The draining of Lake Conroe

Not sure how many of you guys know but Lake Conroe is in danger of being significantly drained. There has been significant political pressure as a result of Harvey for the City / State to take action. There have been several plans put forth but the current plan is for the SJRA to lower Lake Conroe by 2 feet starting Aug 1. They will then allow it to begin refilling on OCT 1. Given our typical winter rainfall it will likely be close to christmas before the water level's return. Most of the boat docks on the lake are in approx 4 ft of water. Given that Conroe has always been near constant level, dredging and permitting of docks limit most to 4ft of water. A study was just completed that said the current plan will reduce property values by approx 2 billion dollars due to loss of water access. It will certanly change the fishing on the lake at a minimum so if you had Conroe on your bucket list you better get out to fish it.


Matt

That certainly sucks but if it helps keep Houston from getting flooded as badly then I'd encourage it.

Meh it'll make the offshore stuff even better. That's where most of bags come from anyways. If you can afford to live on the water on Conroe I bet you can afford to extend your dock.

....Can't wait....
Looking to buy a piece of property there.
I just hope the property values plummet
....one thing is for sure, they lake level and the values will come back up
no way they will let the lake be so low that the home owners would be affected long term...... too much pressure.
short term,,,,yes bit not long term.

A measly 2ft, you'd chit if you lived in one 40ft low like I do.

If Conroe is on your bucket list of lakes then we may need to visit about what fishing is to you.

Also, the only boats that have issues getting out of the docks in 2ft of water are the ones I prefer to keep of the water anyways.

If it's a flood control lake then...yeah it does make sense.

It's not the first lake they've done that to in Texas.

So it will be low for a couple of months. That will make the spring bite great if you get some shoreline stuff to growing.

I need to extend mine by about 3/4 of a mile to get to deeper water

The plan is to lower it 1 ft on April 1st. Then allow it to return to normal pool beginning June first. The on August 1st draw it back down 2ft by August 15. Back to normal pool beginning Oct 1st. Coming back up of course is dependent on how much rain occurs.

So it could be at normal pool from early Oct to Apr 1 then again from June to August 1. That's close to 8 months of the year.

Fishing will get better with the lowering. For fishing bring it on. Even the docks with water could get better as it's easier to get a bait under them. Shore grass should grow back which helps the spawn and fishing when the lake is at full pool. Offshore fishing gets better too. The shad spawn was ridiculous when the lake was down. However down 1 ft in April during the shad spawn isn't too likely to make that much of a difference.

You might get a summer where starting a foot low and then no rain gets it lower.

FYI, the consensus among floodplain engineers is that lowering Conroe 2 feet will have absolutely zero effect on flooding in Houston. This is simply the Lake Conroe authorities caving in to political pressure from uninformed politicians. Good luck.

I helped the good folks of Houston and Beaumont muck out their homes last year for a few weeks. Many of those homes survived the hurricane just fine but did not survive the flood that happen as a result of having to open spillways to keep dams from bursting. If they need to draw down some lakes in an effort to protect peoples lives and homes, I am OK with that. The devastation was massive and I felt so bad for people that are just like you and I, as we through their hard earned possessions on the street. Anyway, I am sorry for folks who live on Conroe that might have their property values go down some but if it helps the folks down stream it is probably worth it.

Ive always liked fishing Conroe when its a few feet low. It Sounds like its for a good cause, and if it rises by dec then it shouldn't hurt the spawn.

You get a hurricane over Conroe or even just a tropical depression with excessive rainfall, 2ft won't mean anything...

SJRA is basically in a lose/lose situation. A few years ago the lowered the lake and the hurricane basically missed the area. Lake got really low and affected many homeowners. Last year they didn’t lower it and got a ton of water therefore upsetting people downstream in Kingwood and other areas. I work with a lot of people that got flooded. It’s sucks no doubt about it but look where Kingwood is. Spring Creek, San Jacinto, flowing right in to the area. Lots of blame to go around but the developers could care less. Maybe homeowners should be a little responsible also. Flood insurance is cheap, really cheap. When you make several hundred thousand a year and you’re too cheap to buy flood insurance isn’t right either. I would neve even think of buying a home in Kingwood. I moved from Tennessee and all you have to do is look at the area and it’s a disaster. I looked around and immediately eliminated the Kingwood area.

Right on!

Harvey was a once every 1000 year event . Some have said once every 10,000 years event. Has Lake Conroe ever caused flooding like it did in 2017 or ever prevented it? Latta is probably right .

It’ll be interesting to see what they do. There’s a lot of money on Conroe and we know money always seems to win. I doubt pre releasing Conroe would have mattered but you’ll never convince most Kingwood homeowners of that. Most of ones I know are part of a lawsuit and think they’ll win. I tell them they are crazy and the only persons that’ll win are the lawyers.

Pre Loweing the Lake a foot or two in case we get another rain event like Harvey is like arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

More of a issue to me is how they let it rise without increasing the flow enough then they had to go to a crazy high release rate. I think they miscalculated the in flow or at least how long the in flow could keep that rate up.

Heard yesterday Lake Houston only has two release gates at the dam, is that true? If they’d pre releaed and Kingwood would have gotten all the water and it missed Conroe then they’d be screwed, it’s a lose/lose situation I think. All a gamble

I saw something that said it is a 3 year plan until they come up with a better solution

I am willing to bet your boat cant get out of a dock in 2ft of water. You need 10 inches for the lift cross beam and the bunk supports. That means at 2ft you only have 14 inches left to draft. My boat drafts close to 18" loaded. With season changes its unlikely that 2ft will actually be 2ft. More likely it will be a swing between 2-3 feet leaving somewhere in the 12-24" of water.

Conroe and lake Houston go hand in hand. Lake Houston guys say Conroe is at fault. And neither lake hace property owners that likes flooding.

lol... 2 feet and the sky is falling.

The lake was built for flood control and water supply not for home owners and fishermen and they will do what they want to do to keep people safe. Build a home on lake Amistad, oh that's right not allowed thank god.

That’s no lie!

Please don't bring logic into this. We all know that a storm dropping 40-50" of water would have been saved with the lake lowered by 2', and no flooding would have occurred downstream. Let's not get all wild and crazy with the logic there, Jaret

I also helped people escape following Harvey, both along the lower San Jac, and then down in the Golden Triangle area. People seem to be incapable of realizing that Harvey was a freak of nature that wreaked havoc and lowering lakes by 2-3' wouldn't have saved anything. But it is what it is...political pressure will be the overcomer once again. Logic be damned

They might have built Conroe for water supply and flood control but there’s a lot of million dollar plus homes on Conroe. I think it became more about money. Quite a few of the homes are “vacation” homes or just a second home. I know several people that live in multi million dollar homes in The Woodlands who have million dollar homes on Conroe for some reason. The SJRA will probably be involved in lawsuits for the next 20 years.

Not sure Conroe is on anyone's bucket list. I've never been there and doubt I'll ever go.

Its a tough lake to fish for sure. Its definitely not the place to go to if you are looking for numbers. But 2 8+ have been caught out of my boat in the past 6 months. Hard to find that a lot of places.

I live in KW and they " test" lowered L Houston end of March to see if it would have affect and it was discovered that the holding basin here is not what they thought it was. They need more gates and there is a proposal to do so from what I read. There were also rumbling that Abbot said San Jac river to start being dredged in May, which has not happened. I was not here in 94 for the last catastrophic flood but I came over and saw water over 59 first time ever. Well it came over 59 again during Harvey ( 2017), I think it will happen again in 25 years, the cycle has been proven. Conroe is a flood control lake with several multi million $ homes on it. L Houston, not so much there are some but likely in the dozens if even that. The big homes in KW are on the river in KW Greens in a backwater area for the most part. Main drainage ditches over here could not flow the water out so it just rose and spread out, no one mentions that. They also dont mention the storm was 2 days gone before it flooded big time over here, that was mismanagement plain and simple and it needs to be addressed. We were in HEB Sun after the flood, and it flooded 4ft on Tue, storm was Sat of that week, Aug 29th I think. Barrington down the road from me all homes flooded but it was essentially an island built up on the river, not 1/2 a mile from it, they should never have rebuilt there but they are.


Controlled release a week before the storm from Conroe & Houston would have lessened the flood significantly, but now we are doing it on both lakes, when the idea should have been on the forefront all along. Im talking 3-4 ft from both lakes, but I am no hydrologist, maybe even that would not have stopped a cyclical25 yr event. I dont like talk about 100 or 1000 yr storm, no one will be around to ever prove that statement.


The knee jerk lowering pist us all off back in April, but nice fish came in to our club tourney still that month, took 13_ to get a check, which usually is a top 5 and a 20+ lb bag came in on a night tourney last week. We dont have near the class of bass here as Conroe, so dont worry Conroe guys its not gonna hurt it that much fishery wise.

There should be talks of building another large reservoir around the Houston area. If you look at Dallas and the amount of holding lakes in the area to help drain the concrete jungle you can see part of Houston’s problem. Lake Conroe and it’s 20000 acres isn’t nearly large enough to hold any significant amount of water.

There will be a lot of golf balls to be found!

2 feet is not going to help Houston if it floods like it did last fall. My folks live on Conroe and their dock will be 50 yards from the water at 2' low, good thing they just bought their retirement home and moved there after getting flooded last fall. What a shame...

I agree, there’s hardly any fish in the lake and the few there are are gonna die from the water fluctuations so no reason for anyone to go fishin there

If it will reduce the number of ocean going vessels on the lake, I'm all for it!

There are sure a lot of good engineers that FISH and read this forum ......
seems like ALL the ANSWERS are right here.
Maybe someone should tell the Houston engineers to get on here and read all the solutions
HECK ,,,, maybe all these forum posters should go to the Houston City offices and suggest either get a job there or at least offer the answers as HELP
I'm sure that none of the City Engineers have thought about any of these solutions

...The San Jac has been doing this for YEARS........
Bella Woods in Humble has flooded more times than you care to imagine.
The first time I saw it flood was 25 years ago.
Hwy 59 at the River --- The furniture store on the KW side ,,,,,,, all that has been under water numerous times.
This is nothing new & they do not have a fix ......... nor should they, you can't control Mother Nature.

Not sure who told you Conroe was built for flood control but they were making it up. It was built for a water supply for Houston. Nothing else. If you look at how much water passed through Lake Conroe during Harvey, you would see that even if the lake had been empty, the flooding would have been the same. If the lake had never been built, it would have been much worse.

lake houston was the original water supply for houston ---they started taking water from conroe in 2015----there was quite a uproar about that

Lake Houston was not the original water supply for Houston. Sheldon Resevoir was the original water supply lake for Houston.

Where does this information come from? They have been taking water from Lake Conroe for downstream businesses and to Lake Houston starting the day the lake filled up in 1974. I have a friend who lives on the river a couple miles below the dam. He knows the release schedule and pumps water from the river for his ponds. Most releases are in the middle of the night.

Interesting article in 2015. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/neighbo...ict-6273376.php

When the city of Houston decided to sell their water for use in Montgomery County, the property owners around the lake were not happy. They thought the lake was built for their pleasure. They soon found out it was not.
I wish they would lower it 6 to 8 feet. The fishing was really good in 2011 when the lake was low.

More reading if you’re bored. http://www.sjra.net/about/facts/water-supply-reservoir/

Yes sir...130,000 cfs of water headed downstream versus 79,000 cfs headed downstream. Seems like a no brainer to me what gets me is the lawsuit reading "intentional flooding occurring in October '94, May 2000, June '01, May '04, March '16, April '16, and August '17"...as if anyone wants to intentionally flood someone's home how about at some point realize that you've built/bought a house in a flood zone, and get the heck out of there. Seems like common sense to me. I helped a friend move after the flood of '94...it didn't take but one time for him to realize "I bought a house in the wrong area, I'm moving to higher ground"

Maybe you need to get out more. 2 8's in 6 months does not make it a bucket list lake. That can and does happen on just about,any lake in Texas.

I'm no hydrologist by any stretch of the imagination BUT I cannot see how lowering a lake the size of Conroe by just 2 feet will have little effect if any if another Hurricane such as last year comes along. Think of how much water we're talking about here, the flooding was Conroe X 250 and deeper than 2 feet in most areas. Another thing to think about. Last years rain totals were how much?? If those same totals go a little further north where would 5 feet of rain go? There has to be another solution!!

2 ft low ...then fish off shore structure.

I would think a retainage reservoir along the San Jacinto between FM 2854 and I-45 would have to help.

Ok I don't understand this 4 foot of water under the docks rule. How do they regulate how deep the water is where you build you dock? If its 10 foot deep where you build your dock does someone come in and put in dirt until you only have 4 foot of water? I mean my dock here at Lake Graham has 14 foot of water under it, my neighbor only has 8 foot under his. I mean I don't think I have ever seen a lake where the shoreline is all the same depth.