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Reduce Flood Risk from Sand Mining in Two Minutes

1/22/25 – The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has proposed new Best Management Practices (BMPs) for Sand Mines. But they do nothing to address flood risk from sand mining here in the Lake Houston Area.

Sediment pollution from upstream sand mines has contributed to flooding more than 13,000 homes and businesses in the Lake Houston Area. Yet despite more than a billion dollars in damages and almost $200 million spent on dredging in the last five years, fewer than 100 people have protested the new, but ineffective BMPs as of noon today.

To encourage more people to get involved, below I’ve summarized the problems and suggested solutions that you can submit verbatim. The process should take less than two minutes.

The Problem

Local sand-mining practices accelerate and add to the rate of natural erosion. That helps create sediment blockages that reduce conveyance of rivers, back water up, and build higher flood peaks.

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Sand deposited during Hurricane Harvey was 8-10 feet above the water line in places. It backed water up into Kingwood, Atascocita and Humble, and stretched 3,400 feet.
East Fork Mouth Bar cost $18 million to dredge.
East Fork Mouth Bar after Imelda grew 3,700 feet.

Both of these blockages have since been dredged. But more sand continues coming with each new flood due to questionable management practices at upstream sand mines. See suggestions below.

Be Part of The Solution

Please add your voice to those protesting the omission of BMPs that address our issues. Providing public comment. Only three days remain before the deadline Friday night.

It should only take a minute or two. Follow these simple steps.

  1. Download this PDF from ReduceFlooding.com. Save it to your desktop. You’ll attach it to the webform in step 3.
  2. Copy all text between the two lines below.
  3. Go to the TCEQ web page for submitting comments. Paste the text and attach the PDF.

RE: APO BMP List Proposal

TCEQ’s attempt to create a helpful list of Best Management Practices for Aggregate Production Operations is an exercise in willful blindness. It completely ignores issues mandated by the legislature, as well as others that reduce water quality and increase flood risk.

The issues you do address are addressed in a vague and/or self-evident manner that render them inadequate.

In addition to more specificity, I would like to see BMPs that help mines in the Houston region avoid inundation and pit capture. 

Most mines on the East and West Forks of the San Jacinto were inundated last year. Floodwaters swept industrial waste downstream into Lake Houston, the drinking water supply for two million people. 

The rivers also broke through the dikes of at least six of those mines. The rivers now run through pits instead of around them. This flushes sand and sediment downstream, where it reduces conveyance, blocks drainage and contributes to flooding.

Addressing these issues requires building mines on higher ground, farther from rivers.

I recommend doubling the minimum setback from 100 to 200 feet for mines in the San Jacinto watershed. That will put the mines on higher ground, farther from the floodway.

I also recommend leaving forests undisturbed in the widened buffer zone. That will reduce the velocity of floodwater and, with it, the volume of sediment carried downstream. It will also decrease the likelihood of pit capture, by increasing the amount of time that it takes a river to migrate into a mine. The forest will also help capture sediment that may escape a mine.

Finally, the wider buffers will give rivers more room to spread out during floods. Right now, dikes are supposed to protect mines from a hundred-year flood. But when mines build tall dikes on one side of a river, they double the volume of water flooding the other side. And when they build tall dikes on both sides of a river, water has no room to spread out without invading the mines. The tall dikes effectively eliminate ALL floodplains and turn rivers into erosive firehoses.

I have attached a PDF that shows visual proof of the need for BMPs that address our main sand-mining concerns in the San Jacinto Watershed.

I also support the concerns and list of alternative BMPs supported by Texans for Responsible Aggregate Mining.


Send a message to Austin that you want the protection you pay taxes for. Get all your friends, neighbors and relatives to submit comments, too.

For more information about sand mining in the Houston region as it relates to the Proposed BMPs, consult these posts.

Posted by Bob Rehak on 1/22/25

2703 Days since Hurricane Harvey