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Kingwood flooding doesn't pass the smell test

77,063 Views | 567 Replies | Last: 5 yr ago by notheranymore
evestor1
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2:36p, 1/23/18
I am extremely happy to have this thread back!

I believe the crazy man speaking of illegal sand pits was trying to reference how sand pits have now been regulated on how much sand they are allowed to release into the river system. Years ago the regulations were nearly non-existent. When they began regulating it more the clarity of the water did change (from 3 inches to 2-4ft every so often.)


Dredging will always been an interesting thought. Reality is that if you want to fix it...you would only be able to exapnd the main body depth b/c the river is too volatile . Most likely would need a new damn also. As a 30 year plus lake houston resident, i would love to see the lake drained to 5% and allow a few hundred dozers and excavators scrape main body of the lake down. Bring average depth to 20ft rather than the current average of around 10ft. Probably would be done faster than 90% of road construction projects.
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Liquid Wrench
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In reply to CDUB98 • 2:39p, 1/23/18
CDUB98 said:
Well, if they did that, where would they get all the money to buy welfare votes and give lavish contracts to their buddies?
Yep. And one of the buddies was appointed "Flooding Czar'' after the voters rejected his campaign for mayor because he couldn't explain where any his drainage fee had gone.
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94chem
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2:44p, 1/23/18
Quote:
That's not to say that policies and procedures should not be reviewed and modified where necessary - but you are among one of the ones on this thread that have maintained that there was some type of criminal and deliberate act perpetrated
You're right - I'll just go back to the meeting minutes from when the SJRA Board was discussing its plans before and during the storm. I'm sure that will explain everything in a clear and competent manner.

One other question about your post - you go on about changing landscape, groundcover, etc. I assumed that sand-mining along a waterway would cause massive amounts of soil erosion that would be deposited downstream. We have one park on the river/lake that is completely covered by 4 - 8 feet of sand. I can only imagine what that is doing in the Lake itself. The effect of man-made changes on the waterways would seem to be pretty important to sort out.
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94chem
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2:49p, 1/23/18
Here's some more reading on sand mining:

Dave Martin, Dan Huberty, and the brilliant Jace Houston
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BowSowy
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2:58p, 1/23/18
AG
I mean, the guy you quoted agreed with you that dredging the lake would be a good idea, then laid out a list of the hurdles in the way. I remember you mentioning you were a scientist...I could've guessed that due to the fact that you keep looking at an idealized version of things and often seem to be ignoring the steps necessary to bring an idea to reality.
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schmellba99
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In reply to 94chem • 3:16p, 1/23/18
AG
94chem said:
Quote:
That's not to say that policies and procedures should not be reviewed and modified where necessary - but you are among one of the ones on this thread that have maintained that there was some type of criminal and deliberate act perpetrated
You're right - I'll just go back to the meeting minutes from when the SJRA Board was discussing its plans before and during the storm. I'm sure that will explain everything in a clear and competent manner.

One other question about your post - you go on about changing landscape, groundcover, etc. I assumed that sand-mining along a waterway would cause massive amounts of soil erosion that would be deposited downstream. We have one park on the river/lake that is completely covered by 4 - 8 feet of sand. I can only imagine what that is doing in the Lake itself. The effect of man-made changes on the waterways would seem to be pretty important to sort out.
I'm not going to touch your first remark, you are trying like hell to drag everybody down into a worm hole that has already been explored, filled in, dug back up, and filled back in on this thread.

RE: sand: It certainly could, would have to see the individual pits at various stages of flood to determine however. And keep in mind that the riverbed of much of the San Jac is sand given the natural sand and sandy loam formations in the area, so the odds are high that a whole hell of a lot of that deposited sand is natural formations. Well, natural formations created on man made formations by the river anyway.

Determining how much of the sand deposits is a result of natural material movement of the river versus a boost due to what might have been piss poor SWPPP practices would be difficult to discern though.
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Finn Maccumhail
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In reply to schmellba99 • 3:27p, 1/23/18
AG
I think the contention regarding the sand mining is that they've not been properly regulated and it creates a tremendous amount of sediment flowing downstream which has clogged the watershed and greatly decreased the depth/capacity of Lake Houston.
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schmellba99
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In reply to 94chem • 4:13p, 1/23/18
AG
94chem said:
Here's some more reading on sand mining:

Dave Martin, Dan Huberty, and the brilliant Jace Houston
Ok, so I read the article.

First thing I'm going to ask is for them to provide examples of these sand bars and islands that they claim were derived from sand pits, and provide tangible evidence of exactly what they contributed to during flooding.

Because here's a little secret - sand bars, islands, shallow areas, etc. are all natural occurrences on every single river of magnitude. San bars form on bends in the river when the velocity of water drops to a point that suspended solids will precipitate out and settle. The San Jacinto is not a magical river that this is the only occurrence of this happening in. Hell, islands "move" downstream all the time in rivers as a result of flowing water, flooding, erosion, etc. Islands form out of nowhere after floods, they disappear overnight sometimes - rivers are moving bodies of water that are in a constant state of change.

I have no exception or objection to sand pits being forced to keep their shiz clean - that's a good deal. But to try to place blame on that for the flooding is just looking for something to blame after a bad thing happened. River bottoms change all of the time - it's a natural occurrence. They silt in, they scour out, the riverbed changes course. Dredging the San Jac won't change anything and certainly wouldn't have changed anything during Harvey. All it would do is provide an almost negligible benefit, spend a lot of taxpayer dollars and probably make a politician somewhere rich.

FHK pointed out earlier in this thread that you could have started the event with Lake Houston completely empty and with the volume of water that was measured at the inflow - it would have filled up multiple times over in a shockingly short amount of time - about 3 1/2 hours. So you would have had a 3.5 hour stay of execution if the lake had been completely dry and at max design capacity when the flooding started. Once you hit that 3.5 hour window, you are right smack back to where you ended up anyway.

And the flows from Conroe down, which are the only controlled flows, only accounted for about 20% of the flows into LH anyway. Eliminate Conroe from the equation and you still have flooding issues.

There is a fundamental lack of understanding of how the system works, what the physical limitations are on the system, what the factors are that made this happen, and just how much friggin water was involved with this storm.

Let this sink in:

1 acre foot of water = 43,560 cubic feet of water
Peak inflow to LH exceeded 400,000 cubic feet per second water volume (I may be off on that, going off of memory)

That is 9.18 acre feet of water every SECOND. Essentially a football field 9 feet deep. Every second.
That is 550.96 acre feet of water every MINUTE. More or less Main Campus at A&M 1 foot deep. Every minute.
That is 33,057.85 acre feet of water every HOUR. More or less everything inside the loop from 45 east 1 foot deep. Every hour.
That is 793,388.43 acre feet of water in a DAY. About the size of the entire Galveston bay system - Christmas Bay, Bastrop Bay, West Bay, Galveston Bay, Trinity Bay and East Bay at 2 feet deep. In one day.

And the storm event lasted several days, not to mention the storm surge prolonged any drainage to the only place that it can drain to anyway.
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CDUB98
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8:00p, 1/23/18
AG
Damn, scmell just went in dry.
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sts7049
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In reply to schmellba99 • 8:26p, 1/23/18
AG
clearly he is trying to dredge out the wormhole
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94chem
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10:01a, 1/24/18
Quote:
There is a fundamental lack of understanding of how the system works, what the physical limitations are on the system, what the factors are that made this happen, and just how much friggin water was involved with this storm.
And Jace Houston, who makes $220,000/year to understand things, needs to explain things better, including before, during, and after the disaster.

At the risk of re-introducing a non sequitir, it is ironic that the numbers flow so easily out of your mind (I, too, can perform dimensional analyses), yet at no point during the release of water did the SJRA deem it necessary to recommend evacuation. If we assume that the entire scenario was inevitable, then the SJRA should have mentioned the impending release.

Nobody in Kingwood knew what was headed our way or when it was coming. My neighbor, who is a builder and knows as much about the waterways and flood zones as anyone, only began to take loss mitigation measures the afternoon of the flood. The HEB, really the epicenter of Kingwood, was open until 3 p.m., when water began to submerge cars. The only announcement that we could get on t.v., radio, internet, or text messages was that Kingwood Drive near town center was closing late that afternoon. That is a far cry from telling people that 80,000 cfps is headed your way and you need to evacuate. There was plenty of time to do so. All we could see on t.v. were the warnings about the Barker and Addicks Reservoirs.

In the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, part of the disaster was man-made. The racists in the United States refused to trust the weather reports from the Cuban weather station. Isaac Cline and others ignored the effects of storm surge. In Katrina, there were man-made contributions that contributed to the levee failures. There were man-made failures in the Johnstown dam failure.

I don't have the answers, but to the extent that the damage in the Lake Houston area was man-made, it is now time to understand that in order to limit the impact of future disasters.


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Finn Maccumhail
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In reply to schmellba99 • 10:39a, 1/24/18
AG
Quote:
I have no exception or objection to sand pits being forced to keep their shiz clean - that's a good deal. But to try to place blame on that for the flooding is just looking for something to blame after a bad thing happened. River bottoms change all of the time - it's a natural occurrence. They silt in, they scour out, the riverbed changes course. Dredging the San Jac won't change anything and certainly wouldn't have changed anything during Harvey. All it would do is provide an almost negligible benefit, spend a lot of taxpayer dollars and probably make a politician somewhere rich.

Doing some research, it appears these pits aren't keeping in compliance with much of anything which is making the erosion issues much, much worse and sending substantially more sediment downstream into Lake Houston than they should. This in turn has caused significant changes in the depth of the San Jacinto and Lake Houston.

I won't go so far as to say that would fix the flooding issues but proper policing of these operations would certainly improve the water quality in the river and the lake. I know that on the upper reaches of the East Fork, Peach Creek, Caney Creek, and Luce's Bayou where they don't have these mining operations the water gets surprisingly clear. We're talking a couple feet of visibility in a lot of places with the water being the classic, tannin-stained iced tea color. It's pretty cool to see fish dart out from under a laydown and smash your fly.
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redag06
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10:48a, 1/24/18
Give it up. I live in kingwood as well and we received all kinds of wanring of the impending flood. Via emergency response, Facebook, etc. I actually drove to the back of kingwood right after I got the blast, this was on Monday the 28th around 3pm.

You are still in "denial" and the facts don't agree with your narrative. My wife and I have a name for the "flooding kingwood with kindness" Facebook page, we call it "flooding kingwood with idiocracy" because so many idiots believe your narrative that there was no warning.
Maybe they were enjoying their hurricane parties too much to realize there were numerous warnings from EVERYONE.
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Al Bula
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10:57a, 1/24/18
AG
So many good threads get deleted yet this one remains. This garbage needs to die.
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schmellba99
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In reply to 94chem • 11:11a, 1/24/18
AG
94chem said:
Quote:
There is a fundamental lack of understanding of how the system works, what the physical limitations are on the system, what the factors are that made this happen, and just how much friggin water was involved with this storm.
1. And Jace Houston, who makes $220,000/year to understand things, needs to explain things better, including before, during, and after the disaster.

2. At the risk of re-introducing a non sequitir, it is ironic that the numbers flow so easily out of your mind (I, too, can perform dimensional analyses), yet at no point during the release of water did the SJRA deem it necessary to recommend evacuation. If we assume that the entire scenario was inevitable, then the SJRA should have mentioned the impending release.

3. Nobody in Kingwood knew what was headed our way or when it was coming. My neighbor, who is a builder and knows as much about the waterways and flood zones as anyone, only began to take loss mitigation measures the afternoon of the flood. The HEB, really the epicenter of Kingwood, was open until 3 p.m., when water began to submerge cars. The only announcement that we could get on t.v., radio, internet, or text messages was that Kingwood Drive near town center was closing late that afternoon. That is a far cry from telling people that 80,000 cfps is headed your way and you need to evacuate. There was plenty of time to do so. All we could see on t.v. were the warnings about the Barker and Addicks Reservoirs.

4. In the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, part of the disaster was man-made. The racists in the United States refused to trust the weather reports from the Cuban weather station. Isaac Cline and others ignored the effects of storm surge. In Katrina, there were man-made contributions that contributed to the levee failures. There were man-made failures in the Johnstown dam failure.

I don't have the answers, but to the extent that the damage in the Lake Houston area was man-made, it is now time to understand that in order to limit the impact of future disasters.


1. From a post earlier in this thread:

Quote:
I would just like to point out that SJRA put out a press release on 8/27 (and every day subsequent) that controlled releases from Lake Conroe would begin. Kingwood Dr was still passable (barely, but) on 8/28 per Guitarsoup on the Harvey Kingwood thread.

It isn't SJRA's fault that the news chose not to put emphasis on it. They reported it but it was more in passing than anything.

All that said, the onus is on the individual to know what to keep an eye on. I am in Spring and watch hydrographs for pretty much every watershed that could effect my area.

The tin foil hattery from the OP and a few others is stupid.

2. You may be able to do dimensional analysis, but you are incapable of accepting that information was out there - you just chose to not make yourself aware of it and are blaming others for not doing that for you.

3. I knew what was likely going to happen, and I don't live in Kingwood. I know because I was talking with my mom and dad, who live in Eagle Springs about what their possible situations might be. The information is out there, it's not hard to find. You just have to put the effort in and know what is around you.

4. Almost every single "natural disaster" has a man made component to it - because we typically don't consider it a disaster unless it affects man or man made structures.

Your "racist" comment about the 1900 hurricane tells me a lot about your views. First, the storm was only a tropical storm or a very weak hurricane when it crossed Cuba, they reported winds and heavy rains, but it was not a destructive storm like it was when it hit Galveston. Second, like today, there were disagreements in predictions on path - the Cubans though it would head west and make landfall closer to Matagorda or Corpus, the Americans thought it would take a not so unusual eastward curve and hit northern Florida. Just like with Harvey, the storm hit the gulf after Cuba and went from what was either a TS or a Cat1 to a killer storm. And we didn't have the prediction capabilities in 1900 like we do today, nor the ability to use mass media to warn residents. There were no computer models to make predictions at the time - it was all SWAGs with various opinions being what they were.

The Johnstown dam was an absolute sht show, pretty much every bad decision that could be made was made and then a massive amount of rain hit the reservoir and the dam failed. But that disaster also led to processes, regulations and procedures put in place on how to manage dams to prevent catastrophic failure from happening in the future.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with assessing a situation after the fact and making determinations about what could be done better in the event something similar happens again in the future - that's a smart thing to do. And that is what is being done at this moment across the entire southeast Texas area by every single municipality, water authority and .gov entity with respect to flooding issues. And guess what - some of those plans will be good, others will flat suck and fail at the next event. And maybe that's really what you are trying to do, but that's not what you are conveying with your posts. You are conveying that somebody didn't come hold your hand personally and tell you what was going to happen so you could save your possessions before hand.

Facts are that the information was out there - you apparently either didn't use the tools you had to access it, ignored it, didn't understand it or chose to bury your head in the sand and hope bad things didn't come your way. In addition, we had record rainfall in this event - nobody had any predictions about what might happen because simply put, there had never been a reason in the past to predict what might happen with various water supply systems in 2016 when 40" of rainfall hits a major metropolitan area that has 7MM people living in it.

I know this sounds callous, but sometimes bad things happen and we simply cannot plan for every single contingency that can be dreamed up, and playing Monday morning QB in an attempt to place blame just comes off as you being willfully obtuse about the situation, incapable of understanding the big picture and simply looking for somebody to blame in a very juvenile manner.
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schmellba99
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In reply to Finn Maccumhail • 11:14a, 1/24/18
AG
Finn Maccumhail said:
Quote:
I have no exception or objection to sand pits being forced to keep their shiz clean - that's a good deal. But to try to place blame on that for the flooding is just looking for something to blame after a bad thing happened. River bottoms change all of the time - it's a natural occurrence. They silt in, they scour out, the riverbed changes course. Dredging the San Jac won't change anything and certainly wouldn't have changed anything during Harvey. All it would do is provide an almost negligible benefit, spend a lot of taxpayer dollars and probably make a politician somewhere rich.

Doing some research, it appears these pits aren't keeping in compliance with much of anything which is making the erosion issues much, much worse and sending substantially more sediment downstream into Lake Houston than they should. This in turn has caused significant changes in the depth of the San Jacinto and Lake Houston.

I won't go so far as to say that would fix the flooding issues but proper policing of these operations would certainly improve the water quality in the river and the lake. I know that on the upper reaches of the East Fork, Peach Creek, Caney Creek, and Luce's Bayou where they don't have these mining operations the water gets surprisingly clear. We're talking a couple feet of visibility in a lot of places with the water being the classic, tannin-stained iced tea color. It's pretty cool to see fish dart out from under a laydown and smash your fly.
I'd like to see the research.

I don't doubt that it happens and that there are some downstream effects - there always are with man made things. But sand pits don't want sand flowing downstream, because it is a revenue loss to them. Not that the guys running these pits are generally rocket scientists either, but they do understand money and the need to protect their pits from flooding as much as possible. Because pumping water out of a pit after a flood is expensive, and you don't make money when that is happening.

If they are that far out of compliance, then they certainly need the hammer laid down on them, no doubt about it. A lot of clarity issues are from the signficant upstream developments along the forks of the San Jac though. Neighborhoods make dirty water, plain and simple.
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Finn Maccumhail
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In reply to schmellba99 • 2:58p, 1/24/18
AG
Just to be clear, it's not research I've done, I just googled "San Jacinto River illegal sand mining" and read what others have done. Like this:

https://communityimpact.com/houston/development-construction/2015/08/26/development-strains-san-jacinto-river-ecosystem/

https://tpwmagazine.com/archive/2006/dec/ed_3/

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94chem
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3:22p, 1/24/18
Quote:
Your "racist" comment about the 1900 hurricane tells me a lot about your views.
Wow. Just what I gleaned from Eric Larson's book. Not a stretch to assume that darker-skinned weather reporters would be less-believable 118 years ago, as Larson relates. Even the Galveston Hurricane museum declares Isaac Cline a hero to this day. History has a way of whitewashing a lot of things... Newt Knight's great-grandson (1/8th black) was sentenced to 5 years in prison for marrying a white woman, which wasn't even made legal until 1967. Its not my view; it's the view of our country. Being married to a historian can be pretty cool sometimes.

Quote:
I actually drove to the back of kingwood right after I got the blast, this was on Monday the 28th around 3pm.
I wasn't out driving or partying. I was moving stuff upstairs at that point in case we flooded, calling MD Anderson to see how the status of our scheduled double mastectomy would be affected, looking for a place to stay, communicating with friends who were beginning to take on water, having trees cut out of my street so we would be able to evacuate, wondering how I'd be able to move a disabled child through high water, debating whether to move the car to higher ground (I didn't because too many trees were falling), etc.

Quote:
I know this sounds callous, but sometimes bad things happen and we simply cannot plan for every single contingency that can be dreamed up
My home is about the 5th most important crisis in my life right now. I lost the illusion of control long ago; God has all of this stuff in his hands. Seeking the truth isn't a character flaw just because it is largely a lost art.
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tk for tu juan
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3:27p, 1/24/18
A large supply of fine aggregate for concrete. Just imagine if there was a project needing large amounts of concrete to go from Houston to Dallas.
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JSKolache
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In reply to 94chem • 10:23p, 1/24/18
AG
94chem said:
Quote:
And then look at Lake Houston itself- Kingwood sits at a pinch point in the drainage above the 1960 bridge. That portion of the lake is very shallow in many parts, much of it silted in and there's tons of debris which washes down from upstream that chokes off the flow and caused the water to back up into Kingwood. And that has even affected the lower part of the lake by silting in channels and deeper water.
[I heard a rumor that] Schlumberger offered the city to dredge Lake Houston years ago, accepting the sand as payment. The city apparently said "no," and tried to charge them for it. I don't have the link, but this would have been par for the course under Lee Brown. Here's a link from 2011 when Ted Poe tried to get the lake dredged during the drought.

Dredging Lake Houston

Here's a haunting article from 2016, when Mayor Turner went to DC to ask for funds:

Turner to DC

Lake Houston definitely needs dredging, as its capacity has been reduced by 50%.
Free frac sand!
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schmellba99
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In reply to Finn Maccumhail • 12:08p, 1/25/18
AG
Finn Maccumhail said:
Just to be clear, it's not research I've done, I just googled "San Jacinto River illegal sand mining" and read what others have done. Like this:

https://communityimpact.com/houston/development-construction/2015/08/26/development-strains-san-jacinto-river-ecosystem/

https://tpwmagazine.com/archive/2006/dec/ed_3/

I've no doubt that the sand pits have some degree of causation. My questions would be "where is the fuggin TCEQ?" I thought the entire purpose of this .gov entity was for things of this nature. Lord knows they put enough regulations on me for construction site discharge water and anything else they may be able to levee a fine with.

I'd also look at Spring Creek - any waterway that is more or less surrounded by development is going to lose any pristine character it once had. And everything draining into the San Jac west fork is surrounded by development.

Having said that, they aren't the reason why Kingwood flooded either though, which is what 94chem was trying to point the finger at earlier. Do they have skin in the game? Sure they do. To what degree is unknown, and I'd be all on board with the .gov actually doing their job and enforcing existing regulation on operations that are not within the confines of the law because I like clean rivers as much as anybody else.
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Finn Maccumhail
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In reply to schmellba99 • 2:40p, 1/25/18
AG
Honestly, my issues with the sand mining, etc are almost wholly about the water quality in the watershed as it relates to outdoor pursuits.

I don't know why TCEQ hasn't been more stringent and I know these mining operations are not the sole cause of the problems. I'm not sure that all the water dumped by Harvey wouldn't have flooded Kingwood and parts of Atascocita even if they didn't exist. It's just simple geography and the flow of the water.

This photo shows the upper end of Lake Houston with the 1960 bridge and the area where the West Fork of the San Jacinto flows into the lake.



Above the bridge to the west you have Cypress Creek, Spring Creek which drain into the West Fork. Then almost due north you have Peach Creek and Caney Creek that merge into the East Fork of the San Jacinto. Northeast of the bridge you have Luce's Bayou. The bridge itself has pilings for the water to flow around but mostly rests on large islands of rip-rap and fill. All of this means the water has a pinch point which interrupts flow. When combined with the tremendous amounts of sediment and general flotsam to stack up and form all kinds of islands and sand bars which further impede flow. This then backs up into Kingwood when you've got those trillions of acre-feet of water coming down due to Harvey.

Combine all that with the amount of Lake Houston shoreline that's been bulkheaded and you create the bath-tub effect so the sediment doesn't settle out and the water stays churned up & muddy.

It's just not good for watershed.

How do we fix it? I really don't know.
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schmellba99
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In reply to Finn Maccumhail • 4:52p, 1/25/18
AG
Finn Maccumhail said:
How do we fix it? I really don't know.
There are ways to fix it, but there isn't a sole out there willing to actually do it because it would be political suicide to do so and come at a cost that nobody is willing to endure. Simple as that.

That being said, if the sand pits are actually causing issues then TCEQ needs to do it's job and force the companies to comply with law. That's not something anybody would argue against, except maybe some sand pit owners.



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Bag
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7:08p, 3/23/18
AG
https://thegoldenhammer.net/after-governor-abbott-orders-it-to-do-so-san-jacinto-river-authority-finally-agrees-to-fulfill-its-statutory-duty-to-provide-flood-control-after-only-83-years/

Hmmmmmm
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NomadicAggie
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10:43p, 3/23/18
AG
So far Abbott has appointed three new board members with ties to downstream of the lake. He's also flown around in a helicopter here to see the river and the problem. I'd say it's getting attention, now we need action.
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aggiebq03+
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In reply to Bag • 10:43a, 3/24/18
thegoldenhammer.net

LOL!
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Al Bula
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In reply to Bag • 11:09a, 3/24/18
AG
Bag said:
https://thegoldenhammer.net/after-governor-abbott-orders-it-to-do-so-san-jacinto-river-authority-finally-agrees-to-fulfill-its-statutory-duty-to-provide-flood-control-after-only-83-years/

Hmmmmmm
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Ferris Wheel Allstar
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In reply to Bag • 1:04p, 3/24/18
AG
Bag said:
https://thegoldenhammer.net/after-governor-abbott-orders-it-to-do-so-san-jacinto-river-authority-finally-agrees-to-fulfill-its-statutory-duty-to-provide-flood-control-after-only-83-years/

Hmmmmmm


Keep beating that drum
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FHKChE07
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6:28p, 3/24/18
AG
So I swear, after reading the article, it appears that some of the people in this thread apparently were at a meeting in the article. They are asking the same stupid questions and then not understanding the answers and getting hostile.
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94chem
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8:24p, 3/25/18
Took the kids out on the new beach last weekend. It's maybe the most beautiful beach in Texas - pristine sand, hundreds of yards wide, greater than a mile long, and probably 15 feet deep (including under water depth). It's amazing, and it's 20 yards off the boat launch into Lake Houston at Kingwood's River Grove Park. I'm serious, you have to walk on this to believe it.

I order to get to this sand bar, you have to either take a kayak or swim, or walk upstream where the sand connects to the shore. If you've ever tried to walk through East Texas woods, you know it's impossible. However, these woods are equally amazing. All of the underbrush is dead, covered in feet of sand. All that is there is the trees, and a bit of spring growth on the ground. I was walking on this sand which must be >3 feet deep, and this sand is ~ 3 feet above the water. Up in the trees, there is debris 10 feet high. This means that 15+ feet flowed through here, which explains how so much sand got deposited.

Anyway, it's obviously a disaster, but this sand is just incredible. There are a few places where the water even looks okay to play in, but you know, it's still Lake Houston...
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Al Bula
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In reply to 94chem • 9:37p, 3/25/18
AG
94chem said:
Took the kids out on the new beach last weekend. It's maybe the most beautiful beach in Texas - pristine sand, hundreds of yards wide, greater than a mile long, and probably 15 feet deep (including under water depth). It's amazing, and it's 20 yards off the boat launch into Lake Houston at Kingwood's River Grove Park. I'm serious, you have to walk on this to believe it.

I order to get to this sand bar, you have to either take a kayak or swim, or walk upstream where the sand connects to the shore. If you've ever tried to walk through East Texas woods, you know it's impossible. However, these woods are equally amazing. All of the underbrush is dead, covered in feet of sand. All that is there is the trees, and a bit of spring growth on the ground. I was walking on this sand which must be >3 feet deep, and this sand is ~ 3 feet above the water. Up in the trees, there is debris 10 feet high. This means that 15+ feet flowed through here, which explains how so much sand got deposited.

Anyway, it's obviously a disaster, but this sand is just incredible. There are a few places where the water even looks okay to play in, but you know, it's still Lake Houston...

























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In reply to 94chem • 9:47a, 3/26/18
AG
94chem said:
Took the kids out on the new beach last weekend. It's maybe the most beautiful beach in Texas - pristine sand, hundreds of yards wide, greater than a mile long, and probably 15 feet deep (including under water depth). It's amazing, and it's 20 yards off the boat launch into Lake Houston at Kingwood's River Grove Park. I'm serious, you have to walk on this to believe it.

I order to get to this sand bar, you have to either take a kayak or swim, or walk upstream where the sand connects to the shore. If you've ever tried to walk through East Texas woods, you know it's impossible. However, these woods are equally amazing. All of the underbrush is dead, covered in feet of sand. All that is there is the trees, and a bit of spring growth on the ground. I was walking on this sand which must be >3 feet deep, and this sand is ~ 3 feet above the water. Up in the trees, there is debris 10 feet high. This means that 15+ feet flowed through here, which explains how so much sand got deposited.

Anyway, it's obviously a disaster, but this sand is just incredible. There are a few places where the water even looks okay to play in, but you know, it's still Lake Houston...
Pictures or it didn't happen.
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94chem
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10:50a, 3/26/18
Quote:
Pictures or it didn't happen.

Even if you were being serious, I don't know how to do that. Anyway, I wouldn't post pictures of my family here.
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schmellba99
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In reply to 94chem • 11:09a, 3/26/18
AG
94chem said:
Quote:
Pictures or it didn't happen.

Even if you were being serious, I don't know how to do that. Anyway, I wouldn't post pictures of my family here.
Don't you have hundreds of patents and what not, and you can't figure out how to click a button to post a picture?

I'm assuming these pictures are in the same place the pictures are of the lake drained completely before Harvey hit then.
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Quantum ace
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12:41p, 3/26/18
AG
This thread is awesome. It makes me realize that the people I work for are not actually the biggest idiots in the world.
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