Last week, the West Fork San Jacinto rerouted itself through a mile-long sand pit at the five-square mile Hallett Mine in Porter. Some people reported problems understanding how all the images in that post related to each other and where the mine was. To help eliminate confusion, I returned to the site this morning show continuous video from one breach to the other. I’ve also included a wider map below.
Location of Mine and Path of Video
The map below shows the relationship of the pit “captured” by the river to the rest of the mine, Porter and Kingwood.
Arrow indicates location and direction of drone video.
Video and Still Shots of Captured Pit
Clouds were low and I was flying near the base of them. So, the video looks a bit hazy.
One-minute video shot morning of 5/3/24 while flying from south to north.First breach is exit from pit, second is entrance.Water flows toward the camera through the pit to the left of the channel.
Note several things as you watch the video.
Size of the entry and exit breaches. They’re impossible to measure precisely, but likely greater than 100 feet wide.
Depth of the pond that used to be filled with wastewater before the dikes broke. See exposed sides where vegetation did not grow.
Sand being washed downstream before the water receded.
Dune blocking the West Fork in the upper right near the end of the video.
Here are some still shots with more contrast that show those highlights and other aspects. I’ll arrange these in the reverse order, i.e., flying downriver in the opposite direction starting from the entrance breach..
Giant dune has totally blocked off West Fork and diverted it into pit (upper left).Local residents say dune is 5-8 ft. high. People on either side of it cannot see each other.
Water now takes the path of least resistance, flowing through the giant pond.
Note freshly deposited sand in pit. The island (right center) is reportedly a burial ground for Native Americans.Note color difference in water and how pond water now flows downstream. Also note height of pond walls.
Have a cool, refreshing glass of Hallett.
This flows straight into Lake Houston.
Downstream Photos Taken on 5/13/23 at US59 Bridge
Looking S across West Fork toward Humble. Note ripples in fresh layers of sand under US59 Bridge.
The City of Houston is launching a new $34 million dredging program to remove another 800,000 cubic yards of sediment accumulating in the West Fork downstream from the bridge.
Hallett contends that sand cannot escape its pits and that this sand comes from river bank erosion on other tributaries such as Spring and Cypress Creeks.
Robin Sedewitz, Kingwood resident contributed the three photos and video below.
Note height of debris in bridge supports.
Trees swept downstream in the May flood are forming a dam on the south side of the old bridge.Trees caught under the southbound lanes of US59.
30-second video by Robin Sedewitz panning from upstream to down showing accumulations of debris in bridge supports.
During Harvey, debris such as this got caught in supports for the old railroad bridge and dammed the river, backing water up into Humble and Kingwood businesses. The railroad ultimately built a new bridge that would let trees pass through. No trees got hung up on the new bridge supports during this flood.
Where to Report Problems
Harris County Flood Control now surveys the river after floods and removes debris. They just haven’t gotten to this debris yet.
If you see problems that need HCFCD’s attention, you can report them here.
The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/20240513-DJI_20240513075211_0600_D.jpg?fit=1100%2C619&ssl=16191100adminadmin2024-05-13 16:31:332024-05-15 12:31:08Video of Mile-Long Sand Pit Leaking Into West Fork
Does a wetter-than-normal spring say anything about Houston’s chances for a busier-than-normal hurricane season? According to Jeff Linder, Harris County’s meteorologist, the two correlate poorly. In the process of exploring that, I discovered some surprising facts about the intensity and seasonality of rainfall in the region.
So Far, Not So Much Wetter than Normal
“Harris County is running slightly above normal for 2024,” says Lindner. “But much of this can be traced back to the rains in late January.”
“I would likely attribute the winter and early Spring rains more to the El Niño pattern in the eastern and central Pacific,” he added. “They tend to bring above-normal rainfall to the southern plains in the fall, winter, and spring months.”
“As for the upcoming hurricane season, there is little correlation between slightly above average rainfall and any sort of potential activity on the Texas coast. With that said, conditions look highly favorable for an active hurricane season in 2024 including very warm sea surface temperatures throughout the Atlantic basin, the collapse of El Nino and development of La Niña.”
Lindner concluded, “That tends to create increasingly favorable conditions for tropical development, especially in the Caribbean Sea, and a wetter than normal pattern from the coast of Africa into the Caribbean.”
The graphs below explain Lindner’s characterization of the temperature and rainfall as “slightly” above normal as we head into hurricane season.
I pulled them from the climate page for Houston on Weather.gov. The National Weather Service (NWS) shows 35 different reporting stations in the Houston region and gives you nine ways to visualize daily, monthly and yearly data.
As I browsed the site, I discovered two interesting things. When you look at monthly averages:
Rainfall totals differ greatly depending on your part of Houston.
Seasonality of rainfall also differs depending on your area.
Let’s look at the two variables using data and graphs from the climate page above.
Rainfall YTD vs. Highs, Lows, Averages
Bush Intercontinental Airport received about 21 inches of rain (YTD through May 12). In late January and February, Bush was having the rainiest year on record. But since then, despite very heavy rains to the north, we’ve only beaten the average YTD figures by a slight amount, as Lindner observed.
Meanwhile, Galveston started out with record rainfall. Only in the last two or three weeks did it fall behind the record year (1949). Galveston is still about 50% above its average total YTD.
In Conroe, rainfall totals have flirted all year with the record high year of 1935. They only dipped below average for a week or so in January.
Rainiest Months Vary with Distance from Coast
At Bush Intercontinental Airport, June (#1) and October (#2) are the rainiest months with May ranking #3.
But at Galveston’s Scholes Field, May is the ninth rainiest month and September the wettest. September is the peak of hurricane season.
In Conroe, May is the wettest month.
Spring rains play a larger role in the yearly total the farther north you go. But in Galveston, the totals jump up during hurricane season.
Not too much of a surprise there. Many fronts lose their punch before reaching the coast in the winter and spring months. Likewise, many tropical disturbances lose their punch 90 miles inland during the summer and fall – hurricane season.
What Data Illustrates
This data illustrates that it’s hard to generalize about the weather. You can’t take one storm (or even a series of storms) in one location and posit it as proof of a larger trend. Too many factors govern the weather to do that.
Moreover, my rain gage is reading 142% of the YTD figures from the nearest official gage at IAH just seven miles away.
That’s not uncommon. Sometimes a rain bomb lands on your home. Thunderstorms train over you for hours. Or a front stalls when it reaches your address. Those things can skew your perception of the weather.
That said, all the experts are still warning of a much higher-than-normal hurricane season this year. But for reasons unrelated to local flooding.
Happy Mother’s Day
Let me close this Mother’s Day with some beauty from Mother Nature. The son of a friend captured this image while flying around the storm that slammed north Houston on May 9th. He was at 30,000 feet and the clouds topped out at 70,000 feet as the sun was setting.
Photo courtesy of reader.Used with permission.
The power of the photo above should remind you. If you somehow missed it, we just finished Hurricane Preparedness Week. Have you made your preparations for hurricane season yet?
Posted by Bob Rehak on 5/12/24
2448 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/May-9-2024-30000ft-altitude-70000ft-tall-storm-Chris-flying.jpg?fit=1512%2C2016&ssl=120161512adminadmin2024-05-12 13:41:242024-05-12 13:43:09Does Wet Spring Portend Intense Hurricane Season?
The San Jacinto West Fork has become totally blocked by sediment at the Hallett Mine in Porter and rerouted itself through the giant sand mine.
The old river channel has been sealed off by sediment. And the river now enters and exits one of the mine’s largest pits through large breaches in what used to be dikes. See below.
White oval shows location of blockage. Blue line shows old route of river. Red lines show detours through sand pit.
More than Normal Erosion
Rivers always move during floods through erosion. But this represents a far larger than normal amount of movement through a process called pit capture.
The river now runs through the Hallett pit instead of following its normal curving channel.
See photos below.
The loss of the dikes is likely the result of the SJRA releasing 71,000 cubic feet per second from Lake Conroe during the peak of the recent flood. That was the second largest release in the history of the SJRA.
Pictures taken just before the peak of the flood show the river already overtopping the pit’s dike. Dikes like walls that separate the river from the mine’s pits. They keep industrial wastewater out of your drinking water.
Weak Sand Mining Regulations Brought This On
Two other contributing factors are the depth of the pit compared to the river and the width of the dike.
The deeper the pit (compared to the river), the less stable the dike.
The narrower the dike, the weaker it is.
Until recently, Texas was one of the few states (if not the only one) that had no minimum setbacks of mines from rivers. Bill McCabe of the Lake Houston Area Flood Prevention Initiative was instrumental in lobbying for greater setbacks. The TCEQ adopted them in 2021, but this pit predated the new regulation. And the TCEQ did not enforce the regulation in this case.
In fact, this pit was open on its southern end since January. That breach was already expanding before the recent flood.
Pictures Taken Before and After Flood Show Pit Capture
Pictures taken during and after the flood show the impact.
Hallett Mine San Jacinto West Fork on May 3, near peak of recent flood.Same area photographed on May 11, 2024. Break in dike is circled in red.
Following the river around to the right, you can see how much sand the river laid down. This likely happened when the volume of water moving through the channel decreased as the velocity decreased, allowing suspended sediment to drop out of suspension.
The river which flows right to left, used to flow toward the bottom left. But now it flows into the pit (upper left).Closer shot showing the river being diverted into piton the left.
This video shows the height of the sand deposited in the river bed when the river started flowing to the pit instead of following its normal channel.
Video courtesy of a fisherman, Jody Binnion. Listen to his narration.This shot also gives you some idea of the height of the sand now blocking the river.Farther upriver but looking downriver, you can see how the river has been diverted. Note how narrow the dike is/was as it approaches the point of failure.Note the ripples on the water flowing into the pit.At the far southern end of the pond, the water exits back into the river through this breach that opened up in the January flood.Between the new entrance and exit from the pond, the Northpark ditch enters the river from Oakhurst and Northpark Woods.
Impacts Associated with Pit Capture
Without a river to remove sand from the confluence with the ditch, more and more sediment will likely build up here.
In regard to the last point, sand mining also frequently stirs up heavy metals such as lead and cadmium, which have been documented in academic literature. However, I have no evidence that such chemicals are coming from the Hallett Mine.
This river, which now flows through the Hallett pit, flows into Lake Houston. And Lake Houston is the source of drinking water for more than 2 million people.
Posted by Bob Rehak on May 11, 2024
2448 Days since Hurricane Harvey
The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/20240511-DJI_20240511084429_0574_D.jpg?fit=1100%2C619&ssl=16191100adminadmin2024-05-11 11:28:382024-05-14 17:08:58San Jacinto West Fork Reroutes Itself Through Giant Hallett Mine
Video of Mile-Long Sand Pit Leaking Into West Fork
Correction: This sand pit in this post was sold by Hallett to Riverwalk Porter LLC on January 23, 2024.
Last week, the West Fork San Jacinto rerouted itself through a mile-long sand pit at the five-square mile Hallett Mine in Porter. Some people reported problems understanding how all the images in that post related to each other and where the mine was. To help eliminate confusion, I returned to the site this morning show continuous video from one breach to the other. I’ve also included a wider map below.
Location of Mine and Path of Video
The map below shows the relationship of the pit “captured” by the river to the rest of the mine, Porter and Kingwood.
Video and Still Shots of Captured Pit
Clouds were low and I was flying near the base of them. So, the video looks a bit hazy.
Note several things as you watch the video.
Here are some still shots with more contrast that show those highlights and other aspects. I’ll arrange these in the reverse order, i.e., flying downriver in the opposite direction starting from the entrance breach..
Water now takes the path of least resistance, flowing through the giant pond.
This flows straight into Lake Houston.
Downstream Photos Taken on 5/13/23 at US59 Bridge
The City of Houston is launching a new $34 million dredging program to remove another 800,000 cubic yards of sediment accumulating in the West Fork downstream from the bridge.
Hallett contends that sand cannot escape its pits and that this sand comes from river bank erosion on other tributaries such as Spring and Cypress Creeks.
Robin Sedewitz, Kingwood resident contributed the three photos and video below.
Note height of debris in bridge supports.
During Harvey, debris such as this got caught in supports for the old railroad bridge and dammed the river, backing water up into Humble and Kingwood businesses. The railroad ultimately built a new bridge that would let trees pass through. No trees got hung up on the new bridge supports during this flood.
Where to Report Problems
Harris County Flood Control now surveys the river after floods and removes debris. They just haven’t gotten to this debris yet.
If you see problems that need HCFCD’s attention, you can report them here.
The TCEQ regulates sand mines in the State of Texas. To report sand mine issues, visit: https://www.tceq.texas.gov/compliance/complaints/.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 5.13.24
2449 Days since Hurricane Harvey
The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.
Does Wet Spring Portend Intense Hurricane Season?
Does a wetter-than-normal spring say anything about Houston’s chances for a busier-than-normal hurricane season? According to Jeff Linder, Harris County’s meteorologist, the two correlate poorly. In the process of exploring that, I discovered some surprising facts about the intensity and seasonality of rainfall in the region.
So Far, Not So Much Wetter than Normal
“Harris County is running slightly above normal for 2024,” says Lindner. “But much of this can be traced back to the rains in late January.”
“I would likely attribute the winter and early Spring rains more to the El Niño pattern in the eastern and central Pacific,” he added. “They tend to bring above-normal rainfall to the southern plains in the fall, winter, and spring months.”
“As for the upcoming hurricane season, there is little correlation between slightly above average rainfall and any sort of potential activity on the Texas coast. With that said, conditions look highly favorable for an active hurricane season in 2024 including very warm sea surface temperatures throughout the Atlantic basin, the collapse of El Nino and development of La Niña.”
Lindner concluded, “That tends to create increasingly favorable conditions for tropical development, especially in the Caribbean Sea, and a wetter than normal pattern from the coast of Africa into the Caribbean.”
The graphs below explain Lindner’s characterization of the temperature and rainfall as “slightly” above normal as we head into hurricane season.
I pulled them from the climate page for Houston on Weather.gov. The National Weather Service (NWS) shows 35 different reporting stations in the Houston region and gives you nine ways to visualize daily, monthly and yearly data.
As I browsed the site, I discovered two interesting things. When you look at monthly averages:
Let’s look at the two variables using data and graphs from the climate page above.
Rainfall YTD vs. Highs, Lows, Averages
Bush Intercontinental Airport received about 21 inches of rain (YTD through May 12). In late January and February, Bush was having the rainiest year on record. But since then, despite very heavy rains to the north, we’ve only beaten the average YTD figures by a slight amount, as Lindner observed.
Meanwhile, Galveston started out with record rainfall. Only in the last two or three weeks did it fall behind the record year (1949). Galveston is still about 50% above its average total YTD.
In Conroe, rainfall totals have flirted all year with the record high year of 1935. They only dipped below average for a week or so in January.
Rainiest Months Vary with Distance from Coast
At Bush Intercontinental Airport, June (#1) and October (#2) are the rainiest months with May ranking #3.
But at Galveston’s Scholes Field, May is the ninth rainiest month and September the wettest. September is the peak of hurricane season.
In Conroe, May is the wettest month.
Spring rains play a larger role in the yearly total the farther north you go. But in Galveston, the totals jump up during hurricane season.
Not too much of a surprise there. Many fronts lose their punch before reaching the coast in the winter and spring months. Likewise, many tropical disturbances lose their punch 90 miles inland during the summer and fall – hurricane season.
What Data Illustrates
This data illustrates that it’s hard to generalize about the weather. You can’t take one storm (or even a series of storms) in one location and posit it as proof of a larger trend. Too many factors govern the weather to do that.
Moreover, my rain gage is reading 142% of the YTD figures from the nearest official gage at IAH just seven miles away.
That’s not uncommon. Sometimes a rain bomb lands on your home. Thunderstorms train over you for hours. Or a front stalls when it reaches your address. Those things can skew your perception of the weather.
That said, all the experts are still warning of a much higher-than-normal hurricane season this year. But for reasons unrelated to local flooding.
Happy Mother’s Day
Let me close this Mother’s Day with some beauty from Mother Nature. The son of a friend captured this image while flying around the storm that slammed north Houston on May 9th. He was at 30,000 feet and the clouds topped out at 70,000 feet as the sun was setting.
The power of the photo above should remind you. If you somehow missed it, we just finished Hurricane Preparedness Week. Have you made your preparations for hurricane season yet?
Posted by Bob Rehak on 5/12/24
2448 Days since Hurricane Harvey
San Jacinto West Fork Reroutes Itself Through Giant Hallett Mine
Correction: This sand pit in this post was sold by Hallett to Riverwalk Porter LLC on January 23, 2024.
The San Jacinto West Fork has become totally blocked by sediment at the Hallett Mine in Porter and rerouted itself through the giant sand mine.
The old river channel has been sealed off by sediment. And the river now enters and exits one of the mine’s largest pits through large breaches in what used to be dikes. See below.
More than Normal Erosion
Rivers always move during floods through erosion. But this represents a far larger than normal amount of movement through a process called pit capture.
The loss of the dikes is likely the result of the SJRA releasing 71,000 cubic feet per second from Lake Conroe during the peak of the recent flood. That was the second largest release in the history of the SJRA.
Pictures taken just before the peak of the flood show the river already overtopping the pit’s dike. Dikes like walls that separate the river from the mine’s pits. They keep industrial wastewater out of your drinking water.
Weak Sand Mining Regulations Brought This On
Two other contributing factors are the depth of the pit compared to the river and the width of the dike.
Until recently, Texas was one of the few states (if not the only one) that had no minimum setbacks of mines from rivers. Bill McCabe of the Lake Houston Area Flood Prevention Initiative was instrumental in lobbying for greater setbacks. The TCEQ adopted them in 2021, but this pit predated the new regulation. And the TCEQ did not enforce the regulation in this case.
In fact, this pit was open on its southern end since January. That breach was already expanding before the recent flood.
Pictures Taken Before and After Flood Show Pit Capture
Pictures taken during and after the flood show the impact.
Following the river around to the right, you can see how much sand the river laid down. This likely happened when the volume of water moving through the channel decreased as the velocity decreased, allowing suspended sediment to drop out of suspension.
This video shows the height of the sand deposited in the river bed when the river started flowing to the pit instead of following its normal channel.
Impacts Associated with Pit Capture
Without a river to remove sand from the confluence with the ditch, more and more sediment will likely build up here.
Academic literature discusses the impact of “pit capture” on:
In regard to the last point, sand mining also frequently stirs up heavy metals such as lead and cadmium, which have been documented in academic literature. However, I have no evidence that such chemicals are coming from the Hallett Mine.
This river, which now flows through the Hallett pit, flows into Lake Houston. And Lake Houston is the source of drinking water for more than 2 million people.
Posted by Bob Rehak on May 11, 2024
2448 Days since Hurricane Harvey
The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.