over two culverts.
Taylor Gully/Woodridge Village
Scope of preliminary engineering project

For more details and diagrams, see this post on the preliminary engineering recommendations.

Posted by Bob Rehak on 1/5/23

1955 Days since Hurricane Harvey and 1204 since Imelda