8/14/25 – A State of Texas lawsuit against the Triple PG sand mine that began in 2019 will now be tried, at the earliest, in 2026. Meanwhile problems at the mine have gotten worse. Breaches in their dikes that triggered the lawsuit have recurred. And five pipelines carrying highly volatile liquids (HVL) are now exposed and suspended over another breach.
Trial Date Set for Feb. 2026
According to the fourth revised scheduling order issued by a Travis County district court, the lawsuit brought by the State of Texas against the Triple PG sand mine in Porter will now go to a jury no earlier than February 2026.
The State first sued Triple PG in 2019 for mining sand in a pit whose dikes had been breached in at least two places. White Oak Creek was flowing through an area being actively mined and then out through Caney Creek into the headwaters of Lake Houston, which supplies drinking water for more than 2 million people.
The judge quickly issued an injunction against the mine’s owner. Mining briefly stopped while miners repaired the dikes. But the dikes failed again. And the mine briefly became an issue in a Houston mayoral election when Tony Buzbee visited the breach for a photo op in May 2019.
Tony Buzbee (plaid shirt) visited Triple PG breach into Caney Creek with camera crew in May 2019 during mayoral campaign.
On the legal front, the mine’s owner, a cardiologist from Nacogdoches, named Prabhakar R. Guniganti, transferred ownership of the mine through a series of shell companies and trust funds that he and his family controlled. This forced the attorney general’s office to sue one entity after another and name the cardiologist individually as a defendant.
In August and September this year, the parties will designate their expert witnesses.
During October and November, they will complete discovery.
In December, they will challenge each other’s expert witnesses and file remaining unheard motions.
In January, they will exchange witness and exhibit lists.
And the Jury Trial will begin on February 9, 2026.
However, the possibility exists that this could slip again as it has at least twice before. The judge originally scheduled this case for trial on October 10, 2023, and October 28, 2024.
General Reasons for Delays
Aside from specific legal maneuverings in this case, lawsuits in general can drag on for years. Many moving parts must align. And each step can take months or even longer. The main causes include:
1. Pre-trial Procedures Can Be Slow
Discovery – Both sides gather and exchange evidence, which can involve reviewing thousands of documents, deposing witnesses, and fighting over what’s admissible.
Motions and Hearings – Lawyers may file motions to dismiss, suppress evidence, or get summary judgment. Each motion needs time for responses and court rulings.
Scheduling Conflicts – Courts juggle many cases, and attorneys may have other trials or deadlines.
2. Complexity of the Case
Many Issues – Multi-defendant cases or lawsuits involving technical subjects (e.g., environmental law, patents) require more experts, more evidence, and more coordination.
Specialized Evidence – Expert reports, forensic analysis, or financial audits can take months to produce.
3. Negotiation and Settlement Efforts
Even if both sides want to settle, negotiations can stall while parties evaluate risk, await rulings on key motions, or try mediation.
4. Appeals and Interlocutory Delays
If a court rules on an important issue before trial, one side might appeal immediately. This “pause” can last a year or more before the trial even resumes.
5. Strategic Delays
Parties may deliberately slow the process to pressure the other side—by increasing costs, waiting for evidence to weaken, or banking on a change in law or circumstance.
6. Court Backlogs
In busy jurisdictions, there can be long waits simply for your turn on the docket—especially after events like the COVID-19 pandemic, which created major case backlogs.
Dikes Open and Pipelines Exposed
In July, mining continued with the dikes wide open again.
The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration regulation §56.20010 regarding retaining dams specifies that “If failure of a water or silt retaining dam will create a hazard, it shall be of substantial construction and inspected at regular intervals.”
TCEQ also has requirements for constructing dikes and levees. Note the paragraph on page 2 about structural integrity. “Construction must be based upon sound engineering principles. Structural integrity must withstand any waters which the levee or other improvement is intended to restrain or carry, considering all topographic features, including existing levees.”
Pipeline Issues Now Added to Complaint
Breaches aren’t the only issue at the Triple PG mine (now operated under the name Texas Fracsand). The daredevils operating the mine have exposed five pipelines carrying highly volatile liquids.
Triple PG Breaches and Exposed Pipelines on July 24, 2025
I alerted the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality after discovering this, but have not yet heard of the outcome of their investigation.
When went back today to see if the operator had addressed either the breaches or the pipeline issues, I found no changes.
The breeches were still wide open and the pipelines unprotected.
Pray that we don’t see any more delays in the jury trial.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 8/14/25
2907 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/2025/08/20250814-DJI_20250814160312_0143_D-2.jpg?fit=1100%2C619&ssl=16191100adminadmin2025-08-14 17:40:112025-08-14 17:42:04Triple PG Sand-Mine Lawsuit Slides to Year 7 as Problems Get Worse
8/12/2025 – The San Jacinto River Authority (SJRA) will hold a special meeting of its board of directors on Friday, August 15, 2025, at 10 AM. It will be held at the SJRA’s Administration building at 1577 Dam Site Road, Conroe, TX.
Directors will consider one item in executive session – settlement of its lawsuit against the City of Conroe. The dispute concerns Conroe’s Groundwater Reduction Plan contract with the SJRA.
To provide public comment, you must appear in person. However, you can still watch the meeting via the Internet here.
Several years earlier, SJRA developed a Groundwater Reduction Plan to reduce the demands on the Gulf Coast Aquifer system made by a fast growing population in Montgomery County. Growth was depleting aquifers and lowering water levels in wells faster than water was being replaced.
So, SJRA signed contracts with a number of municipalities to help migrate them to surface water. But that required SJRA to build a surface water treatment plant at Lake Conroe. To do that, the SJRA sold bonds totaling $550 million, which it is now trying to repay.
But Conroe and other municipalities balked at the price of SJRA water. And they began pumping cheaper groundwater while disputing evidence of subsidence.
Half-billion dollarSJRA water treatment plant at Lake Conroe Dam
It’s hard to track developments in this case because it has moved back and forth from Montgomery County District Court to the Ninth Judicial Court of Appeals in Beaumont and the Texas Supreme Court several times.
Many of the appeals are on limited aspects of the case. In 2020, the Supreme Court of Texas ruled that Conroe could not invoke governmental immunity against the SJRA. Their ruling provides a good summary of the issues in the case at that time.
Case Still Not Decided in Second Trip to Supreme Court
The litigants later went into mediation. That didn’t produce a settlement, so the parties started appealing various aspects of the arbitration. Eventually, the case circled back around to the Supreme Court of Texas in 2024.
Justice Busby delivered the opinion of the court at that time. In the first paragraph, he signaled judicial impatience. As if speaking to a third party about the SJRA and Conroe, Busby wrote “So far, their taxpayers and ratepayers have been funding only procedural and jurisdictional skirmishes distantly related to the merits of the dispute.”
The Supreme Court sided with SJRA on several limited issues and remanded the case back to the trial court for additional deliberations. Again.
In 2022, various parties owed the SJRA close to $30 million. This is one of those cases where neither side can afford to lose and the lawyers have every incentive to keep it going.
Subsidence Continues as Case Continues
It will be interesting to see what happens Friday.
In the meantime, I’ve spoken to more residents of the Woodlands whose homes and lives are being undermined by subsidence-related faulting. But more on that in a future post.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 8/12/2025
2905 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/20100405-2016_09_30_AERIAL_SJRA-WTP_26.jpg?fit=1200%2C818&ssl=18181200adminadmin2025-08-12 19:06:562025-08-12 19:16:59SJRA Calls Special Board Meeting to Discuss Settlement of 9-Year-Old Lawsuit
8/11/25 – The correlation between flood damage and flood-mitigation spending by Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) keeps dropping, indicating an increasing influence of other factors, such as race, on spending.
At the end of 2021, the coefficient of correlation between flood-mitigation spending and flood damage was .84. Statisticians consider that a strong correlation.
By the end of Q1 2024, it had dropped to .67, a positive but moderate correlation.
By the end of Q2 2025, it had dropped further to .64.
What is Coefficient of Correlation?
Coefficient of correlation measures the strength of association between two variables, for instance hours spent studying and exam scores.
Statisticians consider a correlation of 1.0 extremely strong. It is the highest possible and means that for every unit of change in one variable, there is a corresponding unit of change in another. As the coefficient decreases, the strength of the relationship also decreases.
Values close to +1 or -1 (e.g., 0.7 to 0.9 or -0.7 to -0.9) indicate a strong relationship.
Values between 0.3 and 0.7 (or -0.3 and -0.7) suggest a moderate relationship.
Values below 0.3 (or -0.3) indicate a weak relationship.
Less than Half of HCFCD Spending Today Explained by Flood Damage
Squaring the coefficient of correlation yields the coefficient of determination. That tells you the proportion of the variance in the dependent variable that’s explained by the independent variable.
Squaring .64 yields 41%. So, flood damage today accounts for less than half of Harris County’s flood-mitigation spending.
Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis’ has relentlessly pushed variousprioritization formulas that rely increasingly on race while de-emphasizing damage and flood risk. In fact, his formula now totally ignores flood risk.
The major changes in his formula coincide with the drop in the correlation between flood damage and flood-mitigation spending. The 2022 Prioritization Framework marked the beginning of the huge drop in the correlation.
But in fairness, also understand that special circumstances may apply to investments, such as HCFCD’s Frontier Program. It buys land in developing watersheds for huge, regional detention basins, then sells capacity back to developers. Still…
Notice how the lines in the graph below diverge for some watersheds. Some have proportionally more dollars than damage and vice versa for others. Clearly, politics have skewed spending.
A higher correlation would show the two lines more closely matching each other.Also note that the damage figures include five major floods since 2001. They are extracted from HCFCD Federal Reports.
The watersheds where the two variables most greatly diverge reduce the coefficient of correlation.
Where does your watershed stand in the dollar derby? Do you think you’re getting your fair share?
Here are the actual dollars and damaged structures in a table format. The last column shows the dollars per damaged structure.
Coefficient based on Spending and Damage Columns.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 8/11/2025
2904 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Corellation-Damage-Dollars.png?fit=2254%2C1354&ssl=113542254adminadmin2025-08-11 22:14:272025-08-12 12:37:00Correlation Between Flood Damage, Mitigation Spending Keeps Dropping
Triple PG Sand-Mine Lawsuit Slides to Year 7 as Problems Get Worse
8/14/25 – A State of Texas lawsuit against the Triple PG sand mine that began in 2019 will now be tried, at the earliest, in 2026. Meanwhile problems at the mine have gotten worse. Breaches in their dikes that triggered the lawsuit have recurred. And five pipelines carrying highly volatile liquids (HVL) are now exposed and suspended over another breach.
Trial Date Set for Feb. 2026
According to the fourth revised scheduling order issued by a Travis County district court, the lawsuit brought by the State of Texas against the Triple PG sand mine in Porter will now go to a jury no earlier than February 2026.
The State first sued Triple PG in 2019 for mining sand in a pit whose dikes had been breached in at least two places. White Oak Creek was flowing through an area being actively mined and then out through Caney Creek into the headwaters of Lake Houston, which supplies drinking water for more than 2 million people.
Shell Game and Other Early Delays
The judge quickly issued an injunction against the mine’s owner. Mining briefly stopped while miners repaired the dikes. But the dikes failed again. And the mine briefly became an issue in a Houston mayoral election when Tony Buzbee visited the breach for a photo op in May 2019.
The judge then ordered the miners to develop an engineered solution that permanently sealed off the pit. However, the dikes failed yet again last year and have remained open for more than a year.
Between breaches they pumped water over their dikes onto adjoining properties.
Meanwhile, other hazards developed at the mine. The miners have exposed pipelines carrying natural gas and highly volatile liquids by mining near a utility easement.
On the legal front, the mine’s owner, a cardiologist from Nacogdoches, named Prabhakar R. Guniganti, transferred ownership of the mine through a series of shell companies and trust funds that he and his family controlled. This forced the attorney general’s office to sue one entity after another and name the cardiologist individually as a defendant.
Fourth Scheduling Order
Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, the case lumbers along. See the full FOURTH Amended Scheduling Order here.
If this sticks…
However, the possibility exists that this could slip again as it has at least twice before. The judge originally scheduled this case for trial on October 10, 2023, and October 28, 2024.
General Reasons for Delays
Aside from specific legal maneuverings in this case, lawsuits in general can drag on for years. Many moving parts must align. And each step can take months or even longer. The main causes include:
1. Pre-trial Procedures Can Be Slow
2. Complexity of the Case
3. Negotiation and Settlement Efforts
4. Appeals and Interlocutory Delays
5. Strategic Delays
6. Court Backlogs
Dikes Open and Pipelines Exposed
In July, mining continued with the dikes wide open again.
Dike Regulations
The Triple PG mine received 15 citations in two years from the Mine Safety and Health Administration before the TCEQ filed its lawsuit through the Texas Attorney General. See the MSHA site for a key to the citations.
The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration regulation §56.20010 regarding retaining dams specifies that “If failure of a water or silt retaining dam will create a hazard, it shall be of substantial construction and inspected at regular intervals.”
TCEQ also has requirements for constructing dikes and levees. Note the paragraph on page 2 about structural integrity. “Construction must be based upon sound engineering principles. Structural integrity must withstand any waters which the levee or other improvement is intended to restrain or carry, considering all topographic features, including existing levees.”
Pipeline Issues Now Added to Complaint
Breaches aren’t the only issue at the Triple PG mine (now operated under the name Texas Fracsand). The daredevils operating the mine have exposed five pipelines carrying highly volatile liquids.
I alerted the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality after discovering this, but have not yet heard of the outcome of their investigation.
The breeches were still wide open and the pipelines unprotected.
Pray that we don’t see any more delays in the jury trial.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 8/14/25
2907 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.
SJRA Calls Special Board Meeting to Discuss Settlement of 9-Year-Old Lawsuit
8/12/2025 – The San Jacinto River Authority (SJRA) will hold a special meeting of its board of directors on Friday, August 15, 2025, at 10 AM. It will be held at the SJRA’s Administration building at 1577 Dam Site Road, Conroe, TX.
Directors will consider one item in executive session – settlement of its lawsuit against the City of Conroe. The dispute concerns Conroe’s Groundwater Reduction Plan contract with the SJRA.
To provide public comment, you must appear in person. However, you can still watch the meeting via the Internet here.
Case Began in 2016
The case began nine years ago in 2016.
Several years earlier, SJRA developed a Groundwater Reduction Plan to reduce the demands on the Gulf Coast Aquifer system made by a fast growing population in Montgomery County. Growth was depleting aquifers and lowering water levels in wells faster than water was being replaced.
So, SJRA signed contracts with a number of municipalities to help migrate them to surface water. But that required SJRA to build a surface water treatment plant at Lake Conroe. To do that, the SJRA sold bonds totaling $550 million, which it is now trying to repay.
But Conroe and other municipalities balked at the price of SJRA water. And they began pumping cheaper groundwater while disputing evidence of subsidence.
It’s hard to track developments in this case because it has moved back and forth from Montgomery County District Court to the Ninth Judicial Court of Appeals in Beaumont and the Texas Supreme Court several times.
Many of the appeals are on limited aspects of the case. In 2020, the Supreme Court of Texas ruled that Conroe could not invoke governmental immunity against the SJRA. Their ruling provides a good summary of the issues in the case at that time.
Case Still Not Decided in Second Trip to Supreme Court
The litigants later went into mediation. That didn’t produce a settlement, so the parties started appealing various aspects of the arbitration. Eventually, the case circled back around to the Supreme Court of Texas in 2024.
Justice Busby delivered the opinion of the court at that time. In the first paragraph, he signaled judicial impatience. As if speaking to a third party about the SJRA and Conroe, Busby wrote “So far, their taxpayers and ratepayers have been funding only procedural and jurisdictional skirmishes distantly related to the merits of the dispute.”
The Supreme Court sided with SJRA on several limited issues and remanded the case back to the trial court for additional deliberations. Again.
In 2022, various parties owed the SJRA close to $30 million. This is one of those cases where neither side can afford to lose and the lawyers have every incentive to keep it going.
Subsidence Continues as Case Continues
It will be interesting to see what happens Friday.
In the meantime, I’ve spoken to more residents of the Woodlands whose homes and lives are being undermined by subsidence-related faulting. But more on that in a future post.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 8/12/2025
2905 Days since Hurricane Harvey
Correlation Between Flood Damage, Mitigation Spending Keeps Dropping
8/11/25 – The correlation between flood damage and flood-mitigation spending by Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) keeps dropping, indicating an increasing influence of other factors, such as race, on spending.
What is Coefficient of Correlation?
Coefficient of correlation measures the strength of association between two variables, for instance hours spent studying and exam scores.
Statisticians consider a correlation of 1.0 extremely strong. It is the highest possible and means that for every unit of change in one variable, there is a corresponding unit of change in another. As the coefficient decreases, the strength of the relationship also decreases.
Less than Half of HCFCD Spending Today Explained by Flood Damage
Squaring the coefficient of correlation yields the coefficient of determination. That tells you the proportion of the variance in the dependent variable that’s explained by the independent variable.
Squaring .64 yields 41%. So, flood damage today accounts for less than half of Harris County’s flood-mitigation spending.
Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis’ has relentlessly pushed various prioritization formulas that rely increasingly on race while de-emphasizing damage and flood risk. In fact, his formula now totally ignores flood risk.
The major changes in his formula coincide with the drop in the correlation between flood damage and flood-mitigation spending. The 2022 Prioritization Framework marked the beginning of the huge drop in the correlation.
But in fairness, also understand that special circumstances may apply to investments, such as HCFCD’s Frontier Program. It buys land in developing watersheds for huge, regional detention basins, then sells capacity back to developers. Still…
Notice how the lines in the graph below diverge for some watersheds. Some have proportionally more dollars than damage and vice versa for others. Clearly, politics have skewed spending.
The watersheds where the two variables most greatly diverge reduce the coefficient of correlation.
Where does your watershed stand in the dollar derby? Do you think you’re getting your fair share?
Here are the actual dollars and damaged structures in a table format. The last column shows the dollars per damaged structure.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 8/11/2025
2904 Days since Hurricane Harvey