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TCEQ Cites Hallett Mine for Five Violations But Issues No Fines

Reduce Flooding — Sat, 13 Sep 2025 15:35:30 +0000

During late February, 2025, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) investigated the Hallett Sand Mine on the West Fork San Jacinto and cited it for five violations. The violations included failure to: However, the TCEQ report mentions no fines or financial penalties. The Commission simply closed the case after the violations were resolved, even […]

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West Fork Pit Captures Still Not Addressed After a Year

Reduce Flooding — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 00:56:05 +0000

6/23/25 – Two West Fork pit captures caused by floods in early 2024 are now more than a year old and untouched. “Pit capture” is when a river punches through the dikes of a sand mine and starts flowing through it. Photographs taken on 6/22/25 from a rented helicopter show that the San Jacinto West […]

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West Fork Sand-Mining Problems Persist Despite Legislative Efforts

Reduce Flooding — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 21:33:24 +0000

3/19/25 – San Jacinto West Fork sand-mining problems persisted this morning, even as the House Natural Resources Committee met to discuss legislation intended to deal with them. With one exception, the miners seemed blissfully unaware of the problems they were causing. And at least one committee member seemed to be a ringer for the sand-mining […]

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Hallett Finally Plugs Year-Long Leak in Sand Mine

Reduce Flooding — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 03:46:38 +0000

2/27/25 – Hallett Materials has finally plugged a year-long leak in its Porter sand mine on the San Jacinto West Fork. According to residents who live near the leak, an investigator from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) visited the mine yesterday. For more than six hours, he sampled water leaking from the mine. […]

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The High Cost of Living Downstream from Sand Mines

Reduce Flooding — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 03:08:14 +0000

2/24/25 – Yesterday, I posted pictures and video of a river of muck hundreds of feet wide that has poured out of Hallett Materials 170-acre settling pond into the San Jacinto West Fork…for a full year. Today, I’ll talk about the high cost of living downstream from that situation. But Hallett has even more environmental […]

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New TCEQ Sand Mining BMPs Ignore Pit Captures

Reduce Flooding — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 23:18:17 +0000

12/13/24 – Proposed new Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) Best Management Practices (BMPs) for sand mines ignore what miners are supposed to do in the case of pit captures. “Pit capture” happens when a river breaks through the dikes of a sand mine. It can have serious consequences including, but not limited to: Identifying […]

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All River Levels Falling, Flood Danger Over, But…

Reduce Flooding — Tue, 21 May 2024 18:01:34 +0000

May 21, 2024 – After a second round of May floods (and the third this year), all river levels are falling today. The East Fork, West Fork and main stem of the San Jacinto River are finally falling this morning. So are the water levels in Lake Conroe and Lake Houston. But sedimentation will likely […]

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West and East Forks of San Jacinto Flooding Again

Reduce Flooding — Mon, 20 May 2024 01:02:45 +0000

May 19, 2024 – For the second time this month, the West and East Forks of the San Jacinto River are flooding. The East Fork crested last night about 1.5 below the prediction. However, the West Fork is now cresting at US59. Parts of River Grove Park and the turnaround under US59 are already flooded. […]

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West Fork Sand Mine Sending Sediment Downstream from Settling Pond

Reduce Flooding — Sat, 18 May 2024 02:26:04 +0000

5/17/2024 – The Hallett sand mine on the San Jacinto West Fork appears to have dug a trench across the maintenance road of its settling pond to lower the pond’s level. Murky wastewater is draining into the West Fork while the SJRA is currently releasing 10,875 cubic feet per second (CFS) from Lake Conroe in […]

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Video of Mile-Long Sand Pit Leaking Into West Fork

Reduce Flooding — Mon, 13 May 2024 21:31:33 +0000

Last week, the West Fork San Jacinto rerouted itself through a mile-long sand pit at the five-square mile Hallett Mine in Porter. Some people reported problems understanding how all the images in that post related to each other and where the mine was. To help eliminate confusion, I returned to the site this morning show […]

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San Jacinto West Fork Reroutes Itself Through Giant Hallett Mine

Reduce Flooding — Sat, 11 May 2024 16:28:38 +0000

The San Jacinto West Fork has rerouted itself through the giant Hallett sand mine in Porter. The old river bed has been cut off. And the river now enters and exits one of the mine’s largest pits through large breaches in what used to be dikes. More than Normal Erosion Rivers always move during floods […]

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Breach at Hallett Mine Expanding

Reduce Flooding — Sun, 28 Apr 2024 22:35:38 +0000

A breach at the giant Hallett Mine on the San Jacinto West Fork that began in late January or early February is still open and expanding. Two Pairs of Pictures, Two Weeks Apart I first reported the breach on April 10. Below are pictures taken then and today. In the pictures above, note the difference […]

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Hallett Breach Sends Hundreds of Millions of Gallons of Wastewater Downstream

Reduce Flooding — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 03:35:54 +0000

Google Earth shows a massive breach in the southernmost pond of the Hallett San Jacinto West Fork mine in a satellite image dated February 19, 2024. Here’s how the same area looked today from a drone. And here’s how it looked from a boat just hours earlier. A Harris County Flood Control Gage at Highway […]

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Hallett Breach Sends Hundreds of Millions of Gallons of Wastewater Downstream

Reduce Flooding — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 03:35:54 +0000

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Sand Mine Leaks Upstream from Blocked Drainage Ditch

Reduce Flooding — Fri, 09 Feb 2024 18:02:15 +0000

Just upstream from the blocked drainage ditch at Northpark Drive and the San Jacinto West Fork, Hallett Materials operates the biggest sand mine between I-69 and I-45. The mine complex sprawls across several square miles and has several leaks. During the last flood in January, those leaks likely contributed to sedimentation in the West Fork […]

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Price of Progress?

Reduce Flooding — Thu, 06 Jan 2022 21:37:09 +0000

Some say that mining sand from our rivers and flood plains is the price of progress. Pros and Cons Sand has its benefits. We need it to make concrete. And we need concrete to accommodate a growing population. And a growing population creates income for builders, tradesmen and other businesses. But mining sand also has […]

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Giant Leak at Hallett Mine…Again

Reduce Flooding — Thu, 07 Jan 2021 16:42:15 +0000

On December 22, I received an email from a Montgomery County resident named Jody Binnion. He lives near the Hallett sand mine on the San Jacinto West Fork and can see the mine from his home. Binnion said that the level of a 170-acre pond had dropped at least 2-3 feet and maybe more – […]

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