LCA President’s Update – December 29, 2025
In our September 12th letterwe raised concerns about a request for an unnecessary and significantly increased Lake Conroe release rate. This nonpublicly reviewed, high rate lowering request was approved by the Texas Environmental Commission on Quality (TCEQ). The request was submitted in late July by the San Jacinto River Authority (SJRA) and the City of Houston (CoH) and quickly approved by the TCEQ in late September.
The SJRA/ COH sought approval to triple the permitted release rate. After being in place for many years, why was the old release rate now inadequate? The higher rate is not needed to provide ample CoH back up water supplies so why make the request?
Why? While lowering has been claimed to have flood reduction benefits, it really is nothing more than an intentional distraction from the long-term failures of implementing needed flood mitigation projects in North Harris County. This is despite billions in flood tax funds collected for that purpose since the 1980’s. It is now clear that while so much of Texas is starved for water, governmental entities are willing to dump Lake Conroe water, a needed resource into the Gulf to distract from inaction.
It is time for all Lake Conroe area residents to understand this recent approval, made outside of public knowledge, will have an impact on our water supplies. The SJRA / CoH request to triple the authorized diversion release rate was nonpublicly filed with the TCEQ in July. The LCA sent two letters of objection in July and September. TCEQ approved the request anyway. LCA then filed a formal motion to overturn (MTO) in November.
In approving the almost 300% increase in the permitted Lake Conroe (LC) lowering rate TCEQ never responded to the LCA, ignoring our letters and the MTO. Thesecited serious concerns and risks which were not identified in the original SJRA filing as follows:
The TCEQ permit does not allow for wasting water (or flood control). The LCA has provided indisputable evidence that 100% of the water diverted from Lake Conroe to Lake Houston could not have been used for water supplies but instead was discharged and wasted.
Further, the new increased daily release rate is 18 times more than is needed for daily permitted uses and arrives at a time when excess water is being discharged and not used.
The permit request never mentioned that the higher rate was intended for increasing lake lowering releases for flood mitigation – this was left out of the application intentionally.
The effort is clearly an avoidance of the normal public approval process for a highly debated water use. The public deserved to provide their input about this new program.
TCEQ has chosen to ignore the LCA letters of objection and the motion to overturn. The LCA will be pursuing further action regarding this TCEQ decision in the upcoming months.
Sadly, the Lake Conroe “temporary” lowering programs have now wasted almost 50 billion gallons since 2018 (est value $250M). The lowering programs brought long duration low lake levels, damage to bulkheads, negative environmental impacts, and cost jobs.
Do not forget seven years ago we were promised lake lowering would be “temporary.”
In our view the request for an increased diversion rate is proof of the SJRA’s intent to continue lowering indefinitely and to do so without or with only a minimal review.
We plan to hold a Townhall covering the above issue and other concerns on Friday January 16, 2026, at 9AM at the Conroe Chamber office. Please attend.
By early next week we will have uploaded documents to our LCA website involving the increased diversion rate and other topics of concern. We will follow this letter with another President’s letter by January 2nd which will summarize what has been placed on the website and explain a recent LCA request made of the SJRA Board of Directors. We are asking that our members and area residents take the time to read the summaries about the LCA actions and concerns after we post the summaries and full documents at https://lcatx.org/ .
As a 501c.3 nonprofit charity we need annual donations to continue our efforts. We have spent half of our reserve fund in 2025 for legal, technical, and meteorological studies. Please become a voting member by donating $100 or contribute any other amount, higher or lower, via our website. We need your full support to help us meet our mission, to conserve water resources for future Montgomery County growth and needs.
Our water needs are clear and simple, More water, more accountability, less waste.
Kevin Lacy
President of the Lake Conroe Association
PS – I want to thank our state representative Will Metcalf for his recent effort and letters to TCEQ and SJRA. Those letters will be posted on the LCA website and linked to this President’s letter.