SJRA will vote on seasonal lake lowering 02/20 in Conroe

[Elderberry]

Houston Chronicle by Savannah Mehrtens Feb. 19, 2020

The San Jacinto River Authority will determine the fate of temporary seasonal lowering of Lake Conroe tomorrow. The SJRA board will vote on the controversial policy on Feb. 20 at 6 p.m. at the Lone Star Convention Center.

The SJRA board has voted every year since Harvey to lower the lake by 1 foot below normal pooling level throughout April, then by 2 feet below normal pooling level, starting in August and lasting until the end of September.

Lake Houston area residents and leaders are in favor of lake lowering because it provides crucial flood mitigation for residents and business owners that live along the West Fork San Jacinto River, which caused Kingwood and the surrounding areas to flood during Hurricane Harvey.

The upcoming board meeting follows two divisive meetings, both held in Conroe, where residents from the Lake Conroe area wore red shirts that read “Stop The Drop” to indicate to the board that they are against the lowering of the lake. The most recent meeting on Jan. 21 had over a thousand people in attendance and went on for hours as the board listened to dozens of 3-minute statements from the public.

More: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/neighborhood/kingwood/news/article/SJRA-will-vote-on-seasonal-lake-lowering-tomorrow-15068461.php

[thackney]

Related history:

Lake Conroe dam's releases cause flood of lawsuits
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Harvey-s-Niagara-Moment-Lake-Conroe-dam-releases-12272868.php

In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, officials at the Lake Conroe dam began unprecedented releases into the West Fork of the San Jacinto River, sending an amount of water rushing downstream that approached the average volume pouring over Niagara Falls.

Now hundreds of property owners down river are in court, demanding the San Jacinto River Authority, the overseers of the dam, be held accountable for releasing about 106 billion gallons of water into their communities and flooding thousands of homes in Montgomery and northern Harris County....

...Nobody warned them the water would rise rapidly from the river, about a half-mile away. Nobody told them their home likely would be engulfed. Nobody told them they might lose everything.

"There are people who clearly were not flooded until they released that dam," said Derek Potts, an attorney handling one of at least two lawsuits filed against the river authority and the Texas Water Development Board. "It doesn't seem like it was very controlled. Why couldn't they have done it more orderly and gradual? Some homes look like a bomb went off."...