3/25/25 – Almost eight years after Hurricane Harvey and a massive region-wide effort to update flood maps, FEMA still features maps on its website based on decades-old data that don’t come close to showing true flood risk. The old maps cause confusion among homebuyers who may not understand their limitations. And that helps developers pursue […]
3/24/25 – On March 21, 2025, the Supreme Court of Texas ruled on a long-running lawsuit between a developer and the City of Houston over floodplain regulation. The Supreme Court reversed an Appeals Court judgement, which had dismissed the developer’s claims against the City, thus keeping the case alive. The developer argued that the City’s […]
3/22/25 – Enough of the pendulum politics already! We seem to swing from the left to the right and from overregulation to no regulation, oblivious to any middle ground. The latest agency in the Washington crosshairs: the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). No doubt, most business people can cite an extreme example of EPA overregulation. And […]
3/21/25 – Montgomery County has received approval from the Texas General Land Office (GLO) for three “de-snagging” projects totaling $60,374,999.66. The grant, first reported in 2022, stems from money allocated to Texas by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) after Hurricane Harvey. I’ll discuss the complex, lengthy process involved in awarding these […]
3/20/25 – Montgomery County has asked U.S. Representative Dan Crenshaw for federal help in sponsoring a study on repurposing old sand mines. Please send a letter expressing your support. For less than $1 – the cost of an envelope and a stamp – you could help reduce your flood risk. Why Repurposing is Necessary Southern […]
3/19/25 – San Jacinto West Fork sand-mining problems persisted this morning, even as the House Natural Resources Committee met to discuss legislation intended to deal with them. With one exception, the miners seemed blissfully unaware of the problems they were causing. And at least one committee member seemed to be a ringer for the sand-mining […]
3/18/25 – Five sand mines upstream from Lake Houston are wider than Lake Houston itself. But that’s not the only statistic that puts the area’s sand mining issues in perspective. The combined size of all upstream mines also exceeds the size of Lake Houston. Let’s look at how these statistics relate to a bill pending […]
3/16/25 – The Bayou Land Conservancy recently hosted a gathering at which Ray Audas of Montgomery gave an inspiring talk. Audas discussed his family’s efforts to preserve their land – Cindy’s Redbud Nature Preserve – in a natural state. A few days later, I attended another meeting. There, a developer talked about building a luxury […]
3/15/25 – Romerica, the company that was going to build a 50-story high rise and marina at the south end of Woodland Hills Drive in Kingwood, is back with a new proposal. Now, they want to build a $575 per night, luxury eco-resort around wetlands between two golf courses of the Kingwood Country Club. The […]
3/14/25 – Montgomery County Development Regs have been revised and became effective on 3/4/25. The MoCo Engineer has posted them online. For convenience, I have also posted them under the Regulations Tab on the ReduceFlooding Reports Page. The primary audience for the regulations is developers. However, neighbors near new developments may wish to study the […]