New Caney ISD is planning to build a new comprehensive high school on a roughly 50-acre site between US59 and Sorters-McClellan Road, where a par-3 golf course used to be. The land is south of HCA Kingwood Medical Center and behind several car dealerships that face US59. At the moment, this is the largest active […]
Harvey inundated many old oil and gas properties in Humble and Kingwood, including many old stripper wells and storage tanks. Nowhere is the problem more apparent than in the abandoned well site next to the Forest Cove little league fields. Proximity of Abandoned Site and Little League Fields Harvey floodwaters toppled and rusted tanks which […]
The world’s largest trailer park in Liberty County, Colony Ridge, currently covers more than 10,000 acres and has only a handful of fire hydrants. This may sound unrelated to flooding, but it shows the general quality – or lack thereof – of development practices. That same lack of quality in other practices contributes to flooding, […]
Rapid runoff from Colony Ridge, perhaps the world’s largest trailer park, in Liberty County contributed to a washout of FM1010. Nearby residents in Plum Grove say it also contributed to the flooding of their homes. Moreover, erosion from the development has contributed to the buildup of sedimentation in the East Fork. Nine years ago, this […]
Almost a year ago, I posted about an upcoming sunset review for the San Jacinto River Authority (SJRA). That process is now underway. The SJRA submitted a self-evaluation last September and the Sunset Review Commission is now accepting public comments. The Commission will hold one public meeting on December 9th and 10th, before it makes […]
Last night, I posted some statistics about Lake Conroe levels after the SJRA started the release during Hurricane Harvey. Tim Garfield and R.D. Kissling, two top geologists, now retired from one of the world’s largest oil companies, have looked at the release from a downstream perspective. Last year, they put everything they learned into this […]
Two affidavits in a lawsuit filed against the SJRA for flooding downstream residents during Harvey contain statistics that raise several troubling questions about the operation of gates during the storm. Did the SJRA wait too long to begin releasing water in significant volumes? As a consequence, did it create an unnecessarily high peak discharge? Did […]
The current draft of the Region H Statewide Water Plan contains a recommendation that many of those who flooded during Harvey may take issue with. On page 18 of the executive summary, there’s an overview of the recommendation. It requests that “… the State consider legislation clarifying the liability exposure of reservoir operators for passing […]
The Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) has launched a new website called the Texas Water Newsroom. Water Supply and Flood Planning TWDB is the state agency responsible for water supply and flood planning, financing, and research. The agency helps ensure Texans plan and prepare for the perpetual threat of water scarcity and water surplus in […]
Every once in a while, thoughts collide in a way that makes you see the world more clearly. Such a collision happened today. I suddenly realized that Texas, the state that leads the nation in billion-dollar, weather-and-climate related disasters, also has many developers plus city and county officials pushing back against higher minimum drainage standards […]