Harris County Commissioners Court meets Thursday, October 15 at 9 a.m., and 44 items on the agenda come from the Harris County Flood Control District, according to ReduceFlooding, which read through the posted agenda. Together they cover more than $30 million in flood control contracts and $75 million in grant agreements with the Texas Water Development Board.
Everything below is on the agenda for consideration. Commissioners Court has not voted on any of it, and an item appearing on an agenda is not the same as an item being approved.
The State Grant Agreements
Eight grant agreements with the Texas Water Development Board are up for consideration, totaling $75 million. One of them is in the Lake Houston area: $5 million for Kingwood Diversion Ditch improvements in the San Jacinto River watershed. This site covered that item separately on Monday in A $5 Million State Grant for Kingwood Diversion Ditch Improvements Goes Before Harris County Commissioners.
The remaining seven are spread across other parts of the county: $22.5 million for Cypress Creek repairs near the Kickerillo-Mischer Preserve, $15 million for the Helms stormwater detention basin and channel conveyance in the Halls Bayou watershed, $11 million for Cloverleaf area drainage improvements in the Carpenters Bayou watershed, $10 million for the South Mayde Creek bypass channel, $6.5 million for the West Little York stormwater detention basin, $2.5 million for the Halls Aldine Westfield South detention basin, and $2.5 million for channel modification and detention basins in the Greens Bayou mid reach area.
The Disaster Recovery Discussion
The agenda also asks commissioners for a discussion and potential action on a path forward for the county’s federal disaster recovery and mitigation grant programs, the money known as CDBG-DR and CDBG-MIT. ReduceFlooding describes this as the most contentious item of the 44.
Reading from a county spreadsheet dated September 15, ReduceFlooding reports the county had spent about $69.8 million of $850 million across 30 projects, or roughly 8 percent. Seven subdivision drainage projects totaling $112.5 million are in the program, two of them complete. The program carries a minimum spending requirement of $322 million.
The deadline attached to that requirement has moved. The Texas General Land Office granted Harris County a one year extension last week, pushing the disaster recovery deadline from February 28, 2027 to February 28, 2028, and the mitigation deadline from March 31, 2028 to March 31, 2029. This site reported that extension Tuesday morning in Harris County Flood Control Reports to Commissioners Court Thursday on Harvey Projects After a One Year Deadline Extension. Anyone reading spending figures against the original 2027 date should account for the extra year.
The Contracts
About $31 million in contracts and renewals are on the agenda. The largest is a $6,186,800 low bid contract with Ceballos Construction for channel repairs across the Vince Bayou, Armand Bayou, San Jacinto and Galveston Bay, Clear Creek and Brays Bayou watersheds. Others include a $3.5 million renewal with A. Morfin Trucking for concrete channel lining repairs, $2,036,970 with HR Green for engineering on the Helms detention basin, $977,450 with Outreach Strategists for community income surveys tied to mitigation projects, and $429,619 with ArborTrue for hazardous tree removal.
The agenda also carries a $393,210 joint funding agreement with the United States Geological Survey for surface water research, which is the federal agency that operates the Lake Houston gauge this site reports twice a day.
Why This Matters Here
The San Jacinto River watershed item is the one with a direct Lake Houston area address, but the disaster recovery discussion covers the funding stream behind drainage work across the county, including projects in this part of it. None of the three sources read for this post names the individual projects that will come up in Thursday’s discussion, so which specific Kingwood, Humble or Atascocita work is in the portfolio is not yet public from a primary source.
