The Woodlands Township pushed back on a proposal to reduce subsidence monitoring at the Panther Creek and Bear Branch fault lines during the Oct. 19 board meeting.

Two-minute impact

Ed Shackelford, San Jacinto River Authority director of operation, made a presentation to the township outlining a new proposed regulation that would reduce the monitoring of fault lines from twice a year to once.

The faults in question are:
  • Egypt fault near Bear Branch
  • Big Barn fault on Research Forest
  • Panther Branch fault near Panther Creek
The SJRA manages a 55-mile pipeline that provides surface water to The Woodlands as part of the effort to prevent excessive groundwater pumping and use. Since 2015, the SJRA has monitored subsidence levels at the above faults in order to monitor subsidence rates to ensure the pipeline did not receive any damage from changing ground levels.

The cost to operate the fault monitoring system in The Woodlands costs $15,000 twice a year to SJRA, Shackelford said during the meeting.


Quotes of note

“The SRJA [Groundwater Reduction Plan] division has recommended to the GRP review committee to reduce monitoring from twice a year to once in March; and the reason for that is we had an engineer do a study and identify the suspected Panther Branch fault. They did not find active faulting where our water line crosses the fault,” Shackelford said.

“I think the message and what we are asking you to carry back is that we have significant concerns here in The Woodlands, and in order to give comfort to those concerns and protect folks from the future, we think $15,000 is a very small ask,” board member Kyle Watson said.

What’s next


A motion was unanimously passed by the township board to request the SJRA’s review committee continue twice-yearly monitoring of the faults. However, the review committee will have the ultimate decision on how monitoring will continue going forward.