But it evidently has also triggered the demise of Western Civilization and recreational boating on Lake Conroe. People can no longer boat to their favorite float-in restaurants to clog their arteries with fried shrimp and shatter their neighbor’s eardrums with the shrill screams of outboard engines.
In New York, the United Nations called a special session to raise awareness of the threat to Lake Conroe. In Rome, the Pope considered gathering Cardinals from around the world to debate the threat to bass fishing. In Hollywood, the Screen Actors Guild summoned Bruce Willis to star in a thriller about the next “Threat to Life on Earth as We Now Know It.”
“If they can drain Lake Conroe,” said Willis, “What’s next? Fort Knox? Your IRA? Your crankcase?”
In Washington DC, the EPA declared the seasonal lowering of Lake Conroe a larger threat than climate change, deforestation and baby wipes flushed down your toilet … put together.
“This is an existential threat to Budweiser and the American way of life,” intoned Larry the Cable Guy from a stand-up gig at Hooters on 105. “Why can’t we all live in peace? Two feet of water out of a 75-foot-deep lake is outrageous. Those Kingwood people whose homes and businesses were flooded just don’t recognize the sacrifice Lake Conroe bass fishermen are making.”
At press time, it is unclear what the Lake Houston response will be, if any.
Some community organizers were considering a rally of flooded cars around a “Days of Thunder and Lightning” theme. For a spokesperson, they were reportedly negotiating with Tom Cruise to play the role of Hurricane Harvey.
Personally, I would like to see the five to six thousand West Fork home and business owners who flooded submit pictures of their damage. Then maybe policy makers can consider real vs. imagined threats as they debate whether to extend the seasonal lake lowering policy another year.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 1/4/2020
858 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/2020/01/IMG_2705.jpeg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=19001200adminadmin2020-01-04 17:08:572020-01-17 10:12:12Billboard on FM105 Implies Lake Conroe Is Threatened and Near Death
According to a recent New York Times article, nine of the 20 counties in the U.S. that have experienced the most development the last decade are in Texas. Prominent among them is Harris County. The article does not cite population growth. Rather, it relies on computer analysis of satellite imagery that detects the growth of impervious cover.
Analysis of Satellite Imagery Shows Land Newly Paved or Topped With Buildings
The Times cites the work of Santa-Fe-based Descartes Labs, which positions itself as a data refinery. The company trained a computer model to automatically identify newly impervious surfaces — land that appears paved or topped with buildings — in satellite imagery. It then produced dozens of paired images that show the effects of development. It also produced a map that shows where that development took place.
The data suggests that the growth of suburbs and exurbs has returned. There was a brief hiatus of suburban development after the housing bust in 2008, which saw people returning to the inner city. But that trend appears to be over, according to this analysis.
I’m not sure if this should be a source of pride, alarm or both.
Texas Grows While Other Areas Lose Population
Many Rust Belt cities are experiencing population shrinkage. That presents another set of problems altogether. The Times article shows how several northern cities, including Detroit, are clearing thousands of dilapidated and abandoned homes. In the process, they are restoring pervious (natural) cover.
Given slow population growth on the national level, local growth in Texas and Houston must come from migration. I’m not talking about foreign immigration. I’m talking about one area attracting residents and businesses from another.
Texas Has Seven of Fifteen Fastest Growing Cities in U.S.
In marketing, if the market itself is not growing, the only way for a company to grow is to steal share from its competitors. And that is exactly what Texas seems to be doing. Markets such as New York and California are losing population while Texas gained more than 14% in the last decade. From 2010 to 2018, Texas had the largest population growth in America: 3,555,731.
Texas also had 7 of the top 15 fastest growing cities in the country between 2017 and 2018.
So clearly, from a marketing point of view, Texas must be seen as a desirable place to live by many people. We’re doing many things right.
Can Texas Meet the Challenge of Rapid Growth?
But in my 45 year career in marketing and advertising, I have seen many instances where companies had record growth one year only to have record losses later. It comes down to how you manage growth.
Can you deliver what you promise and keep product quality up as you grow?
Many areas can. Many areas can’t.
County officials face a conundrum: growing rapidly while maintaining quality of life. You want to attract growth, but you don’t want to be overwhelmed by it.
Montgomery Vs. Fort Bend Counties: Strategic Differences
Some compete for growth by relaxing regulations. For instance, this video from the East Montgomery County Improvement District boasts, “We don’t have rules that confine us.” The no-hassle upfront, anything-goes, follow-your-dream approach tempts many, especially those coming from other areas with onerous regulations.
Meanwhile, other fast-growing counties, such as Fort Bend, are adopting new flood plain regulations, designed to protect the quality of life they are selling.
Tougher Fort Bend County Regulations Went Into Effect New Year’s Day.
As of 1/1/2020, Fort Bend County adopted new Atlas 14 rainfall statistics and updated their drainage criteria manual accordingly to protect new homes AND existing downstream developments. Fort Bend is the fastest growing county in the region.
There you have it. Two opposite ends of the spectrum.
It will be interesting to see the outcomes that these two development strategies produce ten years from now.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 1/2/2020
856 Days since Hurricane Harvey and 104 since Imelda
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/1558557037104.jpg?fit=612%2C648&ssl=1648612adminadmin2020-01-02 17:47:312020-01-02 17:47:44When Measured by Growth of Impervious Cover, Texas Has 9 of Top 20 Counties in U.S.
Yesterday’s second post about the wettest AND driest decade in our lifetimes helped explain something I’ve been puzzling about. Multiple mouth bars are forming around Lake Houston. The loss of tens of thousands of trees during the drought exposed soil. One massive storm after another then washed that soil toward the lake. Voila! Mouth bars.
Diversion Ditch Blockage
We already cleared the massive side bar that blocked the mouth of Kingwood’s diversion ditch.
The ditch (center left) that empties the entire western part of Kingwood at River Grove Park on the west fork of the San Jacinto was virtually closed off by this sandbar that formed during Harvey. An estimated 500+ homes above this point flooded.
West Fork Blockage
The Army Corps removed about a fifth of the West Fork mouth bar.
Army Corps at work removing a small portion of the West Fork Mouth Bar.Photo courtesy of BCAeronautics.
This is not surprising for a man-made lake that’s 65 years old. Dams have a tendency to hold back sediment. Sediment drops out of suspension where the moving waters in a ditch or stream slow down as they meet the still waters of a lake.
These mouth bars increase flood risk for everyone who lives near them. They form sediment damns that restrict the conveyance of the channels behind them. That forces water up and out of the channel into people’s living rooms.
Clearing the Way for Political Solutions
So how do we get rid of these mouth bars?
State Representative Dan Huberty is organizing another dredging program that should start soon. Primary targets will be the West and perhaps East Fork Mouth mouth bars. These smaller bars represent, believe it or not, a larger problem though. They fall into a jurisdictional quagmire. Does the water body they are on belong to adjacent property owners, the City, the County, or the State?
That will determine where the money for dredging comes from. And more importantly, whether the money that is already available can be used to attack the problem when a dredge is in the lake.
The bar is in an unincorporated section of Harris County. But the City owns the shoreline, and usually the first few hundred feet of channels.
Who will take ownership of problems like Walden’s? These details still need to be worked out.
HB1824 May Help
Ironically, HB1824, which I criticized because I believe it opens the door to river sand mining, may help in cases like Walden’s. The bill allows Harris County Flood Control to take sediment from the San Jacinto and its tributaries without obtaining a permit or paying a fee as long as HCFCD deposits the sediment on private land. (Remember: Lake Houston IS the San Jacinto River.)
I suspect the Walden ditch will become precedent for how such minor tributaries are treated. Walden’s nearness to the West Fork mouth bar would argue for making it part of any dredging program there.
A new year, new challenges!
Posted by Bob Rehak on 1/1/2020with photo and video from Jack and Greg Toole, and BCAeronautics.
855 Days since Hurricane Harvey and 104 since Imelda
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DJI_0032.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=16751200adminadmin2020-01-01 19:54:352020-01-01 20:20:31Multiple Mouth Bars Forming Around Lake Houston; Check out Walden’s
Billboard on FM105 Implies Lake Conroe Is Threatened and Near Death
Lake Conroe is being drained, says the billboard. The lake is threatened. It MUST be saved. Homes are being destroyed. Armageddon is at hand.
Lake Down About a Foot, No Releases in 3 Months
Well, the Lake IS down a foot compared to its average January level thanks to evaporation and a dry Fall.
So what’s all this “Stop Draining the Lake” stuff about?
When You Don’t Have Facts on Your Side, Rile Their Bile
The Lake Conroe Association is trying to rile people up to protest the seasonal lowering of Lake Conroe. That seasonal-lowering strategy, developed at Governor Abbott’s request, helped provide an extra measure of protection against downstream flooding by lowering the lake one foot in the Spring and two during the peak of hurricane season. It helped prevent West Fork flooding last May.
But it evidently has also triggered the demise of Western Civilization and recreational boating on Lake Conroe. People can no longer boat to their favorite float-in restaurants to clog their arteries with fried shrimp and shatter their neighbor’s eardrums with the shrill screams of outboard engines.
According to the Lake Conroe Association, the economy of the county and lake are collapsing – except for the second fastest growth rate in the region, which they fail to mention.
World Leaders Rally to Boaters’ Side
In New York, the United Nations called a special session to raise awareness of the threat to Lake Conroe. In Rome, the Pope considered gathering Cardinals from around the world to debate the threat to bass fishing. In Hollywood, the Screen Actors Guild summoned Bruce Willis to star in a thriller about the next “Threat to Life on Earth as We Now Know It.”
“If they can drain Lake Conroe,” said Willis, “What’s next? Fort Knox? Your IRA? Your crankcase?”
In Washington DC, the EPA declared the seasonal lowering of Lake Conroe a larger threat than climate change, deforestation and baby wipes flushed down your toilet … put together.
“This is an existential threat to Budweiser and the American way of life,” intoned Larry the Cable Guy from a stand-up gig at Hooters on 105. “Why can’t we all live in peace? Two feet of water out of a 75-foot-deep lake is outrageous. Those Kingwood people whose homes and businesses were flooded just don’t recognize the sacrifice Lake Conroe bass fishermen are making.”
Showdown in Conroe on the 21st
Lake Conroe lakefront homeowners are reportedly renting a flotilla of tour buses to ferry them to the Montgomery County Convention Center at 6PM on January 21. There, insiders say, the Lake Conroe Association plans to pack the room and shout Kingwood people down, as they did at the last SJRA board meeting, to deny Kingwood residents a chance to tell their side of this story.
At press time, it is unclear what the Lake Houston response will be, if any.
Some community organizers were considering a rally of flooded cars around a “Days of Thunder and Lightning” theme. For a spokesperson, they were reportedly negotiating with Tom Cruise to play the role of Hurricane Harvey.
Personally, I would like to see the five to six thousand West Fork home and business owners who flooded submit pictures of their damage. Then maybe policy makers can consider real vs. imagined threats as they debate whether to extend the seasonal lake lowering policy another year.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 1/4/2020
858 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.
When Measured by Growth of Impervious Cover, Texas Has 9 of Top 20 Counties in U.S.
According to a recent New York Times article, nine of the 20 counties in the U.S. that have experienced the most development the last decade are in Texas. Prominent among them is Harris County. The article does not cite population growth. Rather, it relies on computer analysis of satellite imagery that detects the growth of impervious cover.
Analysis of Satellite Imagery Shows Land Newly Paved or Topped With Buildings
The Times cites the work of Santa-Fe-based Descartes Labs, which positions itself as a data refinery. The company trained a computer model to automatically identify newly impervious surfaces — land that appears paved or topped with buildings — in satellite imagery. It then produced dozens of paired images that show the effects of development. It also produced a map that shows where that development took place.
This Descarte map clearly shows the pattern in Texas. Each of the major cities looks like a bullet hole in the map with development splashing out ward…a ring of concrete.
Return of Suburban and Exurban Growth
The data suggests that the growth of suburbs and exurbs has returned. There was a brief hiatus of suburban development after the housing bust in 2008, which saw people returning to the inner city. But that trend appears to be over, according to this analysis.
Texas Grows While Other Areas Lose Population
Many Rust Belt cities are experiencing population shrinkage. That presents another set of problems altogether. The Times article shows how several northern cities, including Detroit, are clearing thousands of dilapidated and abandoned homes. In the process, they are restoring pervious (natural) cover.
As luck would have it, another article in The NY Times the next day talked about a slowdown in U.S. population growth. Population grew at its slowest pace in decades in 2019. A decline in the number of new immigrants, fewer births and the graying of America accounted for the decline, which the Census Bureau estimated.
Given slow population growth on the national level, local growth in Texas and Houston must come from migration. I’m not talking about foreign immigration. I’m talking about one area attracting residents and businesses from another.
Texas Has Seven of Fifteen Fastest Growing Cities in U.S.
In marketing, if the market itself is not growing, the only way for a company to grow is to steal share from its competitors. And that is exactly what Texas seems to be doing. Markets such as New York and California are losing population while Texas gained more than 14% in the last decade. From 2010 to 2018, Texas had the largest population growth in America: 3,555,731.
Texas also had 7 of the top 15 fastest growing cities in the country between 2017 and 2018.
So clearly, from a marketing point of view, Texas must be seen as a desirable place to live by many people. We’re doing many things right.
Can Texas Meet the Challenge of Rapid Growth?
But in my 45 year career in marketing and advertising, I have seen many instances where companies had record growth one year only to have record losses later. It comes down to how you manage growth.
Many areas can. Many areas can’t.
County officials face a conundrum: growing rapidly while maintaining quality of life. You want to attract growth, but you don’t want to be overwhelmed by it.
Montgomery Vs. Fort Bend Counties: Strategic Differences
Some compete for growth by relaxing regulations. For instance, this video from the East Montgomery County Improvement District boasts, “We don’t have rules that confine us.” The no-hassle upfront, anything-goes, follow-your-dream approach tempts many, especially those coming from other areas with onerous regulations.
Meanwhile, other fast-growing counties, such as Fort Bend, are adopting new flood plain regulations, designed to protect the quality of life they are selling.
Tougher Fort Bend County Regulations Went Into Effect New Year’s Day.
As of 1/1/2020, Fort Bend County adopted new Atlas 14 rainfall statistics and updated their drainage criteria manual accordingly to protect new homes AND existing downstream developments. Fort Bend is the fastest growing county in the region.
There you have it. Two opposite ends of the spectrum.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 1/2/2020
856 Days since Hurricane Harvey and 104 since Imelda
Multiple Mouth Bars Forming Around Lake Houston; Check out Walden’s
Yesterday’s second post about the wettest AND driest decade in our lifetimes helped explain something I’ve been puzzling about. Multiple mouth bars are forming around Lake Houston. The loss of tens of thousands of trees during the drought exposed soil. One massive storm after another then washed that soil toward the lake. Voila! Mouth bars.
Diversion Ditch Blockage
We already cleared the massive side bar that blocked the mouth of Kingwood’s diversion ditch.
West Fork Blockage
The Army Corps removed about a fifth of the West Fork mouth bar.
East Fork Mouth Bar
But an East Fork Mouth Bar grew 4000 feet during Harvey and Imelda. It’s now almost blocking Luce Bayou, just as the Interbasin Transfer Project is nearing completion.
Walden Blockage
And other drainage ditches are now plugging up, too, such as the one at Walden. This is symptomatic of many ditches that empty into Lake Houston.
Here’s what it looks like from a drone from a lower altitude and angle. Video courtesy of Jack and Greg Toole.
Cause of Mouth Bars
This is not surprising for a man-made lake that’s 65 years old. Dams have a tendency to hold back sediment. Sediment drops out of suspension where the moving waters in a ditch or stream slow down as they meet the still waters of a lake.
These mouth bars increase flood risk for everyone who lives near them. They form sediment damns that restrict the conveyance of the channels behind them. That forces water up and out of the channel into people’s living rooms.
Clearing the Way for Political Solutions
So how do we get rid of these mouth bars?
State Representative Dan Huberty is organizing another dredging program that should start soon. Primary targets will be the West and perhaps East Fork Mouth mouth bars. These smaller bars represent, believe it or not, a larger problem though. They fall into a jurisdictional quagmire. Does the water body they are on belong to adjacent property owners, the City, the County, or the State?
That will determine where the money for dredging comes from. And more importantly, whether the money that is already available can be used to attack the problem when a dredge is in the lake.
The bar is in an unincorporated section of Harris County. But the City owns the shoreline, and usually the first few hundred feet of channels.
Who will take ownership of problems like Walden’s? These details still need to be worked out.
HB1824 May Help
Ironically, HB1824, which I criticized because I believe it opens the door to river sand mining, may help in cases like Walden’s. The bill allows Harris County Flood Control to take sediment from the San Jacinto and its tributaries without obtaining a permit or paying a fee as long as HCFCD deposits the sediment on private land. (Remember: Lake Houston IS the San Jacinto River.)
I suspect the Walden ditch will become precedent for how such minor tributaries are treated. Walden’s nearness to the West Fork mouth bar would argue for making it part of any dredging program there.
A new year, new challenges!
Posted by Bob Rehak on 1/1/2020 with photo and video from Jack and Greg Toole, and BCAeronautics.
855 Days since Hurricane Harvey and 104 since Imelda