Entries by admin

How Sand Mines Increased Erosion Potential by 33X During Harvey

Yesterday, I posted about how major storms transport the vast majority of the sediment that flushes down rivers. That’s a major reason to have wide buffers between mines and rivers, and to get the mines out of the floodway. One major event, as we have seen, can alter a river and people’s lives forever. However, […]

99% Solutions to a 1% Problem Are No Solutions at All

Today, I read a scientific article that talked about 99% solutions to 1% problems. It hit me between the eyes with the force of a freight train. It was written 30 years before Hurricane Harvey for a 1987 symposium sponsored by the U.S. Navy called Sedimentation Control to Reduce Maintenance Dredging of Navigational Facilities in Estuaries. […]

Picking the Teeth of a Dredge

When Great Lakes (Dredge #2) punched through the side bar at River Grove Park last week, I got a rare chance to take some close up pictures of men at work. Here’s what the “cutter basket” of a dredge looks like when it’s clean. Just looking at it, the teeth inspire fear. It looks like […]

How to Protect Yourself from Flooding Due to Sand Mining

It’s hard for me to write this because I hate government regulation. But when an industry acts so irresponsibly in the pursuit of profit that it endangers my safety, my family, my property, and my community, I will fight to regulate it. I am at that point now with the Texas Aggregate and Concrete Association, […]

ReduceFlooding.com’s Recommendations for the 2019 Legislative Session

 As we approach the next legislative session, we have a rare chance to pass meaningful legislation that could reduce sedimentation from sand mining. Such legislation has been defeated repeatedly in the past by lobbying efforts of the Texas Aggregate and Concrete Association (TACA). TACA has spent millions to lobby against regulations that protect downstream citizens […]