What causes street flooding? At the risk of clarifying the obvious, rain accumulates faster than storm sewers and drainage ditches can carry it away.
A Lack-Of-Capacity Issue
Most streets are actually designed to be part of the flood retention system in any community. That’s because most storm sewers can only handle a two-year rain (about 2 inches per hour). When we get more than that – say a 10-, 25-, 50- or 100-year rain – water is stored in the street until capacity opens up in the storm sewers, ditches and creeks.
As you can see from the new Atlas-14 rainfall chart below, a 2-year rain in this area is 2.23 inches/hour; a 25-year rain 3.88 inches/hour; and a 100-year rain 4.88.
New Atlas-14 Rainfall Data for Lake Houston area from NOAA
When evaluating rainfalls, look at the storm totals AND shorter intervals, such as 15, 30 and 60 minutes.
Street flooding usually results from short, high-intensity downpours caused by slow-moving or training thunderstorms.
From a street-flooding perspective, getting 4 inches of rain in one day is not the same as getting 4 inches in one hour.
If you get 2 inches of rain in 30 minutes, you’re already at a 5-year rain. That’s well beyond the design capacity of storm sewers. You can expect water to back up into the street at that point, even if there are no blockages in the storm sewers.
That’s why builders elevate most homes several feet above street level and above the 100-year flood plain. It gives you an additional margin of safety.
How To Determine Intensity of Rainfalls
If you flooded from your street, first determine whether the cause was simply overwhelming rainfall or whether complicating factors existed.
How can you determine how much rain you got in any given time interval during a storm? Follow these simple steps:
Click on the gage nearest you. (For me, that’s Gage #755 at the San Jacinto West Fork and West Lake Houston Parkway. I will use that in the example below.)
In the pop-up window, click on the “For More Information” button.
At the top of the next window, select date and time intervals. The Time Interval varies from One Hour to One Year. I selected September 19, 2019 (the day of Imelda) and 24 hours. That shows me 24 1-hour intervals. From this and the table above, you can see that we had three very intense hours in a row during Imelda.
HarrisCountyFWS.org shows we got almost 11 inches during Imelda, the vast majority of it in three hours.Note: selecting other time intervals displays other time increments.For instance the system breaks hours down into 5-minute increments, years into months, etc.
From the two charts above, correlate the actual precipitation with the recurrence intervals. You can see that…
We had a 10-year rain, followed by a 5-year rain, followed by a 2-year rain – all in three hours!
Every single one of those hours met or exceeded the maximum capacity of the storm sewers. So it’s easy to see WHY we had street flooding.
When Street Flooding Turns into Home Flooding
In a small percentage of cases, street flooding turns into HOME flooding – when there simply isn’t enough backup capacity in the streets. (In the following discussion, I’m EXCLUDING homes that flooded from rivers, streams, or overland sheet flow during Imelda, i.e., Ben’s Branch, Elm Grove, etc.).
Extreme events reveal the weaknesses in any system. If your home was:
At a low point on the street…
Near a clogged storm drain…
A foot or two lower than surrounding homes…
At the bottom of a hill…
In an area where water collected or converged…
Near an outfall pipe that collapsed or was blocked…
Upstream from a ditch that was blocked…
…you may have flooded.
And then there are the bizarre cases.
I visited one man in Trailwood at the bottom of a hill that had NO storm drains. Inexplicably, someone placed the nearest drain in the middle of the hill – about half a block ABOVE his home.
Another man called me who lived near Village Park Drive next to a tributary of Ben’s Branch. The Community Association had erected a fence between the end of the street and the tributary. They built the fence so low to the ground that it became clogged with weeds and grass clippings during Imelda and formed a dam. In the heavy rain, water could not get under it and backed up into his home.
What Can You Do?
Short of praying or digging up every street in Houston to enlarge the storm sewers, homeowners DO have some remedies.
Keep storm drains clear. Keep yard waste out of them.
Call 311 for a storm-drain inspection if you suspect yours have become clogged. The City is currently inspecting ALL drains in Kingwood subdivisions that had street flooding last year.
Inspect outfall pipes where your storm drains enter the nearest ditch to ensure they have not collapsed or become blocked.
Look out for new construction, such as the fence above, that may back water up. Remove or elevate the horizontal rot board if it blocks the overflow of water from your street.
If the problem recurs in less extreme events, consider flood proofing or elevating your home.
Make sure you have flood insurance; that it’s up to date; and that it reflects the true replacement value of your home.
Wide shot from farther up the block of fence shown above. Gap under fence did not exist at time of Imelda.Note how rot board has NOW been elevated to allow water collecting in street to get into creek beyond fence.
Great Options Where Possible
If your area floods repeatedly, you may also be interested in lobbying the City or County to build an overflow spillway or detention pond between your street and the nearest drainage channel. Obviously, geographic circumstances may rule this possibility out for many. But if you have a vacant lot in your neighborhood and a nearby ditch…
Example of community detention pond with overflow channel to Taylor Gully (beyond fence). This wasn’t enough to protect North Kingwood Forest in Imelda, but their problem was complicated by sheet flow from Woodridge Village.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 2/22/2020
907 Days after Hurricane Harvey and 156 after Imelda
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/20200203-RJR_7540.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=18001200adminadmin2020-02-22 19:33:112020-02-23 04:47:14Street Flooding: Causes and Cures
In a marathon meeting last night, the SJRA modified the seasonal lowering program for Lake Conroe. The adopted motion does not exactly follow the City of Houston’s last-minute compromise recommendation. It delays lowering the lake to 199.5 feet until after September 1 to accommodate boaters and businesses on Lake Conroe. The City had recommended lowering the lake to that level beginning August 1. The old policy called for lowering the lake all the way to 199 in both months.
Details of Plan
Minutes of the meeting have not yet been approved, but here is the preliminary summary:
Spring lowering:
Lower to 200’ msl (mean feet above sea level) beginning April 1 through May 31. Recapture begins June 1.
Fall lowering:
Beginning August 1, lower to 200’ msl.
Beginning September 1, lower to 199.5’ msl.
Tropical Storm Provision:
If a named storm enters the region, City of Houston may initiate an additional prerelease to 199’ msl by requesting the SJRA to do so in writing. SJRA staff will coordinate with COH staff on the details and timing of the lowering.
Duration of Program
The program will continue through December 2022, giving the City of Houston enough time to add additional gates to Lake Houston and complete West Fork dredging.
1400 Crowd Convention Hall for 5-Hour Meeting
More than 1400 people crammed into the meeting at the Lone Star Convention Center in Conroe. The meeting lasted more than five hours. Some people arrived hours earlier to make sure they got seats.
Estimated crowd of 1400. White shirts from Lake Houston, red from Lake Conroe.
Lake Conroe residents still outnumbered Lake Houston residents by 2 to 1, but it was far better than the 20 to 1 ratio in previous meetings on this topic.
Also present at last night’s meeting were people from between the two lakes in communities such as River Plantation. More than 1100 people between Lake Conroe and Lake Houston flooded during Harvey when the SJRA released 80,000 cubic feet per second.
Flooded Protester at February SJRA Board Meeting
Plea for Civility Starts Meeting
The meeting started with a plea by the chambers of commerce from the two areas for unity and civility. And the meeting was in fact far more civilthan previous meetings on this topic. Gone was the bar room atmosphere of jeers, catcalls, name calling, interruptions, and physical threats.
Staff Presentation and Mayor’s Letter Change Debate
Before public comments began, two developments totally changed the debate. Most people expected the SJRA to decide between continuing or scrapping the existing plan. However, the evening before the meeting, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner sent a letter to the SJRA suggesting a compromise proposal: 200 msl in the spring and 199.5 in the fall. Then Chuck Gilman, SJRA’s Director of Water Resources and Flood Management, kicked off the meeting with an alternate proposal: 200 msl in spring AND fall.
Gilman’s presentation to the board emphasized lowering the lake one foot could have prevented releases in all but three storms in the last twenty years. Gilman’s team correlated the average rise in lake level per inch of rainfall in dozens of events. See graph below.
SJRA data shows that 1-foot of extra lake level (yellow line) would handle all but three storms that occurred in last 20 years. Hurricane Harvey was excluded from graph because it was considered an anomaly.
“A review of historic rainfall data and corresponding lake rise suggests less than 2 feet of storage is adequate to catch most storm events at Lake Conroe that occur in the fall,” said Gilman.
“Only two rainfall events that occurred in the months of August and September since 1999 (excluding 2017) resulted in more than one-foot of rise in Lake Conroe. More than 90% of these events resulted in less than 3 inches of rise in Lake Conroe. Five named tropical storms in this same period resulted in less than 12 inches of rise,” he said.
Many residents in attendance questioned why the SJRA excluded 1994 and Harvey from examination in the chart above. The worst downstream damage occurred during those two events.
Both the City’s proposal and the SJRA’s came as surprises to many people. Instead of choosing between A and B, suddenly C and D became options, too.
Board Settles on Compromise to Mayor’s Compromise Proposal
In the end, the proposal adopted by the SJRA differed from the City’s in one key respect. The level of Lake Conroe remains a half foot higher in August to accommodate boaters during vacation season. SJRA Board President Lloyd Tisdale characterized August revenue as vital to the area’s economy. Tisdale said vacationing falls off significantly after Labor Day.
Board member Kaaren Cambio who represents the Lake Houston area preferred the Mayor’s proposal but acknowledged that the final plan “balances flood mitigation with water supply and recreation. The board heard businesses and delaying the fall release will extend the boating season.”
The approved plan still lets the City of Houston call for lowering to 199 msl if forecasters predict a named tropical storm will enter the region within five days.
The City owns two thirds of the water in the lake. City Council Member Dave Martin said in his remarks before the board voted that “The City could take the lake down to 180 msl if it wanted.”
In the end, it appeared that the Board punted any responsibility for painful reductions and put that onus on the City.
State Emphasizing Need for Cooperation within Watersheds
Much of the board’s debate focused whether to adopt the City’s proposal verbatim. Board President Tisdale’s opening remarks cited the importance of partnership with other entities in the region. Legislation adopted in 2019 places a premium on cooperation within a watershed. The Texas Water Development Board can financially penalize those that don’t cooperate. They now score grant requests based on how well all affected areas work together. “We have to look at this as a regional flooding issue,” said Tisdale.
Upstream/Downstream Split
Both Lake Houston area Board Members, Kaaren Cambio and Mark Micheletti, argued for adopting the City’s plan, but none of the other board members agreed. In the end, they voted to adopt a plan that delayed lowering the Lake to 199.5 until September 1.
Net Effect Vs. Historical Averages
After a debate going back to 2018, we now have a lake-lowering plan that closely mirrors Mother Nature’s. Unless we’re in a very wet or very dry year.
Compared to historical averages, the SJRA will lower Lake Conroe:
4 to 5 inches in April and May
0 inches in August
3 inches in September
Historical monthly lake level averages since Lake Conroe was built. Variation due to evaporation and rainfall rates.Source: SJRA January 2020 Board Presentation by Chuck Gilman.
Of course, that assumes the City does NOT call for greater reductions. Also keep in mind that these are averages, not certainties. If the lake levels are higher or lower than the average in any given year, these reductions would vary.
The primary protection provided by the policy adopted by the SJRA would occur in a very wet year when the lake was full up to 201 msl. Then the reduction would be 12 inches in August and 18 in September.
State Representative Dan Huberty who gave a powerful speech before the board began deliberations, said, “I am proud of our community and how we came together, including the State (Especially Governor Abbott and Chief Nim Kidd), the City, the County, our Chamber and most importantly our citizens.”
Huberty continued, “Thank you for showing up and being respectful but forceful. We worked very hard, and in the end won a vote that achieves our goal of lake lowering. Special thanks to Mark Micheletti and Kaaren Cambio for having the courage to stand up with and for the recommendation from Mayor Turner and Mayor Pro-Tem Martin.”
The City of Houston provided no comment.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 2/21/2020
906 Days after Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/One-Foot.jpg?fit=1500%2C857&ssl=18571500adminadmin2020-02-21 14:05:282020-02-21 17:06:45SJRA Adopts Modified Lake Lowering Program
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and Public Works Director Carol Haddock have sent a compromise proposal to the SJRA board on the eve of the meeting that will decide the fate of their seasonal lake lowering policy.
Details of Original Proposal
The original policy has received heavy pushback from Lake Conroe people who claim its destroying property, schools, recreation and the Montgomery County tax base. It has also sparked vigorous support from Lake Houston Area businesses and residents. They see the extra storage capacity in Lake Conroe as a buffer against flooding until they can finish permanent mitigation projects such as dredging and the construction of additional gates on Lake Houston’s dam.
That original policy implemented in the fall of 2018 called for lowering the lake to 199 feet from 201 during the peak of hurricane season. It also called for lowering the lake to 200 feet in the rainiest months of spring.
Due to dry weather this winter, Lake Conroe never fully recovered its normal pool level. And at this writing, it remains at 199.21 feet.
Details of Proposed Compromise
The new proposal by Mayor Turner calls for continue lowering Lake Conroe to 200 feet during April and May. However, Turner calls for lowering Lake Conroe to 199.5 in the the fall from August 1 through November 1. That’s a wider window but a smaller reduction.
Turner puts two other conditions on the compromise:
The policy would remain in place until dredging is complete and the City has install new floodgates on the Lake Houston Dam.
In addition, Lake Conroe would be lowered to 199 feet any time a named tropical storm is predicted to impact our region within a 5-day forecast.
It seems that there is little for Lake Conroe people to argue about here. With the exception of an approaching tropical storm or hurricane, the lake levels would rarely be dropped much below the normal levels due to evaporation. See graph below. In fact, the most lake levels would drop manually beyond historical averages would be .42 feet in August or about 5 inches, unless a tropical system approaches.
Source: SJRA presentation by Chuck Gilman. Lake Conroe was built in 1973, so this data goes back to the beginning.
Turner Has Power to Order Reduction If Lake Conroe People Don’t Compromise
Although he did not explicitly say it, Turner has the power to order the reductions simply by calling for the water. The City of Houston owns two-thirds of the water in Lake Conroe.
The last paragraph in Turner’s letter, the one about collaboration and partnership, may be a veiled reference to that fact. If the SJRA does not cooperate, he may not feel obliged to either. In that case, Lake Conroe residents could find themselves with even lower lake levels.
I’d feel more comfortable with a larger reduction. But I’m sure the Conroe people would like no reduction. Such is the nature of compromise…a lost art in American politics.
Keep in mind that the figures above show AVERAGES. If a named tropical storm comes into the Gulf and the lake is already at or above 201, it would still be lowered to 199.5. That would be much more than 5 inches. But still, it should not create an abnormal hardship for anyone.
Make Your Voice Heard
Tomorrow is the last chance to make your opinion known about this issue before the crucial vote. For more information, see the Lake Lowering page of this web site.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS SPECIAL MEETING
Thursday, February 20, 2020
6pm at Lone Star Convention and Expo Center
9055 Airport Road, Conroe, Texas 77303
Doors open at 5pm.
Those wishing to address the board or register a comment at a special meeting may fill out a Comment Registration Form https://www.sjra.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Comment-Registration-Form_01062020.pdf. Comment Registration Forms may be submitted at the special meeting. The form may not be mailed, emailed, or dropped off prior to the meeting date.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 2/19/2020
904 Days after 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/2020/02/Letter-to-SJRA-RE-Lake-Conroe-Director-Haddock-and-MST.jpg?fit=1159%2C1500&ssl=115001159adminadmin2020-02-19 18:32:542020-02-19 19:30:06Mayor Turner Proposes New Compromise on Lowering Lake Conroe
Street Flooding: Causes and Cures
What causes street flooding? At the risk of clarifying the obvious, rain accumulates faster than storm sewers and drainage ditches can carry it away.
A Lack-Of-Capacity Issue
Most streets are actually designed to be part of the flood retention system in any community. That’s because most storm sewers can only handle a two-year rain (about 2 inches per hour). When we get more than that – say a 10-, 25-, 50- or 100-year rain – water is stored in the street until capacity opens up in the storm sewers, ditches and creeks.
As you can see from the new Atlas-14 rainfall chart below, a 2-year rain in this area is 2.23 inches/hour; a 25-year rain 3.88 inches/hour; and a 100-year rain 4.88.
When evaluating rainfalls, look at the storm totals AND shorter intervals, such as 15, 30 and 60 minutes.
From a street-flooding perspective, getting 4 inches of rain in one day is not the same as getting 4 inches in one hour.
If you get 2 inches of rain in 30 minutes, you’re already at a 5-year rain. That’s well beyond the design capacity of storm sewers. You can expect water to back up into the street at that point, even if there are no blockages in the storm sewers.
That’s why builders elevate most homes several feet above street level and above the 100-year flood plain. It gives you an additional margin of safety.
How To Determine Intensity of Rainfalls
If you flooded from your street, first determine whether the cause was simply overwhelming rainfall or whether complicating factors existed.
How can you determine how much rain you got in any given time interval during a storm? Follow these simple steps:
From the two charts above, correlate the actual precipitation with the recurrence intervals. You can see that…
Every single one of those hours met or exceeded the maximum capacity of the storm sewers. So it’s easy to see WHY we had street flooding.
When Street Flooding Turns into Home Flooding
In a small percentage of cases, street flooding turns into HOME flooding – when there simply isn’t enough backup capacity in the streets. (In the following discussion, I’m EXCLUDING homes that flooded from rivers, streams, or overland sheet flow during Imelda, i.e., Ben’s Branch, Elm Grove, etc.).
Extreme events reveal the weaknesses in any system. If your home was:
…you may have flooded.
And then there are the bizarre cases.
I visited one man in Trailwood at the bottom of a hill that had NO storm drains. Inexplicably, someone placed the nearest drain in the middle of the hill – about half a block ABOVE his home.
Another man called me who lived near Village Park Drive next to a tributary of Ben’s Branch. The Community Association had erected a fence between the end of the street and the tributary. They built the fence so low to the ground that it became clogged with weeds and grass clippings during Imelda and formed a dam. In the heavy rain, water could not get under it and backed up into his home.
What Can You Do?
Short of praying or digging up every street in Houston to enlarge the storm sewers, homeowners DO have some remedies.
Great Options Where Possible
If your area floods repeatedly, you may also be interested in lobbying the City or County to build an overflow spillway or detention pond between your street and the nearest drainage channel. Obviously, geographic circumstances may rule this possibility out for many. But if you have a vacant lot in your neighborhood and a nearby ditch…
Posted by Bob Rehak on 2/22/2020
907 Days after Hurricane Harvey and 156 after Imelda
SJRA Adopts Modified Lake Lowering Program
In a marathon meeting last night, the SJRA modified the seasonal lowering program for Lake Conroe. The adopted motion does not exactly follow the City of Houston’s last-minute compromise recommendation. It delays lowering the lake to 199.5 feet until after September 1 to accommodate boaters and businesses on Lake Conroe. The City had recommended lowering the lake to that level beginning August 1. The old policy called for lowering the lake all the way to 199 in both months.
Details of Plan
Minutes of the meeting have not yet been approved, but here is the preliminary summary:
Spring lowering:
Lower to 200’ msl (mean feet above sea level) beginning April 1 through May 31. Recapture begins June 1.
Fall lowering:
Tropical Storm Provision:
If a named storm enters the region, City of Houston may initiate an additional prerelease to 199’ msl by requesting the SJRA to do so in writing. SJRA staff will coordinate with COH staff on the details and timing of the lowering.
Duration of Program
The program will continue through December 2022, giving the City of Houston enough time to add additional gates to Lake Houston and complete West Fork dredging.
1400 Crowd Convention Hall for 5-Hour Meeting
More than 1400 people crammed into the meeting at the Lone Star Convention Center in Conroe. The meeting lasted more than five hours. Some people arrived hours earlier to make sure they got seats.
Also present at last night’s meeting were people from between the two lakes in communities such as River Plantation. More than 1100 people between Lake Conroe and Lake Houston flooded during Harvey when the SJRA released 80,000 cubic feet per second.
Plea for Civility Starts Meeting
The meeting started with a plea by the chambers of commerce from the two areas for unity and civility. And the meeting was in fact far more civil than previous meetings on this topic. Gone was the bar room atmosphere of jeers, catcalls, name calling, interruptions, and physical threats.
Staff Presentation and Mayor’s Letter Change Debate
Before public comments began, two developments totally changed the debate. Most people expected the SJRA to decide between continuing or scrapping the existing plan. However, the evening before the meeting, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner sent a letter to the SJRA suggesting a compromise proposal: 200 msl in the spring and 199.5 in the fall. Then Chuck Gilman, SJRA’s Director of Water Resources and Flood Management, kicked off the meeting with an alternate proposal: 200 msl in spring AND fall.
Gilman’s presentation to the board emphasized lowering the lake one foot could have prevented releases in all but three storms in the last twenty years. Gilman’s team correlated the average rise in lake level per inch of rainfall in dozens of events. See graph below.
“A review of historic rainfall data and corresponding lake rise suggests less than 2 feet of storage is adequate to catch most storm events at Lake Conroe that occur in the fall,” said Gilman.
“Only two rainfall events that occurred in the months of August and September since 1999 (excluding 2017) resulted in more than one-foot of rise in Lake Conroe. More than 90% of these events resulted in less than 3 inches of rise in Lake Conroe. Five named tropical storms in this same period resulted in less than 12 inches of rise,” he said.
Many residents in attendance questioned why the SJRA excluded 1994 and Harvey from examination in the chart above. The worst downstream damage occurred during those two events.
Both the City’s proposal and the SJRA’s came as surprises to many people. Instead of choosing between A and B, suddenly C and D became options, too.
Board Settles on Compromise to Mayor’s Compromise Proposal
In the end, the proposal adopted by the SJRA differed from the City’s in one key respect. The level of Lake Conroe remains a half foot higher in August to accommodate boaters during vacation season. SJRA Board President Lloyd Tisdale characterized August revenue as vital to the area’s economy. Tisdale said vacationing falls off significantly after Labor Day.
Board member Kaaren Cambio who represents the Lake Houston area preferred the Mayor’s proposal but acknowledged that the final plan “balances flood mitigation with water supply and recreation. The board heard businesses and delaying the fall release will extend the boating season.”
The City owns two thirds of the water in the lake. City Council Member Dave Martin said in his remarks before the board voted that “The City could take the lake down to 180 msl if it wanted.”
State Emphasizing Need for Cooperation within Watersheds
Much of the board’s debate focused whether to adopt the City’s proposal verbatim. Board President Tisdale’s opening remarks cited the importance of partnership with other entities in the region. Legislation adopted in 2019 places a premium on cooperation within a watershed. The Texas Water Development Board can financially penalize those that don’t cooperate. They now score grant requests based on how well all affected areas work together. “We have to look at this as a regional flooding issue,” said Tisdale.
Upstream/Downstream Split
Both Lake Houston area Board Members, Kaaren Cambio and Mark Micheletti, argued for adopting the City’s plan, but none of the other board members agreed. In the end, they voted to adopt a plan that delayed lowering the Lake to 199.5 until September 1.
Net Effect Vs. Historical Averages
After a debate going back to 2018, we now have a lake-lowering plan that closely mirrors Mother Nature’s. Unless we’re in a very wet or very dry year.
Compared to historical averages, the SJRA will lower Lake Conroe:
Of course, that assumes the City does NOT call for greater reductions. Also keep in mind that these are averages, not certainties. If the lake levels are higher or lower than the average in any given year, these reductions would vary.
State Representative Dan Huberty who gave a powerful speech before the board began deliberations, said, “I am proud of our community and how we came together, including the State (Especially Governor Abbott and Chief Nim Kidd), the City, the County, our Chamber and most importantly our citizens.”
Huberty continued, “Thank you for showing up and being respectful but forceful. We worked very hard, and in the end won a vote that achieves our goal of lake lowering. Special thanks to Mark Micheletti and Kaaren Cambio for having the courage to stand up with and for the recommendation from Mayor Turner and Mayor Pro-Tem Martin.”
The City of Houston provided no comment.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 2/21/2020
906 Days after Hurricane Harvey
Mayor Turner Proposes New Compromise on Lowering Lake Conroe
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and Public Works Director Carol Haddock have sent a compromise proposal to the SJRA board on the eve of the meeting that will decide the fate of their seasonal lake lowering policy.
Details of Original Proposal
The original policy has received heavy pushback from Lake Conroe people who claim its destroying property, schools, recreation and the Montgomery County tax base. It has also sparked vigorous support from Lake Houston Area businesses and residents. They see the extra storage capacity in Lake Conroe as a buffer against flooding until they can finish permanent mitigation projects such as dredging and the construction of additional gates on Lake Houston’s dam.
That original policy implemented in the fall of 2018 called for lowering the lake to 199 feet from 201 during the peak of hurricane season. It also called for lowering the lake to 200 feet in the rainiest months of spring.
Due to dry weather this winter, Lake Conroe never fully recovered its normal pool level. And at this writing, it remains at 199.21 feet.
Details of Proposed Compromise
The new proposal by Mayor Turner calls for continue lowering Lake Conroe to 200 feet during April and May. However, Turner calls for lowering Lake Conroe to 199.5 in the the fall from August 1 through November 1. That’s a wider window but a smaller reduction.
Turner puts two other conditions on the compromise:
Full Text of Letter
The full text of the letter is below.
What This Really Means in Practical Terms
It seems that there is little for Lake Conroe people to argue about here. With the exception of an approaching tropical storm or hurricane, the lake levels would rarely be dropped much below the normal levels due to evaporation. See graph below. In fact, the most lake levels would drop manually beyond historical averages would be .42 feet in August or about 5 inches, unless a tropical system approaches.
Turner Has Power to Order Reduction If Lake Conroe People Don’t Compromise
Although he did not explicitly say it, Turner has the power to order the reductions simply by calling for the water. The City of Houston owns two-thirds of the water in Lake Conroe.
The last paragraph in Turner’s letter, the one about collaboration and partnership, may be a veiled reference to that fact. If the SJRA does not cooperate, he may not feel obliged to either. In that case, Lake Conroe residents could find themselves with even lower lake levels.
All in all, it’s an attempt to hold off another bar-room brawl like the SJRA hosted last month.
I’d feel more comfortable with a larger reduction. But I’m sure the Conroe people would like no reduction. Such is the nature of compromise…a lost art in American politics.
All in all, the Mayor’s proposal is a good compromise between drought and flood mitigation. Both are key elements of the SJRA’s mission as defined by the State legislature.
Keep in mind that the figures above show AVERAGES. If a named tropical storm comes into the Gulf and the lake is already at or above 201, it would still be lowered to 199.5. That would be much more than 5 inches. But still, it should not create an abnormal hardship for anyone.
Make Your Voice Heard
Tomorrow is the last chance to make your opinion known about this issue before the crucial vote. For more information, see the Lake Lowering page of this web site.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS SPECIAL MEETING
Those wishing to address the board or register a comment at a special meeting may fill out a Comment Registration Form https://www.sjra.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Comment-Registration-Form_01062020.pdf. Comment Registration Forms may be submitted at the special meeting. The form may not be mailed, emailed, or dropped off prior to the meeting date.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 2/19/2020
904 Days after 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.