The Lake Houston dam gates project is 90 percent through design and still $195 million short of what it needs to be built, officials told residents at a District E town hall on Monday, September 22, at the Kingwood Community Center.
Greg Olinger, executive director of the Coastal Water Authority, board member Dan Huberty and Black & Veatch vice president Chris Mueller presented the project, which would add 11 gates to the dam’s existing four-gate structure. Community Impact reports the total construction estimate now stands at $315 million, with $120 million identified so far. Officials said they plan to seek the remaining money from the state when the Legislature convenes in January 2027.
Permitting is expected to begin in December 2026. If funding and an Army Corps of Engineers permit come through, construction would run from the second quarter of 2028 to the end of 2030.
Writing separately about the same presentation, Bob Rehak of ReduceFlooding.com reports that the new gates would raise the dam’s release capacity from about 10,000 cubic feet per second to roughly 84,000, and that they would be built on the earthen eastern section of the dam about 500 feet east of the existing spillway rather than cutting into the 75-year-old concrete spillway itself. He also reports the construction estimate has risen from $274 million in January 2026 to the current $315 million figure.
Both accounts put the expected benefit at roughly a 20 percent reduction in the number of structures that flood. Rehak reports the modeling shows flood heights coming down about 1.8 feet in a 100-year storm and in a repeat of Hurricane Harvey.
Huberty told the room that Lake Houston supplies water for roughly 7.5 million people.
The gates project is separate from the dredging work covered by the Lake Houston Dredging District, whose board is working through its own funding question on a January deadline. The town hall itself was announced last week.
Read the full report at Community Impact, and Bob Rehak’s account at ReduceFlooding.com.
