10/28/25 – Yilun Cheng and Matt Zdun, reporters for the Houston Chronicle, published an article this morning about the political donations of floodplain developers. It represents a new high-water mark in investigative journalism concerning Houston’s flooding problems.
Cheng and Zdun found $10.8 million in contributions from development interests to county judges and commissioners in Harris and Montgomery counties for the decade between January 1, 2015, through December 31, 2024. That works out to roughly a million dollars per year contributed to 10 people.
The article’s headline: “How officials approved tens of thousands of homes in Houston floodplains: ‘1,000 ways to rig the model.'” Their story’s preview link gives us a hint: “In Houston-area floodplain development, political donations beat science.”
The thrust of the article is how development interests have:
Influenced the very regulations that govern the industry
Tweaked model inputs to make developments look more desirable and their impacts less severe
Made huge political contributions to those who influence approval of their plans.
65,000 Homes built in Houston Floodplains since Harvey
Cheng previously published a blockbuster story about 65,000 homes built in Houston floodplains since Hurricane Harvey. Today, she delved into how that happened. She and her colleagues tracked the political donations of developers, homebuilders, engineers and their respective Political Action Committees (PACs) and trade associations.
For today’s article Cheng and Zdun focused mainly on Harris and Montgomery Counties, though Cheng interviewed people from the other surrounding counties and cities as well.
Research Challenges and Ensuring Data Quality
Such research is more difficult than it appears at first glance. Contributions often don’t appear under the name of a corporation on a government contract.
Rather, contributions often appear under the names of the corporation’s leaders, employees, and their family members. That adds extra layers of research and verification.
And multiple donations from the same individuals may appear in different forms. For instance, an individual might use his full name for one donation and a first initial for the next. That discourages automatic sorting.
So, Cheng and Zdun had to review contributions one by one. “Campaign finance filings vary greatly in quality,” they noted at the end of the article. “The same donor could be represented several different ways in filings, with different spellings, suffixes, titles and punctuation. Additionally, some county officials submitted handwritten filings, which complicated the data parsing.” Accidental? I think not.
The Chronicle standardized names across filings, removing extraneous suffixes, titles and punctuation through a process that involved substantial hand checking.
Then the reporters cross-checked all name matches with occupation and address data to verify that they were the same individual. They also sorted entries by date because during the sampling period, some politicians also ran for offices other than county judge or commissioner.
From my own experience with such research, I suspect the totals they reported may be understated. The rule of thumb? When it doubt, leave it out.
Contributions Don’t Automatically Guarantee Plan Approval
Cheng and Zdun are careful to point out that political contributions don’t automatically guarantee approval of developers plans. But they also point out situations in which contributions to a county commissioner mysteriously made it difficult for county employees to reject a developer’s plans/studies.
For instance, they explored a floodplain development by Ryko in Montgomery County and found that a county employee’s rejection of the developer’s plans was later escalated to a former commissioner. The employee was formally reprimanded. Coincidentally, the developer’s consultant (and former employee) currently chairs the Houston Planning Commission.
In a hundred year flood, some of Ryko’s land would be more than 18 feet underwater in a 100 year flood.
Cheng interviewed Dr. Sam Brody of Texas A&M. He said, “All the models done are based on assumptions, and the assumptions are based on what they think,” Brody said. “There are 1,000 ways to rig the model to come up with an answer that you want to see.”
Cheng also interviewed Chad Berginnis, director of the Association of State Floodplain Managers. Berginnis said he has experienced firsthand how politics can complicate efforts to enforce floodplain rules. “I tried to faithfully administer the regulations,” he said, recalling his time as a local floodplain manager. “And I can tell you on more than one occasion I suffered the county commissioners’ anger.”
I personally know a floodplain manager in Montgomery County who labored under similar pressure and eventually left the county.
Part of a Larger Series
Cheng is a talented writer/reporter with a penchant for meticulous documentation. Today’s article is part of a larger series exploring flooding in the Houston region and Texas in general. I will say this. When the next big flood destroys thousands of homes, people need look no further than Cheng’s articles for answers.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 10/28/2025
2982 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/2025/05/20250507-Ryko-Confluence-BFE-Viewer-25-ft-1.jpg?fit=1100%2C633&ssl=16331100adminadmin2025-10-28 20:15:112025-10-28 20:15:58Chronicle Tracks County Political Donations of Floodplain Developers
Yet whether you look at total dollars spent or construction dollars, the 2% figure remains.
San Jacinto Watershed Receives Less than $5 Million Per Year in 5 of 8 Years
According to the most recent figures available from Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD), the county has spent $2,071.59 million ($2+ billion) in total since passage of the flood bond in 2018. Yet the San Jacinto watershed has received only $43.65 million of that – 2.11%.
And of the $948.38 million spent on construction since Bond passage, the San Jacinto watershed has received only $19.65 million – 2.07%. See the breakdown by years below:
Data for both graphs sourced from HCFCD Activity Page. *Includes 1 Quarter. **Includes 3 Quarters.
So, whether you look at total or construction spending, the San Jacinto watershed has received less than $5 million per year in five of the last eight years.
So Much for Worst First!
To put those numbers in perspective, compare the size of the watershed to the size of the spending.
The portion of the San Jacinto watershed inside Harris County ranks it as the largest watershed in the county. But that is the smallest portion of the watershed.Compiled from HCFCD data above.
The County sold the flood bond to voters by saying it would fix the worst areas first. However, that has not been the case.
Shortly after voters approved flood bond language that guaranteed an “equitable distribution of funds,” the County adopted an “Equity Prioritization Framework” that eliminated flood damage and flood risk in the allocation of dollars. Linguists and historians may be interested in reviewing accepted definitions of equity and equitable in Websters Third International and Oxford English Dictionaries. The words sound alike, but are not the same.
Some Other Watersheds Have Received Even Less
But as bad as this is for the San Jacinto watershed, consider other watersheds that have gotten even less.
In my opinion, the issue with flood-control spending to date is not just slowness, it’s also fairness.
We’ll have a chance to fix that next year. Primary elections for county commissioners and county judge begin in March 2026. And the general election is in November 2026.
We have another hurricane season to get through before then. Don’t count on another as mild as this one.
Posted by Bob Rehak on October 27, 2025
2981 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/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-27-at-5.04.28-PM.png?fit=1502%2C894&ssl=18941502adminadmin2025-10-27 17:44:042025-10-27 17:57:58San Jacinto Watershed Received Only 2% of Mitigation Dollars since Passage of Flood Bond
10/26/25 – Harris County Flood Control District construction spending has plummeted in recent years along with total spending. And a leading indicator – construction contract awards – doesn’t show much hope for improvement anytime soon.
Numbers Tell the Story
I’ve posted before about the decline in total spending. It ramped up sharply after voters approved the flood bond in the third quarter of 2018. But then it started dropping relentlessly. The decline largely coincided with a management change made by the Democratic-controlled commissioners court.
The last bar on the right includes only three quarters. But at the current rate, 2025 will equal about $166 million – down about a third from 2024.
Total spending includes many activities besides construction. But flood risk isn’t reduced until construction is finished. And we see a similar decline in construction spending that started when HCFCD management changed at the start of 2022.
But the graphs above only show activity in the rear-view mirror. Looking forward, the picture is equally bleak.
Approved Bids: A Leading Indicator for Construction
Few new projects have had construction contracts awarded in the past year. Of the 16 construction contracts awarded in the previous four quarters, 14 have been for maintenance to existing assets.
Only two, both in White Oak Bayou, have been for new capital assets – the Yale and Arbor Oaks Stormwater Detention Basins. See below.
The prospects for flood-risk improvement in the immediate future look bleak for the vast majority of the county.
HCFCD awarded the construction contract for Arbor Oaks in Q2 this year. But excavation had not yet started as of late September 2025.
Deadline Rapidly Approaching for Grants Totaling $321 Million
The Texas General Land Office (GLO) and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) approved 11 projects for Community Development Block Grants in the Disaster Relief category (CDBG-DR).
The 11 projects including Arbor Oaks total $321 million dollars. But to get the money, HCFCD must complete the projects by February 28, 2027, to meet HUD’s deadline.
However, construction will need to be completed by December 2026 – thirteen months away – because it generally takes two to three months to administratively close out CDBG grants.
But according to HCFCD’s most recent bid outlook, flood control won’t even advertise eight of the 10 remaining projects until next year. And another slipped off the radar altogether.
Phase II of the Brookglen Stormwater Detention Basin received authorization to use government funds in August 2024. Yet HCFCD doesn’t even anticipate advertising it for bids until November 2025 – 15 months. That’s more time than HCFCD has to complete construction.
Little time remains to complete projects of this magnitude. And HCFCD has not explained how it will complete them before the deadline. HUD has already said they will not grant any more extensions.
This represents a real risk. Harris County residents could lose $321 million of Federal funding for important flood damage reduction projects.
The Chronicle reported that Hidalgo said, “What we found was there was no paper trail. There was no qualifications, information, selection committee, evaluation scoring — no documentation whatsoever.”
The Chronicle story added, “Flood control initially promised to reform its contracting process by August 2024, but has since asked for multiple extensions.”
Sound familiar?
No Apparent Sense of Urgency
HCFCD had only four items on the agenda for the 10/30/25 Commissioners Court meeting. Not one of the four items had to do with any of the ten CDBG-DR projects above. One involved a contract name change; the other three involved small property acquisitions.
HCFCD has billions of dollars waiting to be used. But at this moment, not one new capital improvement project is being bid.
Call me old fashioned, but I believe in “pay for performance.” I wonder what metrics Hidalgo used to recommend such a bump in pay. How can someone get paid so much to accomplish so little?
Posted by Bob Rehak on 10/26/25
2980 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/2025/10/Construction-.png?fit=1322%2C776&ssl=17761322adminadmin2025-10-26 10:48:382025-11-23 22:46:04HCFCD Construction Spending Continues to Plummet
Chronicle Tracks County Political Donations of Floodplain Developers
10/28/25 – Yilun Cheng and Matt Zdun, reporters for the Houston Chronicle, published an article this morning about the political donations of floodplain developers. It represents a new high-water mark in investigative journalism concerning Houston’s flooding problems.
Cheng and Zdun found $10.8 million in contributions from development interests to county judges and commissioners in Harris and Montgomery counties for the decade between January 1, 2015, through December 31, 2024. That works out to roughly a million dollars per year contributed to 10 people.
The article’s headline: “How officials approved tens of thousands of homes in Houston floodplains: ‘1,000 ways to rig the model.'” Their story’s preview link gives us a hint: “In Houston-area floodplain development, political donations beat science.”
The thrust of the article is how development interests have:
65,000 Homes built in Houston Floodplains since Harvey
Cheng previously published a blockbuster story about 65,000 homes built in Houston floodplains since Hurricane Harvey. Today, she delved into how that happened. She and her colleagues tracked the political donations of developers, homebuilders, engineers and their respective Political Action Committees (PACs) and trade associations.
For today’s article Cheng and Zdun focused mainly on Harris and Montgomery Counties, though Cheng interviewed people from the other surrounding counties and cities as well.
Research Challenges and Ensuring Data Quality
Such research is more difficult than it appears at first glance. Contributions often don’t appear under the name of a corporation on a government contract.
Rather, contributions often appear under the names of the corporation’s leaders, employees, and their family members. That adds extra layers of research and verification.
And multiple donations from the same individuals may appear in different forms. For instance, an individual might use his full name for one donation and a first initial for the next. That discourages automatic sorting.
So, Cheng and Zdun had to review contributions one by one. “Campaign finance filings vary greatly in quality,” they noted at the end of the article. “The same donor could be represented several different ways in filings, with different spellings, suffixes, titles and punctuation. Additionally, some county officials submitted handwritten filings, which complicated the data parsing.” Accidental? I think not.
The Chronicle standardized names across filings, removing extraneous suffixes, titles and punctuation through a process that involved substantial hand checking.
Then the reporters cross-checked all name matches with occupation and address data to verify that they were the same individual. They also sorted entries by date because during the sampling period, some politicians also ran for offices other than county judge or commissioner.
From my own experience with such research, I suspect the totals they reported may be understated. The rule of thumb? When it doubt, leave it out.
Contributions Don’t Automatically Guarantee Plan Approval
Cheng and Zdun are careful to point out that political contributions don’t automatically guarantee approval of developers plans. But they also point out situations in which contributions to a county commissioner mysteriously made it difficult for county employees to reject a developer’s plans/studies.
For instance, they explored a floodplain development by Ryko in Montgomery County and found that a county employee’s rejection of the developer’s plans was later escalated to a former commissioner. The employee was formally reprimanded. Coincidentally, the developer’s consultant (and former employee) currently chairs the Houston Planning Commission.
“Experts, residents and advocates warned that they’ve seen case after case of politics, not math, shaping floodplain development decisions,” said Cheng.
Cheng interviewed Dr. Sam Brody of Texas A&M. He said, “All the models done are based on assumptions, and the assumptions are based on what they think,” Brody said. “There are 1,000 ways to rig the model to come up with an answer that you want to see.”
Cheng also interviewed Chad Berginnis, director of the Association of State Floodplain Managers. Berginnis said he has experienced firsthand how politics can complicate efforts to enforce floodplain rules. “I tried to faithfully administer the regulations,” he said, recalling his time as a local floodplain manager. “And I can tell you on more than one occasion I suffered the county commissioners’ anger.”
I personally know a floodplain manager in Montgomery County who labored under similar pressure and eventually left the county.
Part of a Larger Series
Cheng is a talented writer/reporter with a penchant for meticulous documentation. Today’s article is part of a larger series exploring flooding in the Houston region and Texas in general. I will say this. When the next big flood destroys thousands of homes, people need look no further than Cheng’s articles for answers.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 10/28/2025
2982 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.
San Jacinto Watershed Received Only 2% of Mitigation Dollars since Passage of Flood Bond
10/27/2025 – The San Jacinto watershed has received only about 2% of the county’s flood-mitigation dollars since voters approved the 2018 Flood Bond.
And yet, the San Jacinto watershed:
Yet whether you look at total dollars spent or construction dollars, the 2% figure remains.
San Jacinto Watershed Receives Less than $5 Million Per Year in 5 of 8 Years
According to the most recent figures available from Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD), the county has spent $2,071.59 million ($2+ billion) in total since passage of the flood bond in 2018. Yet the San Jacinto watershed has received only $43.65 million of that – 2.11%.
And of the $948.38 million spent on construction since Bond passage, the San Jacinto watershed has received only $19.65 million – 2.07%. See the breakdown by years below:
So, whether you look at total or construction spending, the San Jacinto watershed has received less than $5 million per year in five of the last eight years.
So Much for Worst First!
To put those numbers in perspective, compare the size of the watershed to the size of the spending.
The County sold the flood bond to voters by saying it would fix the worst areas first. However, that has not been the case.
Shortly after voters approved flood bond language that guaranteed an “equitable distribution of funds,” the County adopted an “Equity Prioritization Framework” that eliminated flood damage and flood risk in the allocation of dollars. Linguists and historians may be interested in reviewing accepted definitions of equity and equitable in Websters Third International and Oxford English Dictionaries. The words sound alike, but are not the same.
Some Other Watersheds Have Received Even Less
But as bad as this is for the San Jacinto watershed, consider other watersheds that have gotten even less.
In my opinion, the issue with flood-control spending to date is not just slowness, it’s also fairness.
We’ll have a chance to fix that next year. Primary elections for county commissioners and county judge begin in March 2026. And the general election is in November 2026.
We have another hurricane season to get through before then. Don’t count on another as mild as this one.
Posted by Bob Rehak on October 27, 2025
2981 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.
HCFCD Construction Spending Continues to Plummet
10/26/25 – Harris County Flood Control District construction spending has plummeted in recent years along with total spending. And a leading indicator – construction contract awards – doesn’t show much hope for improvement anytime soon.
Numbers Tell the Story
I’ve posted before about the decline in total spending. It ramped up sharply after voters approved the flood bond in the third quarter of 2018. But then it started dropping relentlessly. The decline largely coincided with a management change made by the Democratic-controlled commissioners court.
The last bar on the right includes only three quarters. But at the current rate, 2025 will equal about $166 million – down about a third from 2024.
Total spending includes many activities besides construction. But flood risk isn’t reduced until construction is finished. And we see a similar decline in construction spending that started when HCFCD management changed at the start of 2022.
But the graphs above only show activity in the rear-view mirror. Looking forward, the picture is equally bleak.
Approved Bids: A Leading Indicator for Construction
Few new projects have had construction contracts awarded in the past year. Of the 16 construction contracts awarded in the previous four quarters, 14 have been for maintenance to existing assets.
Only two, both in White Oak Bayou, have been for new capital assets – the Yale and Arbor Oaks Stormwater Detention Basins. See below.
All of the rest simply restore functionality. So…
HCFCD awarded the construction contract for Arbor Oaks in Q2 this year. But excavation had not yet started as of late September 2025.
Deadline Rapidly Approaching for Grants Totaling $321 Million
The Texas General Land Office (GLO) and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) approved 11 projects for Community Development Block Grants in the Disaster Relief category (CDBG-DR).
The 11 projects including Arbor Oaks total $321 million dollars. But to get the money, HCFCD must complete the projects by February 28, 2027, to meet HUD’s deadline.
However, construction will need to be completed by December 2026 – thirteen months away – because it generally takes two to three months to administratively close out CDBG grants.
But according to HCFCD’s most recent bid outlook, flood control won’t even advertise eight of the 10 remaining projects until next year. And another slipped off the radar altogether.
Phase II of the Brookglen Stormwater Detention Basin received authorization to use government funds in August 2024. Yet HCFCD doesn’t even anticipate advertising it for bids until November 2025 – 15 months. That’s more time than HCFCD has to complete construction.
Little time remains to complete projects of this magnitude. And HCFCD has not explained how it will complete them before the deadline. HUD has already said they will not grant any more extensions.
This represents a real risk. Harris County residents could lose $321 million of Federal funding for important flood damage reduction projects.
Hidalgo Says Audit Revealed Contracting Irregularities
Meanwhile, according to a Houston Chronicle story published on 10/22/25, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo “called for renewed scrutiny of the Harris County Flood Control District after a recent audit found transparency issues in its contracting process.”
The Chronicle reported that Hidalgo said, “What we found was there was no paper trail. There was no qualifications, information, selection committee, evaluation scoring — no documentation whatsoever.”
The Chronicle story added, “Flood control initially promised to reform its contracting process by August 2024, but has since asked for multiple extensions.”
Sound familiar?
No Apparent Sense of Urgency
HCFCD had only four items on the agenda for the 10/30/25 Commissioners Court meeting. Not one of the four items had to do with any of the ten CDBG-DR projects above. One involved a contract name change; the other three involved small property acquisitions.
HCFCD has billions of dollars waiting to be used. But at this moment, not one new capital improvement project is being bid.
And yet earlier this year, HCFCD’s executive director received a pay increase of $90,000 to $434,000.
Call me old fashioned, but I believe in “pay for performance.” I wonder what metrics Hidalgo used to recommend such a bump in pay. How can someone get paid so much to accomplish so little?
Posted by Bob Rehak on 10/26/25
2980 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.