page_title: Conroe, Texas
section_title: Water resources
hierarchical_section_title: Conroe, Texas / Geography / Water resources
caption_attribution_description: English: The West Fork of the San Jacinto River. View from McDade Park in Conroe, Texas.
context_page_description: Conroe is a city in Texas, United States. It is the seat of Montgomery County and a principal city in the Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land metropolitan area. It is about 40 miles north of Houston.
  As of 2019, the population was 91,079, up from 56,207 in 2010. According to the Census Bureau, Conroe was the fastest-growing large city in the United States between July 1, 2015, and July 1, 2016.
context_section_description: The West Fork of the San Jacinto River flows through the western edge of Conroe. The entire city is within the river's watershed. The river flows southeast from Lake Conroe, a 19,640 surface acre lake dammed in 1973 as an alternative source of drinking water for Houston.
  Conroe sits on several geologic layers of underground aquifers, which supply the city with fresh drinking water. Due to the rapid development of the land and increased population of Conroe and the surrounding area, the groundwater supply is being withdrawn faster than it can be replenished. As a result, the Lone Star Groundwater Conservation District, which oversees groundwater usage in Montgomery County, mandated that Conroe reduce its groundwater usage by 30 percent of 2009 amounts by January 1, 2016. As part of the groundwater usage reduction plan, the San Jacinto River Authority began in September 2015 to supplement Conroe's groundwater supply with surface water pumped from Lake Conroe. The SJRA charges the city usage fees to cover the cost of pumping and treating the water. On August 27, 2015, the City of Conroe filed a lawsuit against the Lone Star Groundwater Conservation District, claiming that the LSGCD did not have the authority to limit the city's groundwater usage. The city also refused to pay SJRA water usage fee increases in 2016, resulting in a separate lawsuit filed by the SJRA against the city. As of 2017, both lawsuits are still ongoing, resulting in legal fees charged to the city of over $836,313.
  Parts of Conroe surrounding the West Fork of the San Jacinto River are in a floodplain. Significant flooding occurs along the floodplain when rainfall exceeds nine inches in a 48-hour period. The Conroe area has approximately a 10 percent chance of receiving this much rainfall in any given year. Urban development in Conroe and the surrounding area has also exacerbated the risk of flooding. Montgomery County experienced three consecutive years of 500-year floods in May 2015, April 2016, and August 2017. A 500-year flood has a 0.2 percent chance of occurring in a year. In addition, a fourth major flood occurred in May 2016, resulting in two major floods in two months. The flooding in August 2017 during Hurricane Harvey dropped nearly 32 inches of rain on the city. To protect the integrity of the dam, San Jacinto River Authority officials released 79,100 cubic feet per second of water from Lake Conroe downstream into the West Fork of the San Jacinto River, exacerbating the flooding already taking place along the floodplain. Conroe city officials ordered a mandatory evacuation of McDade Estates, a neighborhood on the banks of the river. As a response to the flooding, Montgomery County commissioners in October 2017 requested $1.25 million from the federal government for a flood mitigation study, along with an additional $95.5 million to implement various flood mitigation projects.
caption: The West Fork of the San Jacinto River as seen from McDade Park on the western edge of Conroe.
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