Editorial: Harris County spent $12.5 million to make a list of 200 drainage projects it cannot pay for

Opinion from the editorial desk.

Harris County’s engineering office has identified 200 drainage project areas in the unincorporated parts of the county. A $12.5 million state grant paid to find them. No money has been identified to build a single one.

Why it matters

A resident whose street goes under in a two-inch rain does not need a better map of the place where the water sits. At the county’s own range of $1 million to $20 million a project, the list that grant produced is worth somewhere between $200 million and $4 billion.

The county is presenting that list eight years after voters approved $2.5 billion in flood bonds to fix the same problem.

By the numbers

200 project areas, 50 in each of four regions
60 that advance to enhanced modeling, 15 per region
$1 million to $20 million per project, the county’s own range
$200 million to $4 billion, the arithmetic on the full list
$12.5 million, the Texas General Land Office grant that paid for the planning
$2.5 billion, the flood bond Harris County voters approved on August 25, 2018
Nothing identified to build anything on the new list

The other side

Planning is not waste, and the case for this work is stronger than the headline number suggests. State and federal construction money goes to projects that are already modeled, scoped and close to shovel-ready. A county that shows up to a grant cycle without that homework done gets nothing, and the neighborhoods that lose out are the ones with the least clout. The $12.5 million was state money, not local tax money, and it bought a document the county would otherwise have had to fund out of its own budget.

Here is the answer. A plan earns its keep when funding follows it. The 2018 bond was sold to voters as the plan and the money in one package. Eight years later the county’s answer on local drainage is a second list, a second round of modeling that finishes in January 2027, and a report due before March 2027. Nobody at the September 22 presentation put a construction date on anything.

This objection does not belong to one side. Residents who want the county to spend more on flood control and residents who want it to stop raising the tax rate end up in the same place: consultants were paid and no dirt moved.

What to watch

Public comment closes around the end of October. That is the one part of this a resident can act on right now.
Enhanced modeling on the 60 short-listed projects finishes in January 2027.
The final report goes to Commissioners Court before March 2027. Watch whether it names a funding source or orders another study.

Bottom line

We are not against the master plan. We are against calling it progress. The test arrives in about five months, and it is a simple one: when that report reaches Commissioners Court, does it name the money?

Sources

Editorial