9/19/26 – On September 1, 2026, Dr. Anna Weiss became the new executive director of the Bayou Land Conservancy (BLC), one of the leading conservation groups in the Houston region. Dr. Weiss replaces Jill Boullion who retired after leading BLC for ten years. I interviewed Dr. Weiss about her background and priorities.
BLC’s primary focus is on the Lake Houston watershed whichcovers approximately 2500 square miles to the west, north, and eastof the lake, which provides drinking water for more than 2.2 million people.BLC is nationally accredited and preserves land along streams for flood control, clean water, and wildlife.
Dr. Anna Weiss outside BLC headquarters in the Woodlands
PhD in Environmental Science from UT
Rehak: You earned your PhD in environmental science from UT. What attracted you to that field?
Weiss: I’ve always really loved nature. I grew up on a barrier island in New York, right outside of New York City. So, I spent a lot of time outside as a kid. Eventually, when I went to university, I studied anthropology. I was really curious about how and why humans are the way we are. And how climate and evolution intersect. At that time, I was doing a lot of field work in Kenya.
And then, in my senior year, Superstorm Sandy hit my hometown. That really made it clear that climate change is not just something happening far away. It’s affecting us. And it really made me want to do something about it.
So, I thought about the best way to make a difference. And eventually I decided to get a PhD and learn the science.
I studied geosciences at UT Austin to understand how climate impacted ecosystems and environments in the past. Now I’m applying that learning to what’s happening today. How can we preserve and protect our ecosystems?
Rehak: After UT, you went back to New York?
Weiss: Yes, but before that, I went to Belize. I did a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Belize Environmental Research Institute and applied my research to modern ecosystems. I became a professor there and continued my research. Then I went back to New York and started working with a conservation and restoration organization in New York City.
Work at Green Galveston Initiatives
Rehak: But most recently, you worked in Galveston.
Weiss: I was the director of Green Galveston Initiatives. Galveston reminded me a lot of the little barrier island I grew up on. And it had a lot of the same issues with hurricanes, flooding, and development.
You know, a lot of developers want to build skyscrapers on the beach. But that leads to all sorts of issues. So, I got to do some really exciting work there working on parks – city-owned parks that were just flooding constantly. One was Jones Park. We actually called it Jones Pond because it would just sprinkle and the thing would fill up with water. The other one was Shield Park and this was a park that was just covered in concrete and there was contamination beneath it. So, we couldn’t actually plant trees or anything to help with the heat and shade.
I worked with the city, engineers, architects and the community to make sure that these parks were not only going to help with the flooding and heat mitigation, but that they would also provide social and economic benefits for neighborhoods.
Spearheading Partnerships to Achieve Results
Those were two exciting capital projects. Another evolved organically. We found many organizations on the island were aligned. But they were not necessarily talking to each other. We had little pockets of groups doing great work. But they could be so much stronger working together and with the City of Galveston.
Galveston’s comprehensive plan was 15 years old; it was created after Ike. If we wanted to really change the way development was happening, we had to start with the local comprehensive plan, because land development regulations and ordinances evolve from that. The Planning Commission relies on it to say yes or no to a developer.
So, we put together a group of more than 30 partner organizations to find consensus on a comprehensive plan. Fifteen years later, we were able to analyze the past plan, find where the issues were, and start thinking about how other cities managed those issues?
Rehak: It sounds a lot like what we need up here.
Weiss: Montgomery County is one of the fastest developing counties in America.
So, it’s really important that we think about our land use and our natural resources. People need places to live. But their quality of life, health, and safety are also important.
Rehak: You don’t want to see homes flood repeatedly and create conditions that lead to future slums.
Weiss: Exactly.
Making Land Conservation Easier, Raising Awareness
Rehak: What are your priorities as BLC’s new leader ?
Weiss: My first priority is just to learn and listen. This organization has been around for 30 years and has been doing amazing work in a huge footprint. I’ve been here two weeks. So, priority number one is listening and learning.
I’m also very interested in how policies are affecting the kind of work that we can do as environmentalists. What are the levers of policy and the levers of change that we need at the local, state, and even federal levels? What do we need to do to make land preservation and conservation easier, more common? I’m digging into that side of things.
It’s also important for people to understand who we are and why we’re doing what we do. Many people look at land conservation as something that rich people do … to get tax breaks.
But that land also reduces flooding, cleans water, and preserves biodiversity. We need to make sure that everybody from all walks of life knows what we do, why, and how it can help them. So, there’s an educational priority.
We need to show people how nature-based solutions like bioswales can turn the ground into a sponge and absorb water so that we have less flooding and less pollution.
Rehak: Any other priorities?
Weiss: Those are the big ones.
Importance of Preserving Scarborough Property
Rehak: Let’s discuss a specific example. What would you like to see done with the Scarborough property?
Weiss: Great question. I will preface this by saying I’ve only been here a couple of weeks. But from what I’ve learned, that property is really important in protecting everyone downstream from flooding. If we develop that irresponsibly, it could become a huge problem, not just for the environment, but for people, the economy, and social cohesion. Flooding devastates all of those things.
I would love to see that land conserved, so that it can do what it’s supposed to do – absorb water.
Rehak: How do we preserve it?
Weiss: There are developers with deep pockets and political connections. That makes it difficult. But there are also a lot of concerned people. And our power is with people. I hope we can put enough pressure on the developers and policy makers to change their minds.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 9/19/2026
3308 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/DSC_5810.jpg?fit=1100%2C733&ssl=17331100adminadmin2026-09-19 17:05:562026-09-19 17:32:50Dr. Anna Weiss Becomes New Head of Bayou Land Conservancy
9/3/26 – This guest post about “Hurricane Harvey Remembered” is by Kathleen Todd Jordan. Ms. Jordan grew up in Kingwood and has lived here for almost 50 years. She met the man who would later become her husband while they were both enrolled at Kingwood Middle School. So, Jordan has deep ties to the community and its residents. During Hurricane Harvey, two of her neighbors died. Many others had their homes destroyed. On the ninth anniversary of the flood, she wrote a deeply moving memoir of the event and recovery from it. Jordan is also a newly appointed board member of the Lake Houston Dredging and Maintenance District. She gave me permission to reprint her story below.
Neighbors Helping Neighbors
Pics below show our dear family-friend’s home. The living room looked as though a whirlpool picked up all of the furniture and swirled it around. Rushing water and debris had pulverized the thick, picture windows.
The power of water moving through a living room
Seeing people’s lives through their material objects piled high to the sky … it was just heartbreaking.
For weeks after Harvey, debris piles lined both sides of streets in Kingwood.
Harvey Remembered: Antibiotics, Amputation, Death and Anger
Now, this is where I have ZERO tolerance for the back talk from government entities – speech emanating mainly from Montgomery County (MoCo). When people from Kingwood hear some MoCo folks saying that we are just belly aching and no one died and “we flooded, too”…I say “Don’t go there.”
After the storm, we opened our home to a friend, who otherwise would have been packed off to the George R. Brown. We helped her muck out her home and her neighbor’s. Two doors down from where she lived, we mucked out a young man’s home with the help of his mother. She slipped and fell in the mud in his kitchen.
She cut her arm when she fell. The son asked if anyone had a first aid kit. I ran home to grab what I could. A couple of days later, we heard the mother was in the hospital with an infection.
That infection turned into MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), a type of staph bacteria that is resistant to many common antibiotics. In a last ditch effort to save her life, the medical team decided to start AMPUTATING BODY PARTS. Think about this MoCo, City of Houston, GLO, Harris County. She still died.
Just two blocks away, a husband attempted to start his portable generator. He dropped dead from a heart attack. Two deaths within two blocks. Two lives extinguished. Arguably, the loss of life could have been avoided. More such avoidable tragedies happened beyond the immediate area where I was working.
What Montgomery County Needs to Understand
Everyone reading this outside of Kingwood needs to understand these memories and heartaches go far beyond the material losses that have changed each of us.
When we hear the uninformed – especially those from MoCo – say things like, “No one died,” “lowering the lake does not work,” “we want to use our boats,” almost 80,000 people here beg to differ in no uncertain terms.
Did you know that almost 50% of all deaths from Harvey in Harris County happened in the Kingwood/ Lake Houston area?
So again, when someone from The Woodlands says, “Well, we flooded, too,” I respectfully say, “Go to hell!” No one died there.
Be a good neighbor, MoCo. Every single time we drive through that fair county and see all the unbridled development, it terrifies us. Boatloads of cement dumped on cleared land are replacing dense forests.
It infuriates ALL of us when our elected officials ask MoCo elected officials for a little consideration and they are told to “go pound sand.” We all know it and will never forget and never forgive.
The Ultimate Day of Reckoning
Those people will answer someday for their disregard for their neighbors. Perhaps not in this lifetime. But I firmly believe they will when they meet their Maker.
Don’t be fooled by my smile in flood-mitigation meetings. I know who you are and what you have done and failed to do.
All of this is to say, there is a group of people in Kingwood fighting to protect lives, homes and businesses. This is the main reason I eagerly agreed to serve on Lake Houston’s Dredging and Maintenance District Board. From Congressman Crenshaw all the way down to the incomparable reporting from Bob Rehak to Mark Micheletti being the lone Harris County voice on the SJRA board, it will take all of us to protect our community.
Get involved Kingwood. Do not let this happen again.
Flooded neighborhood more than a mile from San Jacinto West ForkLifetimes of memories hauled to the curb became magnets for looters and vandals.Harvey Remembered. Home is where you make it, but some places are more difficult than others.
Posted by Kathleen Todd Jordan on 9/3/26
3292 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/782385772_10245317967149911_7728288425599834383_n.jpg?fit=960%2C720&ssl=1720960adminadmin2026-09-03 16:57:202026-09-03 17:02:12Through The Eyes of a Survivor: Harvey Remembered Nine Years Later
Kelly Callahan is a retired widow who loves fishing, kayaking and living near nature. That’s why she bought a home near the San Jacinto West Fork. Callahan accepted the flood risk. However, she didn’t expect that the man who bought the sand mine behind her wooded lot would partially drain the dredge pond into the river. Where a small creek flows across part of her property, the sudden drop in the pond’s elevation triggered what geomorphologists call “headcut erosion.”
About Headcut Erosion
Headcut erosion happens where flowing water reaches an abrupt, near-vertical drop. The falling water scours the base, causing the overhanging soil and plant roots to collapse. That forces the “waterfall” to rapidly migrate upstream. In Kelly’s case, it could soon threaten her home. Instead of fixing the sand-pit dike, the mine’s new owner has offered to buy the widow’s land for below-market value. I talked with her at length about her situation and options. But first, some pictures that illustrate what happened.
#1: Satellite image as of 12/23with full sand-pit pondbehind Callahan’s home.#2: January 2026. The breach is now real and level of pond has dropped precipitously.#3 Breach is virtually twice as tall as man.Note excavator that created breach in upper left.#4: Meanwhile, the ephemeral creek flowing across Callahan’s land has downcut to the new level of the pond.
#5: 12-second video from inside the treeline shows attempt to slow erosion by owner of former mine. Recent heavy rains blew out the tarp and erosion continues.
Impact on Widow
Rehak: You investigated this property pretty thoroughly before buying it.
Callahan: Yes, I even talked to the sand-mine foreman. Never on God’s green earth did I think that somebody would purchase it and then lower the pond and cause all of this damage.
Rehak: What did the new owner do?
Callahan: He hired someone to cut through the dike surrounding the mine. He said it was to prevent flooding the homeowners on our street. But the dike completely blew out and 10-20 feet of water from the pond went downstream with a tremendous amount of sand.
Breach still not repaired as of 6/20/26
Rehak: You were dealing with some medical issues at the time?
Callahan: I had horrible sciatica and could barely walk. So, I couldn’t see what was going on back there until recently.
Rehak: What happened when he saw all the damage he caused?
Callahan: He started coming to me and saying “It’s eroding back there. You need to get some fill and fix it.
Rehak: Did you?
Callahan: No. He caused the problem.
Rehak: What happened the other day when you got 4.5 inches of rain in a few hours?
Callahan’s home in foreground. Note creek, bottom left, flowing toward pond near top.
Callahan: He showed up unannounced and trudged back to his pond. When he came back, he said, “Kelly, we got a $100,000 problem now. You didn’t put any fill back there.” I said, “That’s a band-aid and I’m not going to do it. It’s just going to erode again.”
Rehak: What did he say to that?
Kelly Callahan looking wistfully toward erosion on back of her property.
Callahan: He said, “As far as I can tell, in two and a half years, it’s going to be all the way up to your house.” (At this point, Callahan breaks down into tears.) “It’s already travelled over a hundred feet. My guess is that it’s already 20% of the way to your house.” And again he asked, “Did you ever get someone with heavy equipment to come out and give you a quote?”
Note how far erosion has cut into her back yard.
Rehak: You talked to Montgomery County Engineering instead.
Callahan: Right. Every department I talked to advised me why I shouldn’t. Had I been band-aiding this, I would have been fined by the MoCo permitting office. They were requiring me to hire an engineer and get a permit. The new owner of the former mine has the same problems.
Rehak: It doesn’t sound like you’re responsible for this. Headcut erosion happens when there’s an abrupt drop in a stream bed. That happened when the mine owner cut through the berm and lowered his pond. He created a miniature waterfall migrating upstream. That’s why they call it headcut.
Callahan: My son thinks he’s just trying to get my property on the cheap.
Despite the erosion and permitting issues, Callahan tries to keep smiling and enjoying the beauty that remains around her.
Rehak: Where do you go from here?
Callahan: I don’t want to move back to the suburbs. After being out here, you can’t really go back to that. I cry every day. It breaks my heart.
Callahan kayaking on the creek in her own backyard during happier times.
Posted By Bob Rehak on 6/21/26
3218 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/2026/06/DSC_5438.jpg?fit=1100%2C733&ssl=17331100adminadmin2026-06-21 14:38:132026-06-21 15:21:32Sand-Mine Breach Triggers Erosion Threatening Widow’s Home
Dr. Anna Weiss Becomes New Head of Bayou Land Conservancy
9/19/26 – On September 1, 2026, Dr. Anna Weiss became the new executive director of the Bayou Land Conservancy (BLC), one of the leading conservation groups in the Houston region. Dr. Weiss replaces Jill Boullion who retired after leading BLC for ten years. I interviewed Dr. Weiss about her background and priorities.
BLC’s primary focus is on the Lake Houston watershed which covers approximately 2500 square miles to the west, north, and east of the lake, which provides drinking water for more than 2.2 million people. BLC is nationally accredited and preserves land along streams for flood control, clean water, and wildlife.
PhD in Environmental Science from UT
Rehak: You earned your PhD in environmental science from UT. What attracted you to that field?
Weiss: I’ve always really loved nature. I grew up on a barrier island in New York, right outside of New York City. So, I spent a lot of time outside as a kid. Eventually, when I went to university, I studied anthropology. I was really curious about how and why humans are the way we are. And how climate and evolution intersect. At that time, I was doing a lot of field work in Kenya.
And then, in my senior year, Superstorm Sandy hit my hometown. That really made it clear that climate change is not just something happening far away. It’s affecting us. And it really made me want to do something about it.
So, I thought about the best way to make a difference. And eventually I decided to get a PhD and learn the science.
I studied geosciences at UT Austin to understand how climate impacted ecosystems and environments in the past. Now I’m applying that learning to what’s happening today. How can we preserve and protect our ecosystems?
Rehak: After UT, you went back to New York?
Weiss: Yes, but before that, I went to Belize. I did a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Belize Environmental Research Institute and applied my research to modern ecosystems. I became a professor there and continued my research. Then I went back to New York and started working with a conservation and restoration organization in New York City.
Work at Green Galveston Initiatives
Rehak: But most recently, you worked in Galveston.
Weiss: I was the director of Green Galveston Initiatives. Galveston reminded me a lot of the little barrier island I grew up on. And it had a lot of the same issues with hurricanes, flooding, and development.
You know, a lot of developers want to build skyscrapers on the beach. But that leads to all sorts of issues. So, I got to do some really exciting work there working on parks – city-owned parks that were just flooding constantly. One was Jones Park. We actually called it Jones Pond because it would just sprinkle and the thing would fill up with water. The other one was Shield Park and this was a park that was just covered in concrete and there was contamination beneath it. So, we couldn’t actually plant trees or anything to help with the heat and shade.
I worked with the city, engineers, architects and the community to make sure that these parks were not only going to help with the flooding and heat mitigation, but that they would also provide social and economic benefits for neighborhoods.
Spearheading Partnerships to Achieve Results
Those were two exciting capital projects. Another evolved organically. We found many organizations on the island were aligned. But they were not necessarily talking to each other. We had little pockets of groups doing great work. But they could be so much stronger working together and with the City of Galveston.
Galveston’s comprehensive plan was 15 years old; it was created after Ike. If we wanted to really change the way development was happening, we had to start with the local comprehensive plan, because land development regulations and ordinances evolve from that. The Planning Commission relies on it to say yes or no to a developer.
So, we put together a group of more than 30 partner organizations to find consensus on a comprehensive plan. Fifteen years later, we were able to analyze the past plan, find where the issues were, and start thinking about how other cities managed those issues?
Rehak: It sounds a lot like what we need up here.
Weiss: Montgomery County is one of the fastest developing counties in America.
So, it’s really important that we think about our land use and our natural resources. People need places to live. But their quality of life, health, and safety are also important.
Rehak: You don’t want to see homes flood repeatedly and create conditions that lead to future slums.
Weiss: Exactly.
Making Land Conservation Easier, Raising Awareness
Rehak: What are your priorities as BLC’s new leader ?
Weiss: My first priority is just to learn and listen. This organization has been around for 30 years and has been doing amazing work in a huge footprint. I’ve been here two weeks. So, priority number one is listening and learning.
I’m also very interested in how policies are affecting the kind of work that we can do as environmentalists. What are the levers of policy and the levers of change that we need at the local, state, and even federal levels? What do we need to do to make land preservation and conservation easier, more common? I’m digging into that side of things.
It’s also important for people to understand who we are and why we’re doing what we do. Many people look at land conservation as something that rich people do … to get tax breaks.
But that land also reduces flooding, cleans water, and preserves biodiversity. We need to make sure that everybody from all walks of life knows what we do, why, and how it can help them. So, there’s an educational priority.
We need to show people how nature-based solutions like bioswales can turn the ground into a sponge and absorb water so that we have less flooding and less pollution.
Rehak: Any other priorities?
Weiss: Those are the big ones.
Importance of Preserving Scarborough Property
Rehak: Let’s discuss a specific example. What would you like to see done with the Scarborough property?
Weiss: Great question. I will preface this by saying I’ve only been here a couple of weeks. But from what I’ve learned, that property is really important in protecting everyone downstream from flooding. If we develop that irresponsibly, it could become a huge problem, not just for the environment, but for people, the economy, and social cohesion. Flooding devastates all of those things.
I would love to see that land conserved, so that it can do what it’s supposed to do – absorb water.
Rehak: How do we preserve it?
Weiss: There are developers with deep pockets and political connections. That makes it difficult. But there are also a lot of concerned people. And our power is with people. I hope we can put enough pressure on the developers and policy makers to change their minds.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 9/19/2026
3308 Days since Hurricane Harvey
Through The Eyes of a Survivor: Harvey Remembered Nine Years Later
9/3/26 – This guest post about “Hurricane Harvey Remembered” is by Kathleen Todd Jordan. Ms. Jordan grew up in Kingwood and has lived here for almost 50 years. She met the man who would later become her husband while they were both enrolled at Kingwood Middle School. So, Jordan has deep ties to the community and its residents. During Hurricane Harvey, two of her neighbors died. Many others had their homes destroyed. On the ninth anniversary of the flood, she wrote a deeply moving memoir of the event and recovery from it. Jordan is also a newly appointed board member of the Lake Houston Dredging and Maintenance District. She gave me permission to reprint her story below.
Neighbors Helping Neighbors
Pics below show our dear family-friend’s home. The living room looked as though a whirlpool picked up all of the furniture and swirled it around. Rushing water and debris had pulverized the thick, picture windows.
Seeing people’s lives through their material objects piled high to the sky … it was just heartbreaking.
Harvey Remembered: Antibiotics, Amputation, Death and Anger
Now, this is where I have ZERO tolerance for the back talk from government entities – speech emanating mainly from Montgomery County (MoCo). When people from Kingwood hear some MoCo folks saying that we are just belly aching and no one died and “we flooded, too”…I say “Don’t go there.”
After the storm, we opened our home to a friend, who otherwise would have been packed off to the George R. Brown. We helped her muck out her home and her neighbor’s. Two doors down from where she lived, we mucked out a young man’s home with the help of his mother. She slipped and fell in the mud in his kitchen.
She cut her arm when she fell. The son asked if anyone had a first aid kit. I ran home to grab what I could. A couple of days later, we heard the mother was in the hospital with an infection.
That infection turned into MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), a type of staph bacteria that is resistant to many common antibiotics. In a last ditch effort to save her life, the medical team decided to start AMPUTATING BODY PARTS. Think about this MoCo, City of Houston, GLO, Harris County. She still died.
Just two blocks away, a husband attempted to start his portable generator. He dropped dead from a heart attack. Two deaths within two blocks. Two lives extinguished. Arguably, the loss of life could have been avoided. More such avoidable tragedies happened beyond the immediate area where I was working.
What Montgomery County Needs to Understand
Everyone reading this outside of Kingwood needs to understand these memories and heartaches go far beyond the material losses that have changed each of us.
When we hear the uninformed – especially those from MoCo – say things like, “No one died,” “lowering the lake does not work,” “we want to use our boats,” almost 80,000 people here beg to differ in no uncertain terms.
Did you know that almost 50% of all deaths from Harvey in Harris County happened in the Kingwood/ Lake Houston area?
So again, when someone from The Woodlands says, “Well, we flooded, too,” I respectfully say, “Go to hell!” No one died there.
Be a good neighbor, MoCo. Every single time we drive through that fair county and see all the unbridled development, it terrifies us. Boatloads of cement dumped on cleared land are replacing dense forests.
It infuriates ALL of us when our elected officials ask MoCo elected officials for a little consideration and they are told to “go pound sand.” We all know it and will never forget and never forgive.
The Ultimate Day of Reckoning
Those people will answer someday for their disregard for their neighbors. Perhaps not in this lifetime. But I firmly believe they will when they meet their Maker.
Don’t be fooled by my smile in flood-mitigation meetings. I know who you are and what you have done and failed to do.
All of this is to say, there is a group of people in Kingwood fighting to protect lives, homes and businesses. This is the main reason I eagerly agreed to serve on Lake Houston’s Dredging and Maintenance District Board. From Congressman Crenshaw all the way down to the incomparable reporting from Bob Rehak to Mark Micheletti being the lone Harris County voice on the SJRA board, it will take all of us to protect our community.
Get involved Kingwood. Do not let this happen again.
Posted by Kathleen Todd Jordan on 9/3/26
3292 Days since Hurricane Harvey
Sand-Mine Breach Triggers Erosion Threatening Widow’s Home
Kelly Callahan is a retired widow who loves fishing, kayaking and living near nature. That’s why she bought a home near the San Jacinto West Fork. Callahan accepted the flood risk. However, she didn’t expect that the man who bought the sand mine behind her wooded lot would partially drain the dredge pond into the river. Where a small creek flows across part of her property, the sudden drop in the pond’s elevation triggered what geomorphologists call “headcut erosion.”
About Headcut Erosion
Headcut erosion happens where flowing water reaches an abrupt, near-vertical drop. The falling water scours the base, causing the overhanging soil and plant roots to collapse. That forces the “waterfall” to rapidly migrate upstream. In Kelly’s case, it could soon threaten her home. Instead of fixing the sand-pit dike, the mine’s new owner has offered to buy the widow’s land for below-market value. I talked with her at length about her situation and options. But first, some pictures that illustrate what happened.
Impact on Widow
Rehak: You investigated this property pretty thoroughly before buying it.
Callahan: Yes, I even talked to the sand-mine foreman. Never on God’s green earth did I think that somebody would purchase it and then lower the pond and cause all of this damage.
Rehak: What did the new owner do?
Callahan: He hired someone to cut through the dike surrounding the mine. He said it was to prevent flooding the homeowners on our street. But the dike completely blew out and 10-20 feet of water from the pond went downstream with a tremendous amount of sand.
Rehak: You were dealing with some medical issues at the time?
Callahan: I had horrible sciatica and could barely walk. So, I couldn’t see what was going on back there until recently.
Rehak: What happened when he saw all the damage he caused?
Callahan: He started coming to me and saying “It’s eroding back there. You need to get some fill and fix it.
Rehak: Did you?
Callahan: No. He caused the problem.
Rehak: What happened the other day when you got 4.5 inches of rain in a few hours?
Callahan: He showed up unannounced and trudged back to his pond. When he came back, he said, “Kelly, we got a $100,000 problem now. You didn’t put any fill back there.” I said, “That’s a band-aid and I’m not going to do it. It’s just going to erode again.”
Rehak: What did he say to that?
Callahan: He said, “As far as I can tell, in two and a half years, it’s going to be all the way up to your house.” (At this point, Callahan breaks down into tears.) “It’s already travelled over a hundred feet. My guess is that it’s already 20% of the way to your house.” And again he asked, “Did you ever get someone with heavy equipment to come out and give you a quote?”
Rehak: You talked to Montgomery County Engineering instead.
Callahan: Right. Every department I talked to advised me why I shouldn’t. Had I been band-aiding this, I would have been fined by the MoCo permitting office. They were requiring me to hire an engineer and get a permit. The new owner of the former mine has the same problems.
Rehak: It doesn’t sound like you’re responsible for this. Headcut erosion happens when there’s an abrupt drop in a stream bed. That happened when the mine owner cut through the berm and lowered his pond. He created a miniature waterfall migrating upstream. That’s why they call it headcut.
Callahan: My son thinks he’s just trying to get my property on the cheap.
Rehak: Where do you go from here?
Callahan: I don’t want to move back to the suburbs. After being out here, you can’t really go back to that. I cry every day. It breaks my heart.
Posted By Bob Rehak on 6/21/26
3218 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.