Brazos River erosion comes at high cost, more flooding inevitable

FORT BEND CO., Texas (FOX 26) - The Brazos River flows right through Sugar Hand and over time has been widening, due to erosion.

With major flooding like Harvey, leaders in Sugar Land and Fort Bend County are wanting to be prepared for the inevitable next big flood.

"The big river is both a blessing and an asset. The big river carries a lot of water," said Fort Bend County Judge Bob Herbert.

And the big river seems to be getting even bigger.

"We lost up to 200 feet of river bank in some areas during Harvey, just the whole bank caved in and went away," said Judge Herbert.

An ever-growing Brazos with each new flood means leaders in Fort Bend County have to come up with ways to stabilize a very unstable river.

"The Brazos is basically, you can tell by looking at it, it carries a lot of silt. It runs through soft earth."

Harvey was devastating. Although the flooding on the Brazos didn't reach the 100-year-flood stage near the Richmond Bridge, Judge Herbet says the damage done is still concerning.

"We're looking at numerous points up and down the river that have suffered severe erosion in the floods of '15, '16, and '17."

Each point is a costly fix that would serve as flooding prevention not construction to make this big river beautiful again.

Judge Herbert says the estimated cost for all the fixes is up to $1.5 billion, but the yearly budget is only at $3.5 million.

In Sugar Land, Mayor Joe Zimmerman say they're look at everything form inlets, to the storm sewer capacity and at the conveyance system.

Four drainage contracts have been awarded since Harvey flooded to study the areas hit hard during the storm. Nearly 250 homes were damaged in Sugar Land.

"Over 200 of them were in Fort Bend Levee Improvement District #2," said Mayor Zimmerman.

Solutions like a large pump station so those homes that flooded in LID 2 won't next time. But time is ticking as another hurricane season is nearing.

"We haven't been able to put any infrastructure in 6 months that will really allow us to handle a flood differently," Judge Herbet said. "We're going to have to deal and play the same hand we have because the infrastructure improvement projects are high dollar costs and they take years to get funded, designed and constructed."