MoCo Receives Approval from GLO for 3 De-snagging Projects Totaling $60 Million

3/21/25 – Montgomery County has received approval from the Texas General Land Office (GLO) for three “de-snagging” projects totaling $60,374,999.66. The grant, first reported in 2022, stems from money allocated to Texas by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) after Hurricane Harvey.

I’ll discuss the complex, lengthy process involved in awarding these grants below, but first let me outline the projects and who will benefit.

De-snagging Projects Will Benefit 185,000 People

The $60 million will enable three “de-snagging” projects. They include:

• East County – $36.4 million
• Lake Creek – $9 million
• Stewart Creek – $15 million (also includes bank stabilization).

All three projects involve removing trees and loose debris that have fallen into streams or rivers.

In many cases, log jams have formed around bridges, also threatening roadways. In addition, other debris – such as old cars, tires, and appliances – also hinders conveyance and streamflow.

The three projects also involve stream bank protection, i.e., with riprap or revegetation. But the Stewart Creek project also involves bank stabilization to help restore and harden the bank that has been lost.

The projects will help protect more than 185,000 people. Specifically, East County will help protect an estimated 115,439 people. Stewart Creek will help 42,560 people. And Lake Creek will benefit 28,325 people.

Mitigation Funds Not Limited to Just Harvey Debris

According to the GLO, all three areas qualify as HUD Most Impacted and Distressed (HMID). And even though the money comes out of an allocation made to the state after Hurricane Harvey, debris that has fallen into streams after Harvey still qualifies for removal.

That’s because of a distinction between disaster-relief and flood-mitigation funds. Disaster relief funds can only be used to help repair damage directly resulting from a storm. However, flood mitigation funds can also be used to help prevent future damage. Disaster relief looks back; flood mitigation looks forward.

So, anything in the streams today qualifies for removal because it would help prevent future flooding. That includes, but is not limited to debris deposited by Imelda in 2019 and three storms in 2024.

In 2024, we had a derecho that downed many trees. Then we had floods in May that swept them into streams and against bridges. Finally, we had Hurricane Beryl that downed even more trees. We experienced one wave of destruction after another.

There is no doubt that people are suffering and will continue to suffer if the log jams are not removed.

According to Morgan Lumbley with the Montgomery County Office of Emergency Management, trees aren’t the only problem. The streams also contain debris such as cars, tires, refrigerators and trash that can back water up and flood people.

Multi-Step Funding Process Finally Near End

These funds come from HUD via the GLO and the Houston-Galveston Area Council (HGAC). This complex process involves multiple levels of government.

In 2018, Congress voted $28 billion for mitigation money throughout the U.S. Then HUD allocated $4.3 billion overall to the state of Texas for disasters in 2015 through 2018. That included Hurricane Harvey.

The Federal register for the HUD allocation was not even published until August 2019, two years after Harvey, and 1.5 years after the appropriation.

After Texas received its allocation, GLO had to devise a state action plan and go through a public comment period and approval processes.

At the state level, a large portion of the Texas’ allocation went to local Councils of Governments, such as the HGAC. After HGAC finally knew how much it had to work with, it had to devise a plan for distributing the money locally.

HGAC then had to develop and negotiate a plan called a MOD (Method of Distribution) based on all the requests for assistance from its competing members. A MOD basically is a list of sub-recipients stating how much each gets for what. That involved lengthy submission and project-ranking processes.

Once finalized, the GLO approved HGAC’s MOD in principle. Then entities like Montgomery County actually started developing highly detailed applications involving demographic data, engineering reports, surveys, maps and more. That step is very expensive, which explains why projects are conditionally approved at a high level first.

Where We Stand Now and Next Steps

The GLO just approved three of those applications for MoCo. This page on the GLO site outlines a six-step approval process for Council-of Government projects.

Now that the GLO has approved the MoCo project applications, only one more step remains before work can start. The GLO and MoCo must sign contracts formalizing their agreements. Then work can begin toward construction. That involves bids, procurement of vendors, obtaining any necessary permits, etc.

Whew! And after all that…the actual de-snagging can begin – hopefully before hurricane season…next year.

One observer noted that while upfront processes take years, the actual work might take only months. That makes a great case for de-snagging the business processes around flood mitigation. Perhaps we can get DOGE working on that.

Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/21/25

2761 Days since Hurricane Harvey