Looking Back at Abbott Directives to Reduce Flooding in Lake Houston Area

2/18/2025 – Seven years ago, Texas Governor Greg Abbott took an aerial tour of the Lake Houston Area and the San Jacinto River to view the extent of Hurricane Harvey devastation. Afterwards, he met with area leaders and elected officials at the Kingwood Community Center. Together, they announced a list of seven actions that they hoped would make affected communities more resilient to future flooding.

Seven years later, the responsible parties have completed recommended studies. They have also completed dredging and buyouts, and pursued funding. But little else has changed on the ground that would actually reduce flood risk.

Below is a high-level review of the mandates and the progress made toward them.

Seven Actions Identified in Abbott Press Release

Abbott and the officials identified seven actions or directives (quoted below from the press release):

• Using Hazard Mitigation Funds, the Texas Department of Emergency Management (TDEM) has authorized $3 million to jumpstart the engineering and permitting process to determine where dredging should take place on the San Jacinto River.
• Using Hazard Mitigation Funds, TDEM has authorized $2 million for a regional study focused on the San Jacinto River watershed to prevent future flooding.
• Using Hazard Mitigation Funds, FEMA has approved over 900 voluntary buyouts in Harris County.
• Instructing the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to investigate and take action against sand mining operations violating regulations.
• Directing the San Jacinto River Authority (SJRA) to immediately identify what can be done to prevent flood events along the West Fork of the river.
• Directing the SJRA to implement immediate and long-term solutions to protect lives and property of Texans living in the watershed.
• Directing the SJRA to identify funding to implement a long-term plan that better protects areas downstream of Lake Conroe.

Lots of Studies, Little Action

How many of these initiatives have become reality? Let’s take an inventory.

Dredging Study

Completed. Likewise for most of the dredging that came out of it. Dredging has visibly restored much of the conveyance of the San Jacinto East and West Forks. But to this day, we’re still pumping sand out of the West Fork deposited by Harvey. The City and Army Corps have spent $188 million on dredging since they started after Harvey. Those dollars have actually reduced flood risk.

But the sand keeps coming. That’s why State Rep. Charles Cunningham has introduced a bill to continue the program by creating a Lake Houston Area Dredging and Maintenance District.

Watershed Study

Also completed … in 2020. But no one has implemented any of its recommendations yet. The study identified approximately $3.3 billion worth of upstream reservoirs to reduce water flowing into the Lake Houston Area. But Texas has not allocated nearly that much to fund a flood plan for the entire state.

Voluntary Buyouts

Abbott and the civic leaders called for 900 voluntary buyouts. HCFCD completed buyouts of all Forest Cove townhomes in 2022. County-wide, Harris County Flood Control District had completed 1,150 by July 24, 2024.

Action Against Sand Mines that Violate Regulations

Much of the sand clogging the East and West Forks after Harvey came from sand mines. But the TCEQ has done little to prosecute them. In fact, the sand mine situation has gotten worse. During the May 2024 flood, the rivers started flowing through multiple mines, a process called “pit capture.” But a TCEQ report on one of the pit captures failed to even mention the term.

TCEQ did file a lawsuit through the Attorney General against the Triple PG Sand Mine in Porter back in 2019. However, the case has languished and still has yet to come to trial. A Travis County District Court has postponed the trial several times. But the TCEQ says things are now “full steam ahead” for an August 17, 2024 trial.

Bill McCabe of the Lake Houston Flood Prevention Initiative has tracked complaints against sand mines through Public Information Requests. TCEQ has sent him information on approximately 40 mines in the San Jacinto River Basin.

McCabe reports that most “Notices of Violation” from the TCEQ involve failure to file a mine plan (specified in the new Best Management Practices for Mines in the San Jacinto River Watershed). TCEQ issued four “Notices of Enforcement” since early 2022, but only one remains outstanding.

SJRA To Identify Immediate Flood Risk Reduction Strategy on West Fork

After the meeting between Abbott and local leaders, the San Jacinto River Authority (SJRA) identified a “Lake Lowering Strategy” for Lake Conroe that it could implement immediately. The idea: preemptively lower the level of Lake Conroe up to 1.5 feet in the Spring and Fall to create extra storage space, thereby reducing downstream flood risk until the City of Houston could build additional flood gates on Lake Houston.

Unfortunately, Lake Conroe residents didn’t like that idea. As the floodgate project encountered delays caused by funding and the constructibility of the initial crest-gate recommendation, they pushed back. As a result, the Lake-Lowering Policy morphed into an “Active Storm Management Policy.”

Mark Micheletti, an SJRA board member from Kingwood, says the SJRA continues to look for ways to improve its this policy and has added several gages upstream of Lake Conroe to improve inflow estimates. That enables them to better gauge the timing and magnitude of releases during flood events. “We get better with every storm,” said Micheletti.

SJRA to Implement Immediate and Long-Term Solutions

After the Abbott meeting, SJRA immediately pursued the Lake-Lowering Strategy mentioned above.

With an eye to the longer term, it also pursued several studies. It released the San Jacinto River Basin Master Drainage Study in 2020. The study identified ways to reduce a 100-year flood in West Fork watershed by almost 6 feet. But SJRA has not yet constructed any of the recommendations.

SJRA also released its Sediment Removal and Sand Trap Development Study in 2022. No concrete actions have yet resulted from that study.

SJRA to Identify Funding to Implement Long-term Plan

SJRA has no funding source, i.e., taxes, to implement any of the flood-reduction recommendations it has identified to date. It must piggy-back on partners such as COH, Harris County and the Texas Water Development Board. Micheletti says SJRA has applied for several grants, but has few other options.

He suggested re-engineering the way we think about flood projects to get funding commitments immediately after floods when critical political consensus exists.

Posted by Bob Rehak on 2/18/2025

2730 Days since Hurricane Harvey

The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.