6/29/26 – Forming a Montgomery County Lake District could create a unified post-mining plan for dozens of individual sand mines along the West Fork, benefiting industry, residents and government at all levels. Here’s how.
Roaring Through the Cracks
In August of 2025, I documented the massive breach in the dike of an old sand mine on the San Jacinto West Fork. The 130-acre pond dropped at least 10 feet in less than an hour. All that water rushing out was like a dam breaking. It caused tremendous erosion.
Rushing water destroyed everything in its path and washed a tremendous amount of sediment into the river. 1300 acre-feet of fresh water weighs approximately 3.5 billion pounds! The force of that water enlarged a nick in the dike to an opening up to approximately 150 feet wide by 1000 feet long in minutes.
A year later, the abandoned mine’s owners still have not fixed the damage. See this one-minute video on YouTube of the devastation left behind. I shot the video on 6/27/26.
Tragically, it was all preventable.
How It Happened
Hanson Aggregates stopped mining the pond in 2021. Just months later, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) instituted new best management practices for mining in the San Jacinto River Basin. The new rules called for miners to develop a post-mining/abandonment plan, but TCEQ says that never happened in this case because of the timing.
A group called Ags Unlimited LLC later bought the abandoned mine in 2023 and still owns it today, according to the Montgomery County Appraisal District.
It’s not clear what Ags Unlimited planned for the property. At various points in a conversation with the manager, he mentioned building a boat launch, a kid’s camp, a recreational amenity for an adjacent residential community, and selling wetland-mitigation credits. He later told investigators from the TCEQ that he hoped to build a “recreational pond for livestock management.”
John McKinney, the Montgomery County Floodplain Manager, says the County cited the new owners for non-compliance on December 19, 2024. The issue: Repairing the berm around the pond and installing overflow pipes.
On August 24, 2025, the berm blew out when a contractor with a small backhoe tried to install the overflow pipes. According to one account, he dug too deep into the sandy soil and a trickle quickly enlarged into a torrent.
Photo taken on 8/24/25 as water was still rushing through breach. Compare height of breach to height of excavator.
Vision for the Future: Montgomery County Lake District
Regardless of what were perhaps good intentions, a disaster resulted. And the present owners seem incapable of fixing it.
The lower water levels have contributed to headcut erosion on adjoining properties, now threatening one widow’s home. So, how do we prevent such harm in the future?
I propose a cooperative effort of cities, counties, Texas Parks & Wildlife, TCEQ, Texas General Land Office (GLO) and industry to designate the areas where sand has been mined along the San Jacinto West Fork, along with floodways, as “The Montgomery County Lake District.” The concept: Turn a network of abandoned mines into publicly owned green space connected by trails.
TACA members on the West Fork now have an obligation to provide abandonment/post-mining plans to the TCEQ. Selling their land when mining is complete to the MoCo Lake District could relieve mine owners of the need to develop their own individual abandonment plans. It could also create a positive, lasting legacy for the industry.
From the standpoint of residents, proximity to green spaces enhances surrounding home values and provides healthy, outdoor recreational space. Preservation of floodways and floodplains also reduces flooding.
Governments at All Levels Could Benefit
Former mines along the West Fork could become a new state park under the auspices of Texas Parks and Wildlife, which already has responsibility for rivers in Texas. Land is scarce in urban areas. But abandoned mines sell at a steep discount.
Undeveloped land deep in floodplains and floodways, such as the Scarborough property, just downstream from the Hanson mine, might also be included.
Cities and counties could reduce water purification and dredging costs. They could also eliminate headaches such as the one above that damage their residents.
The state has resources to address such issues. Small private groups like Ags Unlimited rarely do. Collectively, we can create something far larger than any one group could by itself.
Rough outline of proposed MoCo Lake District incorporating current and abandoned sand mines as well as undeveloped land in floodways and floodplains along West Fork from US59 to Conroe.
If it works, this could become a model for responsible aggregate production in Texas and the country.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 6/29/26
3226 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Lake-District-Outline-Small.jpg?fit=1100%2C1169&ssl=111691100adminadmin2026-06-29 19:56:052026-06-30 12:20:59Proposal for Comprehensive Post-Mining Plan Could Help Avert Future Tragedies
6/28/2026 – Harris County Flood Control District’s (HCFCD) contractor on the Woodridge/Taylor Gully Project apparently didn’t get the memo about billing as much work as soon as possible.
Harris County Commissioners Court approved Brice Construction and Design LLC’s $29.4 million contract in their March 31, 2026, meeting. It took Brice two months to mobilize for the job. And they have accomplished little in the month since they actually started moving dirt.
Looming Deadline on Community Development Block Grant Projects
The County is scrambling to bill $322 million dollars of Community Development Block Grant funds (CDBG) from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) by a 2/28/27 deadline to avoid losing the money.
To do that, the Texas General Land Office (GLO), which administers HUD funds in Texas, is letting Harris County bill completed work on both CDBG-Disaster Relief (DR) and CDBG-Mitigation (MIT) projects against the $322 million allocated to DR projects.
The Woodridge/Taylor Gully Project falls into the MIT category which has a longer deadline. According to the contract, the contractor must finish the project no later than December 2027. However, if the company works faster, it can help save up to about 10% of that $322 million for its client.
Slow Going
But with 15% of Brice’s contract time elapsed, the contractor has barely scratched the surface. Aerial photographs show that little has changed in the three months since Brice’s contract was approved.
The contractor is working with a skeleton crew and minimal equipment for a job of this size. So far, they’ve excavated only a small area near the entrance to the job site and broken up some old storm sewer pipe.
Contract documents said HCFCD expected them to work on both Taylor Gully and Woodridge simultaneously. But so far, they have worked only on Woodridge…and only a small portion of Woodridge at that.
The contract includes excavating more than a million cubic yards of dirt to form a 421-acre-foot detention basin, rebuilding the bridge over Taylor Gully at Rustling Elms, and increasing the carrying capacity of approximately 2 miles of Taylor Gully itself.
Let’s look only at the Woodridge portion of the job for a second. Dividing a million cubic yards by the carrying capacity of heavy-duty dump trucks (10 cubic yards) suggests that Brice will have to haul off 100,000 loads of dirt. That boils down to 180 loads per day, 22 per hour, or about one every three minutes per 8-hour work day. I certainly haven’t seen that kind of activity so far.
And those calculations assume the contractor works seven days per week…which they are not…at least so far.
As you look at the photos below, keep in mind that most of what looks like the detention basin was excavated under a previous contract by a different contractor. The million cubic yards is in addition to that.
Pictures Showing Starting Point to Now
The first picture below shows how Woodridge looked when Brice actually started work at the site.
Here’s how the same area looks another month later.
June 26, 2026, three months after start of new contract.Not much has changed.
On Saturday June 27, 2026 I saw an excavator, a front end loader, and one dump truck carrying one load during about a 20-minute flight over the site.
The excavator would fill up the front end loader, which would then… …ferry the dirt elsewhere on the site to cover up some pipes.At one point, a large dump truck showed up and the excavator filled it up.
To be fair, more dump trucks may have visited the site during the day, but I didn’t see any others during the time I was there. The activity looked anemic compared to the TC Jester site I had photographed only an hour earlier. I counted more than a dozen dump trucks and three excavators hard at work during the same period of time – a bustling activity level consistent with the hypothetical calculations above.
And contrary to HCFCD’s expectations about working on Woodridge and Taylor Gully simultaneously…
…I have yet to see any construction activity anywhere along Taylor Gully. Last checked on 6/28/26
How can he accelerate the few projects actually turning dirt at this point to save as much of that $322 million as possible? At the present rate, will Brice even be able to meet its contractual deadline? Or the March 31, 2028 deadline for CDBG-MIT projects?
Posted by Bob Rehak on 6/28/26
3225 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/2026/06/DJI_20260627142122_0034_D.jpg?fit=1100%2C619&ssl=16191100adminadmin2026-06-28 17:45:252026-06-28 22:48:52As HCFCD Tries to Accelerate Projects, Woodridge is Still Crawling
6/26/26 – After getting off to a sluggish start, construction of the giant 725-acre-foot East TC Jester stormwater detention basin along Cypress Creek has kicked into high gear.
History of Project
On 11/30/21, Harris County Commissioners approved an agreement with an engineering company to provide design/bid/construction-phase services.
In September of 2023, Dr. Tina Petersen held a press conference at the site to with Congressman Dan Crenshaw, State Rep. Sam Harless, and Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey to promote the funding secured for construction.
TC Jester Detention Basin Press Conference promoting availability of funding.
Then, there was a long pause. In mid-April this year, I received an email from Harris County Flood Control District saying construction had started. But when I visited the site on 4/22/26, I saw nothing but a construction trailer. That led me to conclude that HCFCD was broken.
On 5/1/26, HCFCD released a report saying it would miss the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) deadline of 2/28/27 by several months.
A little more than a month later, on 6/3/26, the Texas General Land Office (GLO) estimated construction was only 2% complete with only nine months left before the clock ran out on $23,844,000.00 of HUD funding.
Progress in Last 2 Months
Today, 6/27/26, I visited the site again and was pleasantly surprised by the progress.
Contractors had to clear the site before excavation could start. That looked complete and they were well into the excavation phase. I saw a carousel of belly-dump trucks parading past three excavators on a Saturday afternoon. In the 20 minutes I flew over the site, I counted more than a dozen of the giant trucks come in, fill up, and exit the site.
See the pictures below. First, here was the starting point two months ago.
TC Jester East Basin 1B on April 22, 2026 before start of construction. Looking W. TC Jester at top of frame. Cypress Creek on left.Wider shot of same area two months later showing extent of construction on 6/27/2026.Looking WSW from over Cypresswood Drive.Looking E from over TC Jester. Cypresswood Drive on left.Loaded dump trucks circling around and leaving site.Closer shot of the parade of dump trucks.Closer shot showing depth of excavation.
I wish all the HUD Community Development Block Grant projects were moving as fast as this one. Unfortunately, they aren’t. See one tomorrow that seems to be moving slower. Much slower. .
Posted by Bob Rehak on 6/27/2026
3234 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/2026/06/DJI_20260627131605_0014_D.jpg?fit=1100%2C619&ssl=16191100adminadmin2026-06-27 18:36:532026-06-27 19:40:19Construction of Giant East TC Jester Basin Kicks into High Gear
Proposal for Comprehensive Post-Mining Plan Could Help Avert Future Tragedies
6/29/26 – Forming a Montgomery County Lake District could create a unified post-mining plan for dozens of individual sand mines along the West Fork, benefiting industry, residents and government at all levels. Here’s how.
Roaring Through the Cracks
In August of 2025, I documented the massive breach in the dike of an old sand mine on the San Jacinto West Fork. The 130-acre pond dropped at least 10 feet in less than an hour. All that water rushing out was like a dam breaking. It caused tremendous erosion.
Rushing water destroyed everything in its path and washed a tremendous amount of sediment into the river. 1300 acre-feet of fresh water weighs approximately 3.5 billion pounds! The force of that water enlarged a nick in the dike to an opening up to approximately 150 feet wide by 1000 feet long in minutes.
A year later, the abandoned mine’s owners still have not fixed the damage. See this one-minute video on YouTube of the devastation left behind. I shot the video on 6/27/26.
Tragically, it was all preventable.
How It Happened
Hanson Aggregates stopped mining the pond in 2021. Just months later, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) instituted new best management practices for mining in the San Jacinto River Basin. The new rules called for miners to develop a post-mining/abandonment plan, but TCEQ says that never happened in this case because of the timing.
A group called Ags Unlimited LLC later bought the abandoned mine in 2023 and still owns it today, according to the Montgomery County Appraisal District.
It’s not clear what Ags Unlimited planned for the property. At various points in a conversation with the manager, he mentioned building a boat launch, a kid’s camp, a recreational amenity for an adjacent residential community, and selling wetland-mitigation credits. He later told investigators from the TCEQ that he hoped to build a “recreational pond for livestock management.”
John McKinney, the Montgomery County Floodplain Manager, says the County cited the new owners for non-compliance on December 19, 2024. The issue: Repairing the berm around the pond and installing overflow pipes.
On August 24, 2025, the berm blew out when a contractor with a small backhoe tried to install the overflow pipes. According to one account, he dug too deep into the sandy soil and a trickle quickly enlarged into a torrent.
Vision for the Future: Montgomery County Lake District
Regardless of what were perhaps good intentions, a disaster resulted. And the present owners seem incapable of fixing it.
The lower water levels have contributed to headcut erosion on adjoining properties, now threatening one widow’s home. So, how do we prevent such harm in the future?
I propose a cooperative effort of cities, counties, Texas Parks & Wildlife, TCEQ, Texas General Land Office (GLO) and industry to designate the areas where sand has been mined along the San Jacinto West Fork, along with floodways, as “The Montgomery County Lake District.” The concept: Turn a network of abandoned mines into publicly owned green space connected by trails.
The Texas Aggregates and Concrete Association (TACA) could help lead the way. It is one of the most powerful lobbies in Austin.
TACA members on the West Fork now have an obligation to provide abandonment/post-mining plans to the TCEQ. Selling their land when mining is complete to the MoCo Lake District could relieve mine owners of the need to develop their own individual abandonment plans. It could also create a positive, lasting legacy for the industry.
From the standpoint of residents, proximity to green spaces enhances surrounding home values and provides healthy, outdoor recreational space. Preservation of floodways and floodplains also reduces flooding.
Governments at All Levels Could Benefit
Former mines along the West Fork could become a new state park under the auspices of Texas Parks and Wildlife, which already has responsibility for rivers in Texas. Land is scarce in urban areas. But abandoned mines sell at a steep discount.
Undeveloped land deep in floodplains and floodways, such as the Scarborough property, just downstream from the Hanson mine, might also be included.
The General Land Office (GLO) has partnered with Scarborough and may be looking for a way to back out of the deal. A state park might be an honorable and popular way to do that.
Cities and counties could reduce water purification and dredging costs. They could also eliminate headaches such as the one above that damage their residents.
The state has resources to address such issues. Small private groups like Ags Unlimited rarely do. Collectively, we can create something far larger than any one group could by itself.
If it works, this could become a model for responsible aggregate production in Texas and the country.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 6/29/26
3226 Days since Hurricane Harvey
As HCFCD Tries to Accelerate Projects, Woodridge is Still Crawling
6/28/2026 – Harris County Flood Control District’s (HCFCD) contractor on the Woodridge/Taylor Gully Project apparently didn’t get the memo about billing as much work as soon as possible.
Harris County Commissioners Court approved Brice Construction and Design LLC’s $29.4 million contract in their March 31, 2026, meeting. It took Brice two months to mobilize for the job. And they have accomplished little in the month since they actually started moving dirt.
Looming Deadline on Community Development Block Grant Projects
The County is scrambling to bill $322 million dollars of Community Development Block Grant funds (CDBG) from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) by a 2/28/27 deadline to avoid losing the money.
To do that, the Texas General Land Office (GLO), which administers HUD funds in Texas, is letting Harris County bill completed work on both CDBG-Disaster Relief (DR) and CDBG-Mitigation (MIT) projects against the $322 million allocated to DR projects.
The Woodridge/Taylor Gully Project falls into the MIT category which has a longer deadline. According to the contract, the contractor must finish the project no later than December 2027. However, if the company works faster, it can help save up to about 10% of that $322 million for its client.
Slow Going
But with 15% of Brice’s contract time elapsed, the contractor has barely scratched the surface. Aerial photographs show that little has changed in the three months since Brice’s contract was approved.
The contractor is working with a skeleton crew and minimal equipment for a job of this size. So far, they’ve excavated only a small area near the entrance to the job site and broken up some old storm sewer pipe.
Contract documents said HCFCD expected them to work on both Taylor Gully and Woodridge simultaneously. But so far, they have worked only on Woodridge…and only a small portion of Woodridge at that.
The contract includes excavating more than a million cubic yards of dirt to form a 421-acre-foot detention basin, rebuilding the bridge over Taylor Gully at Rustling Elms, and increasing the carrying capacity of approximately 2 miles of Taylor Gully itself.
Let’s look only at the Woodridge portion of the job for a second. Dividing a million cubic yards by the carrying capacity of heavy-duty dump trucks (10 cubic yards) suggests that Brice will have to haul off 100,000 loads of dirt. That boils down to 180 loads per day, 22 per hour, or about one every three minutes per 8-hour work day. I certainly haven’t seen that kind of activity so far.
And those calculations assume the contractor works seven days per week…which they are not…at least so far.
As you look at the photos below, keep in mind that most of what looks like the detention basin was excavated under a previous contract by a different contractor. The million cubic yards is in addition to that.
Pictures Showing Starting Point to Now
The first picture below shows how Woodridge looked when Brice actually started work at the site.
All of the excavation you see above was done previously by Sprint Sand & Clay under an Excavation and Removal (E&R) Contract. HCFCD cancelled the E&R project so that it could apply for HUD funding; projects cannot change by law during the application period.
Here’s how the same area looks another month later.
On Saturday June 27, 2026 I saw an excavator, a front end loader, and one dump truck carrying one load during about a 20-minute flight over the site.
To be fair, more dump trucks may have visited the site during the day, but I didn’t see any others during the time I was there. The activity looked anemic compared to the TC Jester site I had photographed only an hour earlier. I counted more than a dozen dump trucks and three excavators hard at work during the same period of time – a bustling activity level consistent with the hypothetical calculations above.
And contrary to HCFCD’s expectations about working on Woodridge and Taylor Gully simultaneously…
A Challenge for Stuckett
This is just one of the issues that HCFCD’s new executive director Marcus Stuckett will face when he starts on 6/29/26.
How can he accelerate the few projects actually turning dirt at this point to save as much of that $322 million as possible? At the present rate, will Brice even be able to meet its contractual deadline? Or the March 31, 2028 deadline for CDBG-MIT projects?
Posted by Bob Rehak on 6/28/26
3225 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.
Construction of Giant East TC Jester Basin Kicks into High Gear
6/26/26 – After getting off to a sluggish start, construction of the giant 725-acre-foot East TC Jester stormwater detention basin along Cypress Creek has kicked into high gear.
History of Project
On 11/30/21, Harris County Commissioners approved an agreement with an engineering company to provide design/bid/construction-phase services.
In September of 2023, Dr. Tina Petersen held a press conference at the site to with Congressman Dan Crenshaw, State Rep. Sam Harless, and Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey to promote the funding secured for construction.
Then, there was a long pause. In mid-April this year, I received an email from Harris County Flood Control District saying construction had started. But when I visited the site on 4/22/26, I saw nothing but a construction trailer. That led me to conclude that HCFCD was broken.
On 5/1/26, HCFCD released a report saying it would miss the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) deadline of 2/28/27 by several months.
A little more than a month later, on 6/3/26, the Texas General Land Office (GLO) estimated construction was only 2% complete with only nine months left before the clock ran out on $23,844,000.00 of HUD funding.
Progress in Last 2 Months
Today, 6/27/26, I visited the site again and was pleasantly surprised by the progress.
Contractors had to clear the site before excavation could start. That looked complete and they were well into the excavation phase. I saw a carousel of belly-dump trucks parading past three excavators on a Saturday afternoon. In the 20 minutes I flew over the site, I counted more than a dozen of the giant trucks come in, fill up, and exit the site.
See the pictures below. First, here was the starting point two months ago.
I wish all the HUD Community Development Block Grant projects were moving as fast as this one. Unfortunately, they aren’t. See one tomorrow that seems to be moving slower. Much slower. .
Posted by Bob Rehak on 6/27/2026
3234 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.