While driving home from Humble this afternoon along Townsend Blvd. north of FM1960, I passed near a clearing so large and with trees piled so high that my jaw dropped into my lap. I pulled over into the Aldine ISD school’s parking lot and put up a drone. The piles of downed trees looked about […]
Vidal G. Martinez began his career in 1978 as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Houston. Since 1981, he has been engaged in private practice as Managing Partner of Martinez Partners LLP. Martinez has been chairman of the State Bar of Texas. And was appointed by former Texas Governor Bill Clements to the University of Houston […]
Alexandra Mealer is one of two candidates in the Republican runoff election for Harris County Judge. Mealer is a West Point graduate who retired from active duty as a Captain after ten years of service in the US and Afghanistan. She returned to graduate school where she earned MBA and JD degrees from Harvard before […]
This post is a case study in how insufficiently mitigated upstream development can result in taxation without representation on downstream residents. Last week, I photographed Ben’s Branch from the Tree Lane Bridge after a two inch rain. Last night, I saw a presentation about urban channel evolution. The photos (with some taken earlier at the […]
A February update by Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) on the status of the 2018 Flood Bond showed that 35% of the way into the program (42 out of 120 months), 19.4% of the funds from all sources (including grants and partnerships) had been spent. That percentage was based on $967 million spent out […]
In the rush to mitigate flooding after Hurricane Harvey, most people agreed that we should attack the areas with the worst flooding first. While almost everyone agreed with the “worst first” mantra, no one defined it – until after the flood bond passed. Alternative Ways to Define “Worst First” How would you define the “worst” […]
Since my last post on the Laurel Springs RV Resort, contractors have erected approximately 2000 feet of chain link fence, much of it within feet of Laurel Springs Lane. Exxon Land Development Commercial Development Guidelines generally prohibited chain link fencing except in rare instances where the fence was “not visible from the street or adjacent […]
The San Jacinto River Authority (SJRA) recently completed a 246-page conceptual design study, in partnership with the Harris County Flood Control District, that explored the feasibility of implementing sediment trapping facilities (“sand traps”). The purpose: to remove sediment from the West or East Fork of the San Jacinto River. The results and findings of this […]
After an unannounced investigation of the Laurel Springs RV Resort construction site on February 2, 2022, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) issued a Notice of Enforcement (NOE) Letter to the contractor, Higbie Ventures of Texas, Inc. The TCEQ investigation found Higbie: Failed to maintain Best Management Practices in effective operation condition Had not […]
Rachel Tolbert Kimbro, a professor of sociology at Rice, has produced the rarest of commodities: an easily readable book, rich with academic value. In Too Deep: Class and Mothering in a Flooded Community is the story of 36 upper middle-class mothers on Houston’s southwest side before, during, and after Hurricane Harvey. It’s about: Why they […]