The Bayou Land Conservancy has added its voice to those raising concerns about the SJRA’s sand trap proposal for the San Jacinto River watershed. The pilot project began out of a desire to reduce sediment buildup in the mouth bar of the West Fork. But it has morphed into something very different – a trench […]
Researchers at Colorado State University indicate that we should get ready for an above average hurricane season in 2022. They say Texas in particular has the following chances of a named storm, hurricane or major hurricane tracking within 50 miles of the coast this year: 80% for a named storm 54% for a hurricane 25% […]
On Tuesday, April 5, 2022, Harris County Commissioners Court reaffirmed the need for minimum drainage standards in the region. The program called “Fix Flooding First,” was started in 2020 by the Harris County Engineering Department. It is designed to help prevent flooding, not just fix it. The idea: to bring all municipalities and other counties […]
If you managed to watch Harris County Commissioners Court yesterday, near the end you saw a lively and somewhat confusing discussion of flood mitigation funding. See the video at approximately 6:38:10. Agenda Item 249 was a request by Adrian Garcia to discuss disbursement of the $750 million in Community Development Block Grant Mitigation funds allocated […]
According to minutes of the Coastal Water Authority (CWA) February 9 board meeting posted in March, work on the project to add more gates to Lake Houston was paused in January while the City of Houston updated the project’s benefit-cost ratio. CWA Board Minutes Give High-Level Overview of Concerns, Status Earlier, in December, the board […]
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 […]