8/21/25 – State Representative Steve Toth, who has announced his intention to run against U.S. Congressman Dan Crenshaw in the next election cycle, posted a video on Facebook today. In it, he says prohibiting the building of youth camps in floodplains is “ridiculous.” He also worries that it would “destroy camping in Texas.”
His comment about destroying camping is a slap in the face to the parents who lost children at Camp Mystic in the July disaster on the Guadalupe River. More than 135 people died in flash flooding, many of them young girls at Camp Mystic.
Toth Video
Below is the 48-second video that Toth posted.
Text of Toth Video
Because of background noise in the video, I’ve transcribed the text below.
Toth: “HB-1 sets up legislation to protect kids from the devastating floods that took so many lives at Camp Mystic. Only the amendment that the Democrats put on it basically restricts the building of any kind of sleeping quarters in floodways, not floodplains. The kids that were killed at Mystic were actually in a floodway.”
“This is going to basically close most of the youth camps in Texas. Twenty percent of Texas is in floodplains – not floodways – floodplains. And while, yes, we want to keep camps out of floodways … the idea of trying to say that you can’t build in a floodplain is ridiculous. This is going to destroy camping in the state of Texas.“
Specifics of Bill and Amendments
HB-1 is the Youth CAMPER Act. CAMPER stands for youth Camp Alert, Mitigation, Preparedness and Emergency Response. The bill requires youth camps to develop emergency plans; train employees how to implement them; make the plans available to campers and their parents; and share them with emergency response personnel in the vicinity.
Representative Donna Howard, a Democrat from Austin (another co-author of the bill) offered the amendment that Toth complained about. It says that a state license may not be issued or renewed “for a youth camp that operates one or more cabins located within a floodplain.” Elsewhere in her amendment, Howard defines “floodplain” as the FEMA 100-year floodplain.
Howard’s amendment passed 73 to 59. Toth voted against it, even though he later voted for the bill itself as amended. HB-1 passed in the House by 135 to 1. The engrossed (as amended) version now goes to the Senate.
Problems with Toth Claims
Toth makes several misleading statements in his video.
Implying All Victims in Floodway
Toth implies all fatalities occurred in cabins located in the floodway of the Guadalupe. However, news reports indicate that many of the victims were in cabins outside the floodway although I can’t find an official count at this time.
Implying It’s Safe to Build in Floodplains
Mr. Toth implies that if all the campers had slept in the floodplain instead of the floodway, they would have been safe. That’s like a drug company downplaying a dangerous side effect.
Almost six million people live in Texas floodplains. And according to USGS, Texas consistently leads the nation in flood-related fatalities. In fact, we have more than twice the number of the next nearest state.
Serious Omissions
In Mr. Toth’s black-and-white view of flood risk (Floodway is bad; floodplain is safe), he fails to disclose the considerable uncertainty, politicking, and protesting that accompanies flood maps, largely because of the way they affect developers and flood insurance. Toth should know that if he’s running for Congress.
FEMA’s maps are based on statistical probabilities and often revised after major storms to reflect new knowledge. In the case of Camp Mystic, FEMA last revised that area’s flood maps in 2011, years before Hurricane Harvey and Atlas 14. Both the floodway and floodplains will expand based on newly acquired data. So, cabins shown outside the floodway are, in all likelihood, deep into it. That’s another potentially fatal misleading statement by Toth.
Camp Mystic in FEMA’s National Flood Hazard Layer Viewer. Cross-hatch = floodway. Aqua = 100-year floodplain. Tan = 500-year floodplain.Note small green type showing date of map: 2011.Great enlargement shows many of the cabins appear to be built in the aqua and tan areas in the upper right next to the floodway.
“Saying You Can’t Build in a Floodplain is Ridiculous”
Mr. Toth seems to be trying to legitimize building in floodplains. It’s true that many people do. In fact, about 20% of the people in Texas (5.9 million) live in 100- and 500-year floodplains. Toth seems to dismiss the risks, costs, deaths, and disruptions to the economy, like many before him.
As a society, we spend trillions of dollars on flood mitigation, flood repairs, and flood insurance. The Joint Economic Committee (JEC) estimates that the total annual economic cost of flooding—covering infrastructure damage; lost productivity; home and commercial damage; ecosystem losses; and more—ranges between $179.8 billion and $496.0 billion in 2023 dollars.
That’s a pretty hefty share of the annual federal budget. But I guess Mr. Toth isn’t thinking that far ahead. That’s not good for a man who wants to represent you in Congress.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 8/21/2025
2914 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/2025/08/20250821-Camp-Mystic-Close-up.jpg?fit=1100%2C635&ssl=16351100adminadmin2025-08-21 21:23:162025-08-22 09:31:29Toth Fights for Right to Build Kids’ Camps in Floodplains
8/20/25 – Everyone understands the need for financial audits; they prevent fraud. But what about performance audits? They can prevent waste. Yet how many government agencies routinely audit the implementation of plans they adopt?
Vermont Failed to Implement Half of Priorities in Emergency Plan
In Vermont last year, the state audited its performance in achieving its five-year hazard-mitigation plan. According to the Associated Press story, the plan is developed by Vermont Emergency Management every five years to identify natural hazards facing the state and take steps to reduce risk, including flooding risk.
But an audit released last year after a major flood found that only a third of the 96 actions, and half of the priority actions in the 2018 plan had been completed. Had flood-mitigation measures been completed in a timely manner, the audit says, communities affected by the floods would have been better able to withstand them.
State lawmakers said they were gravely concerned over the lack of progress. “The findings in this report are shocking and deeply troubling,” one said.
The director of the State’s Emergency Management Department called the plan “aspirational.”
But the audit focused on missed opportunities that could have lessened the severity of the floods, such as improved building codes, that would have helped communities recover faster. That sounds pretty practical to me.
Improved Harris County Building Codes Reduced Flood Damage 20X
A study by a former Harris County Engineer John Blount found subdivisions built to new, higher building codes before Hurricane Harvey experienced 20 times less damage than those that weren’t. Building codes are updated internationally every year, but Texas last updated its building codes in 2021.
New Floodplain Maps Years Past Due
Everyone agrees on the need for updated flood maps based on Atlas 14. But Harris County’s are years behind schedule. And some counties still base their flood maps on data acquired in the 1980s. In the meantime, people keep building and buying in floodplains based on outdated information. And one in every five Texans lives in a floodplain. Are we creating the conditions for future disasters?
Plans Without Financial Pathways
Why do we continually build plans that are not actionable? That are so long, no one can read or remember them?
We spent seven years building a state flood plan. It has a $54.5 billion price tag. But since 2019, the state legislature has allocated only $1.4 billion to the state’s Flood Infrastructure Fund.
Houston’s Resilience Plan? Just five years after its introduction, it’s now a maze of dead links and appears to have virtually disappeared from the web.
Harris County’s Flood Bond? Eight years into a ten year plan that’s 40% complete, HCFCD’s executive director claims they are $1.3 billion short already, but has been trying for months to explain why.
Ike Dike? Hurricane Ike struck Houston in 2008. Congress approved the project in 2022. The Corps estimated the cost at $57 billion in 2023. TWDB is still studying ways to break it down into bite sized chunks.
Flood Tunnels? In 2022, HCFCD produced a 1,860 page study projecting the cost for eight to be $30 billion. We’re still studying pilot projects on that one.
In the summer of 2020, the San Jacinto River Authority, City of Houston, Montgomery County and Harris County Flood Control District released a 3,600 page study about how to reduce flooding in the San Jacinto River Basin. At the time, it had a $3.3 billion price tag. So far, the partners have not constructed one recommendation.
Harvey Flood. Photo by Sally Geis.
We Need More of a Business Mentality in Government
In my opinion, we need less nonsense and more commonsense. Who would accept a position with a job description that’s 3,600 pages long? Or a monumental list of deliverables without any budget?
It’s good to dream. But we need government leaders who know how to produce results on a budget. Just like business leaders do.
I’d rather see one project in construction than a hundred sitting on a credenza.
Bob Rehak
Perhaps performance auditors can help us turn that around.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 8/20/25
2913 Days since Hurricane Harvey and 6183 since Ike
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/20170829-IMG_5756.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=18001200adminadmin2025-08-20 21:43:182025-08-21 08:35:12Need for Performance Audits To Ensure Timely Flood-Plan Implementation
8/18/25 – The Montgomery County (MoCo) water war has produced a number of unintended casualties in the last decade. They include:
Water ratepayers
Flood victims
Conroe’s reputation as the fastest growing large city in America
Developers
Area infrastructure
Homeowners living near fault lines
Neighbors in Harris County
Groundwater storage capacity to help the area bridge droughts
Science
Unfortunately, those who profited from excessive groundwater withdrawals aren’t the ones paying the price.
Subsidence problems in southern Montgomery County – once thought to be solved by the San Jacinto River Authority’s (SJRA) Groundwater Reduction Plan (GRP) – have recurred. And despite settlement of a long running lawsuit on 8/14/25, there’s still plenty of hurt to go around.
How It All Started
To comply with the Lone Star Groundwater Conservation District‘s (LSGCD) rules to reduce groundwater pumping in Montgomery County, the San Jacinto River Authority (SJRA) introduced its Groundwater Reduction Plan (GRP) in 2009. The plan addressed the need to ensure adequate water supply for the county’s rapidly growing population using surface water from Lake Conroe.
The LSGCD’s rules, adopted in 2006, mandated a 30% reduction in overall groundwater pumping. In 2010, LSGCD also capped groundwater use, starting in 2016, at 64,000 acre-feet per year.
That gave the SJRA time to sell bonds, complete a half-billion dollar surface-water-treatment plant at Lake Conroe, and build a 55-mile pipeline-distribution system.
Then, the water war erupted.
Defectors Undermine Success
When water rates went up to pay for surface water, the City of Conroe, City of Magnolia, Quadvest, and Woodlands Oaks sued to get out of their GRP contracts. That, in turn, led to:
Conroe’s nine-year legal battle that made several round trips to the Texas Supreme Court.
Rate increases on participants still in the plan to make up for shortfalls created by those who left it.
Legal and fiscal uncertainty that burdened other GRP participants left covering shortfalls caused by the non-paying entities.
Uncertainty about the ability to service debt on bonds.
Significant legal fees affecting both sides, including water ratepayers.
Subsidence: Briefly Halted
Ironically, all this happened as the groundwater reduction plan started to reduce subsidence. Areas in The Woodlands that had subsided consistently for years saw subsidence virtually level off. But the success was brief.
Subsidence in The Woodlands at the monitoring station with the longest history. When surface water became available, subsidence virtually plateaued…until political changes at the LSGCD.
The leveling off lasted between three and four years. Then subsidence accelerated again. The trigger this time: politics.
The newly elected board was sworn in during November, 2018, shortly before the graph above turned down again.
Groundwater Levels Decline with Changes in Groundwater Regulations
The newly elected LSGCD board removed conservation rules from their regulatory plan, leading to a rejection of the plan by the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB). This introduced uncertainty regarding the regulatory framework for groundwater management and the GRP’s role within it.
Several cities disputed the SJRA’s ability to raise rates for surface water. Conroe initially refused to pay a rate increase implemented in 2016, and Magnolia followed suit. The SJRA responded by suing the cities for breach of contract.
These legal challenges created significant financial strain for the SJRA and its other customers. Unpaid fees caused shortfalls that had to be covered by other GRP plan participants. The recent settlement has resolved the dispute between SJRA and Conroe. But legal battles may still continue with others.
Meanwhile, southern Montgomery County has experienced the steepest well declines in the entire region.
From 1977 to 2025, maximum water level decline in the Chicot-Evangeline (undifferentiated) aquifer occurred in The Woodlands where water levels fell more than 400 feet. Likewise, water levels in the Jasper aquifer declined more than 250 feet near The Woodlands during the same time period.
Every water well drilled into those aquifers that USGS monitors in Montgomery County with the exception of two experienced significant water-level declines since the LSGCD board became elected. See below.
As subsidence worsened, so did flooding in many parts of The Woodlands, especially those near streams whose gradients changed and those who lived near down-thrust faults that created bowls in the landscape.
Water Capacity Crunch Led to Development Moratorium
The U.S. Census Bureau rated Conroe the fastest‑growing large city in America for the period from July 1, 2015, to July 1, 2016. However, within several years, Conroe experienced a water-capacity shortfall and imposed a development moratorium (Aug 29, 2024).
TCEQ later approved a temporary reduction in the required water-supply allocation per connection—from 0.60 to 0.46 gpm—so projects could restart under tighter per-lot assumptions. For a year, that pause reportedly stalled plats, permits, and site work citywide.
It even affected large commercial projects. The Conroe Courier reported that Kelsey-Seybold was considering pulling a $24 million medical facility. Construction could not move forward because of concerns about water infrastructure capability.
With the settlement announced last Friday, Conroe has ended the development moratorium for now, but projects must use the TCEQ-approved 0.46 gpm through Feb. 2029. But the City’s plan reviewers will reportedly press for conservation fixtures/phasing until new supply is online.
The Greater Houston Homebuilders Association said the moratorium had had “detrimental effects on every facet of our industry from concrete to roofers, to pools to developers and builders.”
Under the terms of last week’s settlement, SJRA will provide additional water to Conroe. Heather Ramsey of the SJRA said that, “The additional surface water should keep them from using additional groundwater to accommodate their growth.” But in the meantime…
Homes Near Fault Lines Damaged
Deregulation of aquifer groundwater withdrawal in Montgomery County by the LSGCD led to declines in area water wells.
As Conroe and surrounding areas pumped more and more groundwater, subsidence continued. That triggered geologic faults in The Woodlands, which damaged homes.
Woodlands home split in half when groundwater extraction led to subsidence that activated a fault-line.Steps in front of same house dropped so far, they had to be replaced and are now twice their original height.
It also damaged infrastructure.
Faulting damage exacerbated by subsidence due to excessive groundwater extraction at The Woodlands High School.
Two subsidence experts in The Woodlands gave me a tour of three fault lines. Street after street showed dips, cracks, and storm sewer damage aligned precisely with the fault lines. Some of the repairs reportedly cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Many Paid the Price
Excessive groundwater withdrawals are also tilting Lake Houston. The area near the dam is subsiding much slower than the area in the headwaters of the Lake near the Montgomery County Line.
I listed science as the last victim in the water war. At some point during this skirmish, subsidence deniers started trotting out their own studies claiming huge volumes of water from the aquifers above could be produced without adverse consequences.
The loss of groundwater storage capacity due to subsidence will also leave Montgomery County more vulnerable to future droughts. Groundwater backs up surface water supplies. And now there will be less groundwater storage volume.
Someday, this will become a cautionary case study for other areas that think of groundwater as an unlimited resource.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 8/19/25
2912 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/2025/08/Subsidence-Plateau.png?fit=1460%2C1092&ssl=110921460adminadmin2025-08-19 21:12:282025-08-22 17:24:10MoCo Water War Leaves Unintended Casualties
Toth Fights for Right to Build Kids’ Camps in Floodplains
8/21/25 – State Representative Steve Toth, who has announced his intention to run against U.S. Congressman Dan Crenshaw in the next election cycle, posted a video on Facebook today. In it, he says prohibiting the building of youth camps in floodplains is “ridiculous.” He also worries that it would “destroy camping in Texas.”
His comment about destroying camping is a slap in the face to the parents who lost children at Camp Mystic in the July disaster on the Guadalupe River. More than 135 people died in flash flooding, many of them young girls at Camp Mystic.
Toth Video
Below is the 48-second video that Toth posted.
Text of Toth Video
Because of background noise in the video, I’ve transcribed the text below.
Toth: “HB-1 sets up legislation to protect kids from the devastating floods that took so many lives at Camp Mystic. Only the amendment that the Democrats put on it basically restricts the building of any kind of sleeping quarters in floodways, not floodplains. The kids that were killed at Mystic were actually in a floodway.”
“This is going to basically close most of the youth camps in Texas. Twenty percent of Texas is in floodplains – not floodways – floodplains. And while, yes, we want to keep camps out of floodways … the idea of trying to say that you can’t build in a floodplain is ridiculous. This is going to destroy camping in the state of Texas.“
Specifics of Bill and Amendments
HB-1 is the Youth CAMPER Act. CAMPER stands for youth Camp Alert, Mitigation, Preparedness and Emergency Response. The bill requires youth camps to develop emergency plans; train employees how to implement them; make the plans available to campers and their parents; and share them with emergency response personnel in the vicinity.
Here’s the full text of the bill as introduced, which Toth co-authored with dozens of his colleagues. For more on HB-1, see the House analysis.
Representative Donna Howard, a Democrat from Austin (another co-author of the bill) offered the amendment that Toth complained about. It says that a state license may not be issued or renewed “for a youth camp that operates one or more cabins located within a floodplain.” Elsewhere in her amendment, Howard defines “floodplain” as the FEMA 100-year floodplain.
Howard’s amendment passed 73 to 59. Toth voted against it, even though he later voted for the bill itself as amended. HB-1 passed in the House by 135 to 1. The engrossed (as amended) version now goes to the Senate.
Problems with Toth Claims
Toth makes several misleading statements in his video.
Implying All Victims in Floodway
Toth implies all fatalities occurred in cabins located in the floodway of the Guadalupe. However, news reports indicate that many of the victims were in cabins outside the floodway although I can’t find an official count at this time.
Implying It’s Safe to Build in Floodplains
Mr. Toth implies that if all the campers had slept in the floodplain instead of the floodway, they would have been safe. That’s like a drug company downplaying a dangerous side effect.
Almost six million people live in Texas floodplains. And according to USGS, Texas consistently leads the nation in flood-related fatalities. In fact, we have more than twice the number of the next nearest state.
Serious Omissions
In Mr. Toth’s black-and-white view of flood risk (Floodway is bad; floodplain is safe), he fails to disclose the considerable uncertainty, politicking, and protesting that accompanies flood maps, largely because of the way they affect developers and flood insurance. Toth should know that if he’s running for Congress.
FEMA’s maps are based on statistical probabilities and often revised after major storms to reflect new knowledge. In the case of Camp Mystic, FEMA last revised that area’s flood maps in 2011, years before Hurricane Harvey and Atlas 14. Both the floodway and floodplains will expand based on newly acquired data. So, cabins shown outside the floodway are, in all likelihood, deep into it. That’s another potentially fatal misleading statement by Toth.
“Saying You Can’t Build in a Floodplain is Ridiculous”
Mr. Toth seems to be trying to legitimize building in floodplains. It’s true that many people do. In fact, about 20% of the people in Texas (5.9 million) live in 100- and 500-year floodplains. Toth seems to dismiss the risks, costs, deaths, and disruptions to the economy, like many before him.
Because of thinking like that, more people live in Texas floodplains than the populations of 30 states. And that comes at a tremendous cost to taxpayers, not just those who pay with their lives.
As a society, we spend trillions of dollars on flood mitigation, flood repairs, and flood insurance. The Joint Economic Committee (JEC) estimates that the total annual economic cost of flooding—covering infrastructure damage; lost productivity; home and commercial damage; ecosystem losses; and more—ranges between $179.8 billion and $496.0 billion in 2023 dollars.
That’s a pretty hefty share of the annual federal budget. But I guess Mr. Toth isn’t thinking that far ahead. That’s not good for a man who wants to represent you in Congress.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 8/21/2025
2914 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.
Need for Performance Audits To Ensure Timely Flood-Plan Implementation
8/20/25 – Everyone understands the need for financial audits; they prevent fraud. But what about performance audits? They can prevent waste. Yet how many government agencies routinely audit the implementation of plans they adopt?
Vermont Failed to Implement Half of Priorities in Emergency Plan
In Vermont last year, the state audited its performance in achieving its five-year hazard-mitigation plan. According to the Associated Press story, the plan is developed by Vermont Emergency Management every five years to identify natural hazards facing the state and take steps to reduce risk, including flooding risk.
But an audit released last year after a major flood found that only a third of the 96 actions, and half of the priority actions in the 2018 plan had been completed. Had flood-mitigation measures been completed in a timely manner, the audit says, communities affected by the floods would have been better able to withstand them.
State lawmakers said they were gravely concerned over the lack of progress. “The findings in this report are shocking and deeply troubling,” one said.
The director of the State’s Emergency Management Department called the plan “aspirational.”
But the audit focused on missed opportunities that could have lessened the severity of the floods, such as improved building codes, that would have helped communities recover faster. That sounds pretty practical to me.
Improved Harris County Building Codes Reduced Flood Damage 20X
A study by a former Harris County Engineer John Blount found subdivisions built to new, higher building codes before Hurricane Harvey experienced 20 times less damage than those that weren’t. Building codes are updated internationally every year, but Texas last updated its building codes in 2021.
New Floodplain Maps Years Past Due
Everyone agrees on the need for updated flood maps based on Atlas 14. But Harris County’s are years behind schedule. And some counties still base their flood maps on data acquired in the 1980s. In the meantime, people keep building and buying in floodplains based on outdated information. And one in every five Texans lives in a floodplain. Are we creating the conditions for future disasters?
Plans Without Financial Pathways
Why do we continually build plans that are not actionable? That are so long, no one can read or remember them?
We Need More of a Business Mentality in Government
In my opinion, we need less nonsense and more commonsense. Who would accept a position with a job description that’s 3,600 pages long? Or a monumental list of deliverables without any budget?
It’s good to dream. But we need government leaders who know how to produce results on a budget. Just like business leaders do.
Perhaps performance auditors can help us turn that around.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 8/20/25
2913 Days since Hurricane Harvey and 6183 since Ike
MoCo Water War Leaves Unintended Casualties
8/18/25 – The Montgomery County (MoCo) water war has produced a number of unintended casualties in the last decade. They include:
Unfortunately, those who profited from excessive groundwater withdrawals aren’t the ones paying the price.
Subsidence problems in southern Montgomery County – once thought to be solved by the San Jacinto River Authority’s (SJRA) Groundwater Reduction Plan (GRP) – have recurred. And despite settlement of a long running lawsuit on 8/14/25, there’s still plenty of hurt to go around.
How It All Started
To comply with the Lone Star Groundwater Conservation District‘s (LSGCD) rules to reduce groundwater pumping in Montgomery County, the San Jacinto River Authority (SJRA) introduced its Groundwater Reduction Plan (GRP) in 2009. The plan addressed the need to ensure adequate water supply for the county’s rapidly growing population using surface water from Lake Conroe.
The LSGCD’s rules, adopted in 2006, mandated a 30% reduction in overall groundwater pumping. In 2010, LSGCD also capped groundwater use, starting in 2016, at 64,000 acre-feet per year.
That gave the SJRA time to sell bonds, complete a half-billion dollar surface-water-treatment plant at Lake Conroe, and build a 55-mile pipeline-distribution system.
Then, the water war erupted.
Defectors Undermine Success
When water rates went up to pay for surface water, the City of Conroe, City of Magnolia, Quadvest, and Woodlands Oaks sued to get out of their GRP contracts. That, in turn, led to:
Subsidence: Briefly Halted
Ironically, all this happened as the groundwater reduction plan started to reduce subsidence. Areas in The Woodlands that had subsided consistently for years saw subsidence virtually level off. But the success was brief.
The leveling off lasted between three and four years. Then subsidence accelerated again. The trigger this time: politics.
A movement to make the LSGCD board elected rather than appointed opened the door for privately held groundwater providers. They backed a slate of candidates that favored pumping cheaper groundwater. And the groundwater pumpers won. Soon thereafter, unrestricted groundwater pumping resumed.
The newly elected board was sworn in during November, 2018, shortly before the graph above turned down again.
Groundwater Levels Decline with Changes in Groundwater Regulations
The newly elected LSGCD board removed conservation rules from their regulatory plan, leading to a rejection of the plan by the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB). This introduced uncertainty regarding the regulatory framework for groundwater management and the GRP’s role within it.
The protracted legal battles, settled last Thursday, centered on the validity and enforceability of GRP contracts and the fees charged for surface water.
Several cities disputed the SJRA’s ability to raise rates for surface water. Conroe initially refused to pay a rate increase implemented in 2016, and Magnolia followed suit. The SJRA responded by suing the cities for breach of contract.
These legal challenges created significant financial strain for the SJRA and its other customers. Unpaid fees caused shortfalls that had to be covered by other GRP plan participants. The recent settlement has resolved the dispute between SJRA and Conroe. But legal battles may still continue with others.
Meanwhile, southern Montgomery County has experienced the steepest well declines in the entire region.
From 1977 to 2025, maximum water level decline in the Chicot-Evangeline (undifferentiated) aquifer occurred in The Woodlands where water levels fell more than 400 feet. Likewise, water levels in the Jasper aquifer declined more than 250 feet near The Woodlands during the same time period.
Every water well drilled into those aquifers that USGS monitors in Montgomery County with the exception of two experienced significant water-level declines since the LSGCD board became elected. See below.
Clearly, the trend is not sustainable.
Flooding Worsened
As subsidence worsened, so did flooding in many parts of The Woodlands, especially those near streams whose gradients changed and those who lived near down-thrust faults that created bowls in the landscape.
Water Capacity Crunch Led to Development Moratorium
The U.S. Census Bureau rated Conroe the fastest‑growing large city in America for the period from July 1, 2015, to July 1, 2016. However, within several years, Conroe experienced a water-capacity shortfall and imposed a development moratorium (Aug 29, 2024).
TCEQ later approved a temporary reduction in the required water-supply allocation per connection—from 0.60 to 0.46 gpm—so projects could restart under tighter per-lot assumptions. For a year, that pause reportedly stalled plats, permits, and site work citywide.
It even affected large commercial projects. The Conroe Courier reported that Kelsey-Seybold was considering pulling a $24 million medical facility. Construction could not move forward because of concerns about water infrastructure capability.
With the settlement announced last Friday, Conroe has ended the development moratorium for now, but projects must use the TCEQ-approved 0.46 gpm through Feb. 2029. But the City’s plan reviewers will reportedly press for conservation fixtures/phasing until new supply is online.
The Greater Houston Homebuilders Association said the moratorium had had “detrimental effects on every facet of our industry from concrete to roofers, to pools to developers and builders.”
Under the terms of last week’s settlement, SJRA will provide additional water to Conroe. Heather Ramsey of the SJRA said that, “The additional surface water should keep them from using additional groundwater to accommodate their growth.” But in the meantime…
Homes Near Fault Lines Damaged
Deregulation of aquifer groundwater withdrawal in Montgomery County by the LSGCD led to declines in area water wells.
As Conroe and surrounding areas pumped more and more groundwater, subsidence continued. That triggered geologic faults in The Woodlands, which damaged homes.
It also damaged infrastructure.
Two subsidence experts in The Woodlands gave me a tour of three fault lines. Street after street showed dips, cracks, and storm sewer damage aligned precisely with the fault lines. Some of the repairs reportedly cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Many Paid the Price
Excessive groundwater withdrawals are also tilting Lake Houston. The area near the dam is subsiding much slower than the area in the headwaters of the Lake near the Montgomery County Line.
I listed science as the last victim in the water war. At some point during this skirmish, subsidence deniers started trotting out their own studies claiming huge volumes of water from the aquifers above could be produced without adverse consequences.
The loss of groundwater storage capacity due to subsidence will also leave Montgomery County more vulnerable to future droughts. Groundwater backs up surface water supplies. And now there will be less groundwater storage volume.
Someday, this will become a cautionary case study for other areas that think of groundwater as an unlimited resource.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 8/19/25
2912 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.