Contractors at the controversial mini rent home development called the Preserve at Woodridge Forest flushed a silt-laden detention pond into a stormwater channel leading to Bens Branch this week. The silty water migrated at least two miles downstream. The pictures below show the trail of silt. On 4/17/22, Easter Sunday, I photographed a full pond […]
In April, 2021, a Montgomery County District Court dismissed the Lake Conroe Association’s lawsuit against the City of Houston for its Lake Lowering Policy. In August 2021, the court dismissed the same case against the SJRA with prejudice. The Lake Conroe Association (LCA) and several Lake Conroe residents appealed the decisions. Then on April 20, […]
Perhaps no flood-mitigation project has generated more interest in the Lake Houston Area recently than the addition of more flood gates to the Lake Houston Dam. In recent months, as engineers worked on the project’s benefit/cost ratio, information about the project became hard to find. That fueled rumors. But Tuesday night, at the Kingwood Community […]
A new floodwater detention basin that will ultimately more than double the capacity of Woodridge Village is expanding slowly but steadily. To date, 33,159 cubic yards have been excavated! The pictures below show progress since the start of work in late January. Photos showing Progress Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) announced the project on 11/24/2021. […]
Several years ago, a new Texas law mandated flood disclosure for home buyers. Effective January 1, 2022, we now have a similar law for renters. The last legislature added a new section to the Texas Property Code: § 92.0135. But read the fine print. The law has some huge “qualifiers.” Floodplain Disclosure Requirement The new […]
Bill McCabe of the Lake Houston Area Flood Prevention Initiative submitted this letter in response to the SJRA’s Request for Public Input on its Sediment Removal and Sand Trap Pilot Study proposal. He raises a concern that no one else has so far: The proposal may run afoul of the recently adopted Best Management Practices […]
(Updated 4/15/22 with additional information.) The high-level brain drain among department heads and their deputies in Harris County Government compromises both service and productivity. An article in The Texan about the fiasco at Universal Services, Harris County’s IT department, discussed the department’s new CIO. A system used by law enforcement, prosecutors, and the courts went down […]
On April 11, 2022, I read an outstanding guest editorial in the New York Times by Elizabeth Rush, a professor in the English Department at Brown University. The title: “I never would have bought this home if I knew it flooded.” It’s a story about the systemic causes of flooding and common-sense solutions that seem […]
Deep-time Digital Earth is a consortium of international organizations, geological surveys, research institutes and industry. It’s the first “Big Science Program” of the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS). The group hopes to transform Earth science by “harmonizing global, Deep-time Digital Earth data, and sharing global geoscience knowledge. Massive Data Integration Effort Think of this […]
The media-savvy think tank that owns the Laurel Springs RV Resort has finally figured out a way to cover up permit violations from neighbors who complain to the City of Houston, Harris County and the State of Texas. They’ve simply put up signs prohibiting photography that threaten prosecution. And they’ve installed slats in their chain-link […]