9/20/24 – At City Council Member Fred Flickinger’s town hall meeting last night, discussion of new Lake Houston floodgates consumed a large portion of the meeting. The big news: final design of the gates has started. But design will not finish until the end of 2025. Construction could take another 3-5 years or more. However, enough money is available to get the project started.
During Q&A, several residents expressed surprise and dismay that the project was not further along.
Details of Gates Project from Presentation
Recommendation
The slide below shows the current plan – to add 11 new Tainter gates to the earthen embankment east of the spillway and existing gates. The new gates will bring the total release capacity of the dam up to 80,000 cubic feet per second from 10,000.
Alt 1B in the title of the slide refers to one of several alternatives developed during the preliminary-engineering phase.
Note the gray diagram on the right with the red lettering in the slide above. It shows the gates being installed in a U-shaped structure protruding in front of the existing dam. This eliminates the need for a temporary “coffer” dam in the lake during construction.
Timeline
A review of the timeline when the conceptual plans were first proposed in 2022 showed completion of construction in 2026. Now the City hopes to complete the final design by 2026. Construction could take another 3-5 years beyond that.
Could the schedule slip again? Council Member Flickinger emphasized that FEMA has a final deadline that can’t slip: May 26th of 2026 (18 months from now) for final approval of all the upfront work before construction starts.
However, when FEMA made its initial grant of $50 million for the gates project back in 2019, it said that it required the project to be complete in 3 years, i.e., by 2022.
Complexity Blamed for Delays
Flickinger, who only this year inherited this project, has been trying to accelerate it. He suggested that project complexity and cost uncertainty were the main reasons for delays to date.
The initial recommendation was to add crest gates to the spillway portion of the dam. That would have required lowering the dam several feet before adding gates. However, Public Works could not find any contractors willing to bid on the project. The risk with a 75 year old dam was too high. That required a reboot of the entire project.
With the reboot and a new recommended alternative, came cost uncertainty.
Simultaneously, uncertainty surrounded whether FEMA would support the Benefit-Cost Analysis (BCA). Traditionally, FEMA wants benefits to exceed damage repair costs. However on this project costs exceeded benefits – until Dave Martin, Flickinger’s predecessor, convinced FEMA to include “social benefits.”
Social benefits include things like avoidance of disruptions to business, commerce, schools and the area’s tax base. Including those brought the BCA up to 2.88 said Martin in December 2022. Suddenly, that made the project doable again.
The slide below shows how the current costs and funding commitments compare. If we can avoid more delays, there’s a chance we have enough money to complete this project. Otherwise, it’s back to the federal trough.
Projected financial commitments currently exceed projected costs.
But inflation is always a worry. So is overly optimistic estimating, which often happens in the early stages of projects because it generates follow-on work. Plus we’ve had turnover in Houston Public Works with the change in administrations.
Finally, given the number of entities involved (City, Harris County, State, Federal, Coastal Water Authority, engineering companies, legal counsel, etc.), coordination is also an issue.
Example: City Council approval of an inter-local agreement (ILA) on 9/11 with FEMA, Texas Division of Emergency Management, and the Coastal Water Authority. It concerned changes to the scope and recommendations in the project.
The ILA finally cleared the way for the project to move forward. But ILA approval came two months after the Coastal Water Authority approved it. And five months after FEMA and Texas Division of Emergency Management approved it. The City legal department had already approved the changes before they went to CWA, according to Flickinger’s office. So why did we lose half a year before it even got on the Council agenda?
This certainly qualifies as a failure of project management. A single accountable person with the authority to mandate and generate urgency is an opportunity.
I could get no good answers from the City although I have heard concerns expressed about excessive turnover in Public Works associated with new leadership in the department. Regardless, we lost another 6 months. Again. This time, for no good reason.
Flickinger said quite bluntly last night, “We need to do a better job of communicating.”
Appointment of Dan Huberty to CWA Board
In that regard, Mayor Whitmire has appointed Dan Huberty to the Coastal Water Authority Board. Huberty, supported this project since the beginning when he was state rep. He also lives on the lake. So, he will be a valuable advocate. He can help fill that communication gap.
CWA Director Dan Huberty (left) addressed Kingwood Town Hall with Council Member Flickinger (right)
Huberty, like Flickinger, said, “Better communication on activity, status, budget, and schedule is needed.”
Overall, our elected officials emphasized that community participation in the conversation will be important.
Officials also emphasized that community involvement by comments in City Council meetings and in Austin are essential to maintaining urgency.
An estimated 300 people packed the Kingwood Town Hall Meeting
Approximately 300 people attended the Town Hall meeting, which ran 3 hours.
Other Topics, Presenters
Last night’s agenda covered a wide range of topics. In addition to the gates, presentations also included other flood-related topics such as sedimentation, dredging, and sand traps. More on those in another post.
Policing and crime reduction were also discussed. But while fascinating and a large part of the meeting, they are off topic for this blog. So I’ll leave that to others.
At-Large City Council Members Twila Carter and Julian Ramirez also spoke in addition to State Representative Charles Cunningham. So did the heads of several City departments.
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Kingwood-2024-TOWN-HALL-SLIDES_Page_06-scaled-e1726876828400.jpg?fit=1100%2C619&ssl=16191100adminadmin2024-09-20 19:03:492024-09-21 13:07:08Design Finally Starting on New Lake Houston Floodgates
9/19/24 – On Tuesday 9/17/24, the North Houston Association held a reception for members and the press to promote 27 strategic flood-reduction priorities in the new state flood plan.
The state flood plan contains thousands of recommendations from 15 different river basins around the state. However, the boundaries of the North Houston Association (NHA) fall entirely within the San Jacinto River Basin (Region 6). And NHA represents interests only in the northern part of the basin.
The Association represents business interests primarily in northern Harris and southern Montgomery Counties.
The 27 priorities extend from northern Montgomery County to central Harris County. They also spread from Waller and Grimes Counties on the west to Liberty County on the East. See map below.
Below is a high level summary of each NHA recommendation. For maps and additional details including benefits, funding potential partnerships, and costs, click on the embedded links.
Garret’s Creek Stormwater Detention Basin will provide approximately 16,850 acre-feet of storage capacity to reduce flood risk along Lake Creek and the San Jacinto West Fork.
Caney Creek Stormwater Detention Basin at FM 1097 will provide approximately 13,900 acre-feet of storage capacity to reduce damage downstream. Steep terrain at this site allowed for necessary volume within a smaller footprint which minimizes land acquisition costs.
Little Caney Creek Stormwater Detention will provide approximately 17,500 acre-feet of storage capacity and will reduce flooding along both Lake Creek and the West Fork.
Development of a forecasting tool for Lake Houston.
Caney Creek Stormwater Detention Basin at SH105 will provide approximately 28,090 acre-feet of storage capacity to reduce downstream damage. Again, the steep terrain minimizes land acquisition costs.
River Plantation Channel will widen a 9.3- mile-long stretch of the West Fork to increase conveyance capacity and lower the water surface elevation.
Peach Creek Channelization at I-69 would widen a 4.3-mile-long stretch of the creek to increase conveyance capacity and also provide approximately 800 ac-ft of detention volume.
Spring Creek Woodlands Channel improvements include a 9.7-mile long, 500-feet-wide “benching plan.” It would accommodate increased flow by excavating a series of steps in the floodplain and reduce flood elevations by 3.5 to 8 feet. The project would also provide 12,500 ac-ft of detention volume to mitigate adverse impacts downstream.
Caney Creek Channelization at I-69 would “bench” a 7.8-miles of the creek to increase conveyance capacity. To offset adverse downstream impacts, the program would require approximately 530 ac-ft of detention volume upstream.
Willow Creek Detention Basins include nine areas along Willow Creek totaling 900 acres. Another 450 acres would be acquired for floodplain preservation.
Spring Creek at I-45 channelization would provide a 300-foot-wide benched improvement stretching 6.9 miles. The project would also include approximately 8,000 ac-ft of detention volume upstream of offset potentially adverse impacts downstream.
Little Cypress Creek Frontier Program acquires land for future, regional stormwater mitigation projects such as stormwater detention and conveyance.
Cypress Creek Implementation Plan outlines a comprehensive, watershed-wide approach to flood mitigation including stormwater detention basins, channel improvements, and right-of-way acquisition for floodplain preservation.
Kingwood Benching would widen the West Fork to 3,500 feet starting at the elevation of 42 feet. It will require over 30.5 million cubic yards of excavation over a surface area of 3,527 acres. Mitigating potential downstream impacts will also require approximately 923 ac-ft of detention volume upstream.
Greens Bayou Mid-Reach Program will make numerous channel improvements to provide at least a 10-year level of service within the project area.
Luce Bayou Interagency Coordination. The Luce watershed covers about 227 square miles, of which only 23 square miles are within Harris County. Solving flooding problems here will require cooperation with other counties.
Jackson Bayou. A recently completed comprehensive planning effort included a combination of channel conveyance and stormwater detention improvements. Now the challenge is to make them real.
Cooperative Effort
Any effort as large as this involves many community groups, companies and governmental organizations working together. US Representative Dan Crenshaw, Harris County Commissioners Leslie Briones and Tom Ramsey, Freese Nichols, Halff, Quiddity Engineering, and the SJRA all sponsored Tuesday’s event. But there were many other participants including the Greens Bayou Coalition, the Cypress Creek Flood Coalition, the East Aldine District, North Houston District and more.
Subcommittee members within NHA’s Water Committee who crafted the list above.
Eligibility for Funding from State
Alan Black of Quiddity Engineering and a former Acting Director of the Harris County Flood Control District, explained how NHA compiled its list. In addition to the reasons listed in each link above, he emphasized the importance of funding and the state flood plan.
“Every single one of these projects in this plan are included in the recently completed state flood plan,” he said.
Alan Black, VP of Quiddity Engineering, one of the events sponsors.
“The reason that’s important is that since 2019, the state legislature has appropriated more than $1 billion to the Flood Infrastructure Fund. And recently, in the 2023 legislature, they added criteria that said those funds can’t be spent on anything except projects in the state flood plan. So every one of these projects is eligible for funding through state appropriations,” said Black.
Call to Action
Black also acknowledged that a billion dollars is wholly inadequate to fund all the projects in the state plan. He estimated the $54 billion of projects currently included in the plan could easily double within the next five-year planning cycle.
“So my call to action,” said Black, “is to encourage each of you to talk with your state representatives, your state senators, and say, ‘Continue to provide meaningful investment into the flood infrastructure fund, so we can see these projects come to fruition.'”
9/18/2024 – Houston City Council Member Fred Flickinger will host a town hall meeting on Thursday 9/19/24 at the Kingwood Community Center. Doors open at 6PM. The program starts at 6:30.
Houston District E City Council Member Fred Flickinger
The event will feature a series of informational presentations at tables where residents can talk to representatives of various city departments. It will also feature several presentations, followed by Q&A.
Even though the program will be hosted in Kingwood, all residents of the Lake Houston Area including Huffman are welcome to the town hall and will find something of value. The agenda includes topics that apply to everyone, such as status of the Lake Houston Dam Gates Project.
Time, Date, Place
Thursday, September 19th
Program: 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Kingwood Community Center
4102 Rustic Woods Drive
Kingwood, Texas 77345
Featured Speakers
Speakers will address issues crucial to the safety and success of the Lake Houston Area. They include:
State Representative Charles Cunningham will kick off the meeting. He will discuss his priorities going into the next legislative session.
Houston At-Large City Council Member Twila Carter will also talk about her priorities.
Harris County Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey hopes to make the meeting, but will be coming from budget meetings downtown and may not make it if they run over.
New Coastal Water Authority Board Director Dan Huberty will give an update on the project to add more flood gates to the Lake Houston Dam.
Ekaterina Fitos, Houston’s Water Planning Director, will discuss the status of dredging and sand traps, designed to reduce sedimentation and flood risk.
Mark Wilfalk, Houston’s Director of Solid Waste Management, will go over storm debris pickup following Hurricane Beryl. He will cover lessons learned and what they will do differently in the next disaster.
Sergeant Rajesh Sawlani, also with HPD, will talk about crime suppression tactics and strategies being implemented in other parts of the City. He will also cover the growing homeless population in Kingwood.
Booths around the perimeter of the room will feature Houston:
Public Works (water, infrastructure, transportation, drainage, Lake Houston Gates)
The ambitious town hall agenda covers a lot of territory. So, come early. Mingle with neighbors. And ask your questions at the tables if you can. It’s been a year since we last had a town hall meeting with Dave Martin.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 9/18/2024
2577 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/20240916-DSC_0438-1.jpg?fit=1100%2C733&ssl=17331100adminadmin2024-09-18 18:20:542024-09-19 10:42:46Don’t Miss Town Hall Meeting Thursday Evening
Design Finally Starting on New Lake Houston Floodgates
9/20/24 – At City Council Member Fred Flickinger’s town hall meeting last night, discussion of new Lake Houston floodgates consumed a large portion of the meeting. The big news: final design of the gates has started. But design will not finish until the end of 2025. Construction could take another 3-5 years or more. However, enough money is available to get the project started.
During Q&A, several residents expressed surprise and dismay that the project was not further along.
Details of Gates Project from Presentation
Recommendation
The slide below shows the current plan – to add 11 new Tainter gates to the earthen embankment east of the spillway and existing gates. The new gates will bring the total release capacity of the dam up to 80,000 cubic feet per second from 10,000.
Note the gray diagram on the right with the red lettering in the slide above. It shows the gates being installed in a U-shaped structure protruding in front of the existing dam. This eliminates the need for a temporary “coffer” dam in the lake during construction.
Timeline
A review of the timeline when the conceptual plans were first proposed in 2022 showed completion of construction in 2026. Now the City hopes to complete the final design by 2026. Construction could take another 3-5 years beyond that.
Could the schedule slip again? Council Member Flickinger emphasized that FEMA has a final deadline that can’t slip: May 26th of 2026 (18 months from now) for final approval of all the upfront work before construction starts.
However, when FEMA made its initial grant of $50 million for the gates project back in 2019, it said that it required the project to be complete in 3 years, i.e., by 2022.
Complexity Blamed for Delays
Flickinger, who only this year inherited this project, has been trying to accelerate it. He suggested that project complexity and cost uncertainty were the main reasons for delays to date.
The initial recommendation was to add crest gates to the spillway portion of the dam. That would have required lowering the dam several feet before adding gates. However, Public Works could not find any contractors willing to bid on the project. The risk with a 75 year old dam was too high. That required a reboot of the entire project.
With the reboot and a new recommended alternative, came cost uncertainty.
Simultaneously, uncertainty surrounded whether FEMA would support the Benefit-Cost Analysis (BCA). Traditionally, FEMA wants benefits to exceed damage repair costs. However on this project costs exceeded benefits – until Dave Martin, Flickinger’s predecessor, convinced FEMA to include “social benefits.”
Social benefits include things like avoidance of disruptions to business, commerce, schools and the area’s tax base. Including those brought the BCA up to 2.88 said Martin in December 2022. Suddenly, that made the project doable again.
The slide below shows how the current costs and funding commitments compare. If we can avoid more delays, there’s a chance we have enough money to complete this project. Otherwise, it’s back to the federal trough.
But inflation is always a worry. So is overly optimistic estimating, which often happens in the early stages of projects because it generates follow-on work. Plus we’ve had turnover in Houston Public Works with the change in administrations.
Finally, given the number of entities involved (City, Harris County, State, Federal, Coastal Water Authority, engineering companies, legal counsel, etc.), coordination is also an issue.
Example: City Council approval of an inter-local agreement (ILA) on 9/11 with FEMA, Texas Division of Emergency Management, and the Coastal Water Authority. It concerned changes to the scope and recommendations in the project.
The ILA finally cleared the way for the project to move forward. But ILA approval came two months after the Coastal Water Authority approved it. And five months after FEMA and Texas Division of Emergency Management approved it. The City legal department had already approved the changes before they went to CWA, according to Flickinger’s office. So why did we lose half a year before it even got on the Council agenda?
This certainly qualifies as a failure of project management. A single accountable person with the authority to mandate and generate urgency is an opportunity.
I could get no good answers from the City although I have heard concerns expressed about excessive turnover in Public Works associated with new leadership in the department. Regardless, we lost another 6 months. Again. This time, for no good reason.
Flickinger said quite bluntly last night, “We need to do a better job of communicating.”
Appointment of Dan Huberty to CWA Board
In that regard, Mayor Whitmire has appointed Dan Huberty to the Coastal Water Authority Board. Huberty, supported this project since the beginning when he was state rep. He also lives on the lake. So, he will be a valuable advocate. He can help fill that communication gap.
Huberty, like Flickinger, said, “Better communication on activity, status, budget, and schedule is needed.”
Overall, our elected officials emphasized that community participation in the conversation will be important.
Officials also emphasized that community involvement by comments in City Council meetings and in Austin are essential to maintaining urgency.
Approximately 300 people attended the Town Hall meeting, which ran 3 hours.
Other Topics, Presenters
Last night’s agenda covered a wide range of topics. In addition to the gates, presentations also included other flood-related topics such as sedimentation, dredging, and sand traps. More on those in another post.
Presentations also included semi-flood-related topics such as Solid Waste Management and Northpark Expansion, which I have covered amply in other posts.
Policing and crime reduction were also discussed. But while fascinating and a large part of the meeting, they are off topic for this blog. So I’ll leave that to others.
At-Large City Council Members Twila Carter and Julian Ramirez also spoke in addition to State Representative Charles Cunningham. So did the heads of several City departments.
For More Information
To see a video of the entire meeting, click here.
To see the entire slide deck, click here.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 9/20/2024
2579 Days since Hurricane Harvey
North Houston Association Identifies 27 Strategic Flood Reduction Priorities
9/19/24 – On Tuesday 9/17/24, the North Houston Association held a reception for members and the press to promote 27 strategic flood-reduction priorities in the new state flood plan.
The state flood plan contains thousands of recommendations from 15 different river basins around the state. However, the boundaries of the North Houston Association (NHA) fall entirely within the San Jacinto River Basin (Region 6). And NHA represents interests only in the northern part of the basin.
The Association represents business interests primarily in northern Harris and southern Montgomery Counties.
The 27 priorities extend from northern Montgomery County to central Harris County. They also spread from Waller and Grimes Counties on the west to Liberty County on the East. See map below.
Summary of Each Recommendation
Below is a high level summary of each NHA recommendation. For maps and additional details including benefits, funding potential partnerships, and costs, click on the embedded links.
Cooperative Effort
Any effort as large as this involves many community groups, companies and governmental organizations working together. US Representative Dan Crenshaw, Harris County Commissioners Leslie Briones and Tom Ramsey, Freese Nichols, Halff, Quiddity Engineering, and the SJRA all sponsored Tuesday’s event. But there were many other participants including the Greens Bayou Coalition, the Cypress Creek Flood Coalition, the East Aldine District, North Houston District and more.
Eligibility for Funding from State
Alan Black of Quiddity Engineering and a former Acting Director of the Harris County Flood Control District, explained how NHA compiled its list. In addition to the reasons listed in each link above, he emphasized the importance of funding and the state flood plan.
“Every single one of these projects in this plan are included in the recently completed state flood plan,” he said.
“The reason that’s important is that since 2019, the state legislature has appropriated more than $1 billion to the Flood Infrastructure Fund. And recently, in the 2023 legislature, they added criteria that said those funds can’t be spent on anything except projects in the state flood plan. So every one of these projects is eligible for funding through state appropriations,” said Black.
Call to Action
Black also acknowledged that a billion dollars is wholly inadequate to fund all the projects in the state plan. He estimated the $54 billion of projects currently included in the plan could easily double within the next five-year planning cycle.
“So my call to action,” said Black, “is to encourage each of you to talk with your state representatives, your state senators, and say, ‘Continue to provide meaningful investment into the flood infrastructure fund, so we can see these projects come to fruition.'”
Posted By Bob Rehak on 9/19/24
2578 Days since Hurricane Harvey
Don’t Miss Town Hall Meeting Thursday Evening
9/18/2024 – Houston City Council Member Fred Flickinger will host a town hall meeting on Thursday 9/19/24 at the Kingwood Community Center. Doors open at 6PM. The program starts at 6:30.
The event will feature a series of informational presentations at tables where residents can talk to representatives of various city departments. It will also feature several presentations, followed by Q&A.
Even though the program will be hosted in Kingwood, all residents of the Lake Houston Area including Huffman are welcome to the town hall and will find something of value. The agenda includes topics that apply to everyone, such as status of the Lake Houston Dam Gates Project.
Time, Date, Place
Featured Speakers
Speakers will address issues crucial to the safety and success of the Lake Houston Area. They include:
Booths around the perimeter of the room will feature Houston:
The ambitious town hall agenda covers a lot of territory. So, come early. Mingle with neighbors. And ask your questions at the tables if you can. It’s been a year since we last had a town hall meeting with Dave Martin.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 9/18/2024
2577 Days since Hurricane Harvey