Flickinger Issues Dredging, Floodgates Updates

12/15/24 – Houston District E City Council Member Fred Flickinger issued a newsletter on 12/11/24. It contains updates on Lake Houston dredging and additional floodgates for the Lake Houston Dam.

Dredging Details

According to Flickinger, the City’s dredging contractor will begin south of the West Fork-Mouth Bar this week. DRC will remove approximately 800,000 cubic yards of silt and sediment.

“The removal will take two years.”
District E Council Member Fred Flickinger

DRC will use a combination of mechanical and hydraulic dredging.

FEMA is providing funds the additional dredging in this area. The funds came from tireless efforts in protesting the initial volume that FEMA approved for dredging back in 2019. Congressman Dan Crenshaw, previous Council Member Dave Martin, and former Chief Recovery Officer Stephen Costello protested FEMA’s ruling tirelessly.

In August 2020, FEMA, through their technical consultant at the US Army Corps of Engineers, reversed itself. FEMA concurred with the City’s ninety-four-page technical report.

*Photo taken December 8 of DRC/Callan Marine Dredge anchored off Royal Shores as it prepares for new dredging program.*

Council Member Martin strongly disagreed with the USACE’s original four-page tabletop study. He continued to push for the volume he knew the Lake Houston Area deserved.

Said Flickinger, “We are excited to see this additional dredging finally get going. We are working to find funding for continued dredging throughout Lake Houston and its tributaries.”

Floodgates Timeline

Phase II for the Lake Houston Dam Spillway Improvement Project is underway. Phase II includes the final design engineering and construction of eleven new floodgates. They will be built in the existing embankment on the east side of the Lake Houston Dam Spillway.

*New gates will go in the sunlit area in the embankment to the right of the existing gates and channel.*

Building the new gate structure in the east embankment removes the high-construction risk of modifying the existing gate structure or spillway. The old plan, which involved shaving down the existing spillway and adding crest gates was abandoned when the City could not find bidders willing to assume the risk.

The new plan also allows continued use of the existing gate structure during construction.

Each gate will be 20 ft x 20 ft and release approximately 7,100 cubic feet of water per second (cfs) per gate when fully open. The combined total water release of all 11 gates will be approximately 79,000 cfs.

79,000 CFS equals the volume of water released each second from Lake Conroe by the SJRA during the peak of Hurricane Harvey.

The current timeline is to have the final design and construction plans completed by December 2025.

The City will bid and award the contract for construction in 2026.

Finally construction will begin by Q4 2026 or Q1 2027, almost ten years after the storm that made people realize the need for the project.

The existing Lake Houston floodgates have one-fifteenth of Lake Conroe’s release capacity. That makes any kind of coordinated release strategy virtually impossible. It also means that people both up- and downstream may get slammed with higher floods than if the City had a meaningful pre-release capability.

According to Flickinger, the District E office continues to sit in on bi-weekly coordination meetings for this project.

Posted by Bob Rehak on 12/15/25

2665 Days since Hurricane Harvey