Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) spending data obtained via a Freedom of Information Act Request shows that countywide:
Spending now tops $2 billion since Hurricane Harvey back in 2017
It modestly rebounded between the first and second quarters of this year
More money is now going to land acquisition and construction compared to other phases of the project lifecycle, while less money is going to upfront studies
On a per watershed basis, watersheds with a majority of Low-to-Moderate Income (LMI) residents still get far more than those with a minority of LMI residents.
Spending in the San Jacinto Watershed continues to lag despite high flood risk
Spending has fallen off a cliff in some watersheds.
For details, see below.
Modest Rebound Compared to 1Q24
The chart below shows HCFCD spending in 27 quarters since Hurricane Harvey. It shows a dramatic uptick between 2018 and 2021, followed by an even more dramatic decline through the first quarter of 2023. Since then, spending has averaged slightly more than $60 million per quarter, about half of the peak in 2021.
What accounts for the lower totals recently?
Changes in leadership and personnel turnover at HCFCD
Numerous changes in “equity” allocation formulas that required reprioritization of projects
Lengthy delays at Harris County Community Services involving more than $750 million in U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development funds.
COVID
Inflation during COVID forcing a re-evaluation of the Bond project list
The 2018 Flood Bond was considered a 10-year project. We are now almost 6 years into the bond, which was approved on the first anniversary of Harvey, but the money is only about 40% spent. That means projects are moving slower than originally anticipated. And that gives inflation a chance to gobble up a higher percentage of them.
More Money Now Going to Land Acquisition and Construction
On a positive note, more projects are moving off the drawing boards and into construction. You can see this trend most clearly by comparing two pie charts that show spending broken down by project phase. The first shows spending since Harvey and the second shows spending during the last quarter.
Looking back at the last 27 quarters, HCFCD spent 76% of its funds on right-of-way acquisition and construction. But during the last quarter, those combined percentages jumped to 85% – up 9%.
Meanwhile, feasibility studies and preliminary engineering reviews fell from 8% to 3% during the comparable periods.
Perhaps we’re starting to mitigate more than ruminate.
Since HarveyDuring second quarter this year
The following table may make it easier for you to compare percentages if you are viewing this on a phone.
Spending in Watersheds with Majority LMI Populations
The percentage of LMI residents in a watershed helps determine eligibility for flood-mitigation grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
Harris County has 23 watersheds. Of those, 8 have a majority of LMI residents.
Regardless, since Harvey, those 8 received almost as much money as the other 15 put together.
Since Harvey
Looking only at the last quarter, that trend has moderated somewhat.
Second quarter this year only
But on a per watershed basis, the 8 LMI watersheds still each receive an average of 5.5% of the budget. Meanwhile, the 15 other watersheds each receive an average of 3.7%.
This is largely a function of the weighting given to LMI-majority projects in Harris County’s equity prioritization project scoring formula.
Spending by Watershed: A Study in Extremes
Comparing bar graphs of spending by watershed shows extreme differences between the highs and lows that are getting wider.
Since Harvey, difference between high and low equaled 100 to 1.
Note also the disappearance of the middle ground.
During second quarter, difference between high and low equaled 375 to 1.
During the second quarter, the entire San Jacinto Watershed – the county’s largest – received less than $400,000 of support…while moving up from 13th place to 11th.
Harris County watersheds in the upper San Jacinto River Basin include Spring, Cypress, Willow, Little Cypress, Luce and San Jacinto. They all funnel through the Lake Houston Area.
Since Harvey, they have received about 20% of HCFCD spending. But they drain an area about 50% larger than where the rest of the other 80% of the money went.
And as we saw in May, that can have a huge impact on flood damage.
Third quarter flood-mitigation spending data is now available for Harris County Flood Control District and its partners. In some ways, the data shows a continuation of previous trends. But the data also contained some surprises. The major findings:
Spending continued to dip. Slower project delivery means inflation will claim an increasingly large percentage of taxpayer dollars and may force cancellation of some bond projects.
If the last quarter of this year is anything like the first three, we could see less than half the activity in 2023 than we saw in 2020.
The trend toward investing more heavily in minority areas continued and even accelerated. But there was one notable exception – Cypress Creek and its tributaries.
An unusual $9.7 million real-estate transaction for a stormwater detention basin near the Mercer Arboretum skewed the Cypress Creek total. That was 16.5% of all HCFCD spending for the quarter.
Without it, many of the numbers below would also have been skewed. For instance, total spending and average spending per watershed would vary dramatically.
The focus on so-called “equity” spending and the Cypress Creek watershed meant 15 watersheds saw less than a million dollars in activity during the quarter. And five of those received less than $100,000.
Let’s look at each and the implications. Everything below INCLUDES the unusual real estate transaction near Mercer. In several places, I note how things would have changed without Mercer.
Overall, Slowdown Magnifies Inflation Concerns
Overall, flood-mitigation spending dipped about 5% in the third quarter compared to the previous quarter. It declined by a little more than $3 million to $58.8 million. That may not sound like much, but it continues a 3-year downward trend and creates delays that expose residents to more flood risk.
As projects are delayed, their costs also escalate due to inflation, raising concerns about whether there will be enough money in the bond to finish all the projects promised to voters.
Spending this year will likely be a hundred million dollars less than the first full year of the 2018 flood bond – when projects were ramping up. See chart below.
Annualized estimate for 2023. 23Q4 data estimated based on average of first 3 quarters.Without Mercer, the 2023 estimate would be below $200 million.
Moreover, spending will be $200 million less than the peak year of 2020 – about half of what it was then.
Halfway through the 2018 10-year flood bond, HCFCD has spent only about a third of the funds approved by voters – $1.65 billion. However, if the present slowdown continues, this will be the third straight year of decline.
The slowdown in project delivery means inflation will increasingly raise costs and undermine the purchasing power of the dollars authorized by voters.
HCFCD acknowledges the serious impact of inflation in its latest bond update to Commissioners Court, and hopes toll-road money remaining in the Flood Resilience Trust will cover any shortfall.
Average Spending in LMI Areas Growing
Data also reveals that with one exception (Cypress Creek and its tributaries), the trend of preferentially allocating funds to Low-to-Moderate-Income (LMI) areas continued and even accelerated when measured by average spending per watershed.
On average during Q3, watersheds with a majority of LMI residents (hereinafter called “LMI watersheds”) received 2.5X more funding than more affluent watersheds – $3.1 million each vs. $1.2 million. That’s up from 1.7X over the longer period since Harvey. So, the gap is widening.
Without the Mercer real-estate transaction, the average for more affluent watersheds would have been cut in half to $600,000. That would have almost doubled the ratio. The recomputed average would created a 4.7X ratio between LMI and all other watersheds for the third quarter.
That trend will likely continue for some time as projects funded by HUD through the Texas General Land Office get approved and start construction. That pot of money will spread across the income spectrum, but projects in lower income areas will likely start first.
Cypress Creek Spending Explodes
In fifteen Harris County watersheds, more than 50% of residents make above the average income for the region.
As a group, those 15 received $18.6 million last quarter – $2 million more than the $16.6 million received by the eight LMI watersheds.
However, the first group is twice the size of the second. And looking deeper within the more affluent watersheds, we can see that Cypress Creek and its tributaries (Willow and Little Cypress) received 79% of that $18.6 million last quarter.
The three Cypress watersheds received almost 4X more funding than the 12 other watersheds in the more affluent category put together.
Cypress Creek and its tributaries consumed 79% of all HCFCD/Partner spending last quarter among watersheds without a majority of LMI residents.
Here’s how that same spending looks in a bar graph.
Only the first three watersheds on the left received more than a million dollars in Q3.The twelve on right received less than $1 millioneach.
The 12 other watersheds divvied up $3.8 million; they averaged just $348 thousand each.
FOIA request. Data supplied by HCFCD.
$348,000 is one ninth of the $3.1 million average for LMI watersheds. And we know that some of those, such as the San Jacinto, have huge, unmet needs.
Cypress Knocks Brays Out of First Place
Now, let’s look at ALL watersheds in both categories. When looking only at the third quarter, Cypress Creek surged into first place. It nudged out Greens, White Oak, Brays and Sims, all of which have LMI populations greater than 50%.
Includes all 23 watersheds during 23Q3.
HCFCD finished Project Brays 15 months ago, but still managed to spend $3.8 million there last quarter. That was almost 10X more than it spent during the third quarter in the San Jacinto watershed, the county’s largest, and where the flooding was deepest. HCFCD spent only $400 thousand in the entire San Jacinto watershed last quarter.
Comparison of 33 gages in Harris County during Harvey showed San Jacinto had worst flooding.
Brays Still Ranks #1 in Total Spending Since Harvey
Since Hurricane Harvey (not just last quarter), Brays still ranks #1. But Cypress now ranks second. If you added its Little Cypress and Willow Creek tributaries in the graph below to the Cypress Creek total, they would rank #1 by more than a $100 million.
Includes all 23 watersheds since Harvey
Brays even managed to increase in the last quarter by $1.5 million while the San Jacinto decreased by $55,000.
Granted, some watersheds have smaller needs than others, but the ratio between the highest and lowest spending exceeds 300X.
Impact of Equity Formula
The spending priorities shown in this post reflect the Equity formula adopted and periodically revised by Harris County Commissioners Court.
Ironically, the language approved by voters in the flood bond never mentions the word “equity.” Paragraph 14G does say that Commissioners Court shall provide for an “equitable expenditure of funds.”
The theory is that poor people are financially less able to fix their homes after a flood. I accept that.
But some commissioners are using that to push the idea of fixing 500-year flooding in poor neighborhoods before fixing 2-year flooding in more affluent communities.
Therefore, I ask:
At what point do we do we say enough money has gone into an LMI watershed and start spending elsewhere to reduce greater flood risk?
Why isn’t HCFCD publishing updated flood risk maps as it completes mitigation projects so we can make objective comparisons and see what our tax dollars bought?
Why does Harris County’s formula for allocating flood-mitigation funds NOT consider:
Flood damage to homes, businesses and retirement communities?
Damage to infrastructure, such as bridges, schools, hospitals, grocery stores, traffic arteries, water and sewage treatment plants, etc.?
Height of floodwaters, i.e., the severity of flooding?
Deaths caused by floods?
Is a poor person’s carpet worth more than a rich person’s life?
Will there be enough money in the flood bond and flood resilience trust to finish all projects in the bond given inflation?
Only 20% of Americans now say they trust government “just about always or most of the time.” That’s something to think about as we near the next election.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 10/15/23and updated 10/16/23 with additional info on Cypress Creek
2238 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.
After a sharp decline in the first quarter of 2023, Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) spending rebounded slightly in the second quarter. Second quarter spending did not recover to recent peaks, but at least exceeded pre-2018 Flood Bond levels.
Data obtained via FOIA Request from HCFCD on 8/14/23
One Third of Bond Money Spent in Half the Projected Time
However, HCFCD is still behind schedule with mitigation related to the 2018 flood bond. HCFCD has not issued a flood-bond update since last December. But you can calculate progress yourself by looking at the charts in this post.
Six years after Harvey and five years after the flood bond, HCFCD and its partners have spent approximately $1.6 billion to improve Harris County drainage.
Taxpayers approved $2.5 billion in the 2018 flood bond. Approximately a third of that was designated for matching funds to attract another $2.5 billion from Federal, State and local sources.
That means five years after the bond (and six years after Harvey) we are are roughly one third of the way through the bond, which was intended to be a ten-year program. And that one third is likely overstated due to inflation.
Spending Inequities
The County has not spent the money to benefit all people equally, thanks to the so-called Equity Plan approved by Commissioners Ellis, Garcia, and Judge Hidalgo. They argue that people with low incomes should enjoy a higher level of flood protection because they are less able to fix their homes after disasters.
Harris County tracks spending by watershed. Eight watersheds have a populations where Low-to-Moderate Income (LMI) residents comprise a majority of the population. Those same watersheds also tend to have high social vulnerability indexes based on the CDC’s ranking criteria.
Here’s how LMI-majority watersheds line up versus the county’s 15 other watersheds in terms of the money received since Hurricane Harvey.
Data obtained via FOIA Request from HCFCD on 8/14/23
Here’s how all watersheds ranked last quarter.
Data obtained via FOIA Request from HCFCD on 8/14/23
The San Jacinto declined a place in spending among the watersheds last quarter compared to “Since Harvey” (14th vs 13th). For the exact amounts each watershed received last quarter, see the table below.
Data obtained via FOIA Request from HCFCD on 8/14/23
Some readers might notice slight changes in the totals from past time periods. That has to do with ongoing transition of project and invoice coding in the county’s accounting systems. But they affect only about $2 million out of $1.6 billion. And most of those have to do with first quarter invoices received after my first quarter FOIA Request.
For those unfamiliar with the locations of various watersheds, see the map below.
From HCFCD 2019 Federal Briefing
Now compare spending to the actual flood damage during the last 44 years.
This map from MAAPnext, totals damage since 1979. Dark areas represent more damage. Compare the spending priorities above with actual damage in your watershed.
