Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham said Monday that the General Land Office is giving Harris County an additional year to spend more than $1.1 billion in federal disaster recovery and flood mitigation money tied to Hurricane Harvey, according to Community Impact and ReduceFlooding, which both reported the announcement.
The money comes from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, is administered by the General Land Office, and pays for projects the Harris County Flood Control District builds. Community Impact reports the extension covers 11 disaster recovery projects worth about $322 million and 17 flood mitigation projects.
The New Deadlines
| Program | Old deadline | New deadline |
|---|---|---|
| Flood Control District, disaster recovery | February 2027 | February 2028 |
| Flood Control District, mitigation | March 2028 | March 2029 |
| County Housing and Community Development, mitigation | August 2027 | August 2028 |
The first two rows are reported by both outlets. The third is reported by ReduceFlooding alone. Lake Houston Today has not independently confirmed the figures.
What Buckingham Said
Buckingham paired the extension with a warning. Community Impact quotes her saying “no more delays will be tolerated” and that “the time for excuses and missed benchmarks is over.” The General Land Office said in June that the county might not be able to meet the original deadlines at all.
Why It Matters Here
Harris County Flood Control District projects funded through these programs include work in the San Jacinto watershed that drains into Lake Houston, and the district is the agency behind much of the drainage and channel work in Humble, Kingwood, Atascocita and Huffman. A missed federal deadline would mean returning unspent money rather than building the projects.
Lake Houston Today has covered the county’s flood spending and project pipeline in its 2022 bond spending breakdown, the drainage master plan now being drafted for unincorporated areas, and the funding gap on the Lake Houston dam gates project.
