Cypress Creek Drainage Improvement District Provides Unified Voice for Watershed
2/5/2025 – The Cypress Creek Drainage Improvement District (CCDID) just published its first “impact report.” The report comes about a year and a half after Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law House Bill 5334 – authored by State Rep. Sam Harless – which created the special purpose district to address flooding in the Cypress Creek Watershed. Below is a summary of several key accomplishments from the report. And what CCDID hopes to accomplish in the near future.
Mission and Vision
The group’s mission is to reduce future flooding and increase flood resilience in the Cypress Creek Watershed through a comprehensive mitigation and funding plan. They hope to do that by providing a unified voice for all the residents, businesses, organizations and elected officials of the watershed.
To put the need for a unified voice into perspective, the watershed comprises 154 local water districts. It has 8 representatives in the Texas House, 5 state senators, 5 county commissioners (in Harris and Waller), 5 U.S. Congressional representatives, and 2 U.S. Senators. It also works with Harris County Flood Control, the Texas Water Development Board, chambers of commerce and more.
Strategic Directives
The group’s 2024 Impact Report lists several strategic directives:
- Becoming a trusted source of factual information
- Unifying all the groups working to improve the watershed and providing a single voice for them
- Expanding community outreach
- Engaging the public with community meetings
- Building support among elected officials, private businesses, school districts, cities and citizens
- Developing an action plan to share with potential financial supporters
- Meeting with supporters to provide updates and answer questions
- Building a volunteer advisory group.
Accomplishments in Year One
To date the CCDID has:
- Appointed temporary directors
- Created a website
- Held town hall meetings throughout the watershed
- Conducted meetings with Harris County and the Harris County Flood Control District
- Held organizational meetings
- Started efforts to formalize district boundaries and create maps
- Solicited financial support
- Started developing an initial resiliency plan
Next Up
In 2025, it will:
- Prepare a status report for the legislature
- Complete the resiliency plan
- Continue fund raising, workshops and townhall meetings
- Develop outreach initiatives.
- Plan for election of permanent directors.
CCDID has already identified strategies to reduce flooding and planned a state-of-the-art geographical information system (GIS). GIS would incorporate elements of the resiliency plan; demographics; analyses; current and future projects; watershed information; potential partners; officials; and contact information at the local, state and federal levels.
Altogether, the CCDID Impact Report for 2024 is well written, well art directed, and easy to understand at a glance.
Unified Voice Needed in Lake Houston Area
After Harvey, Dr. Guy Sconzo, then Humble ISD superintendent, formed a volunteer task force to bring together disparate interests in the Lake Houston Area. However, the task force dissipated after Sconzo’s untimely death. And with the loss of the task force, the many elements within the Lake Houston area lost their unified voice.
Certainly, there’s strength in numbers.
If nothing else, such a group makes it easier for organizations such as HCFCD to address the needs of a watershed.
The Lake Houston Area could certainly use something like the Cypress Creek Drainage Improvement District. Since the formation of the CCDID a year and a half ago, funding for the watershed has soared. The District has established itself as a unified voice that speaks for all the interests in the watershed. If nothing else, it gave needs in the area a critical level of visibility.
The San Jacinto Watershed no longer has anything comparable. And funding has suffered as a consequence.
We could certainly use something like the Cypress Creek Drainage Improvement District.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 2/5/25
2717 Days since Hurricane Harvey
