Jace Houston resigned as general manager for the San Jacinto River Authority last week before a bill was passed in the Texas Legislature to remove him from the position.
Houston announced his decision Friday, ending his 16-year tenure with the authority. He served as the river authority’s deputy general manager in 2007 before being appointed general manager in 2012.
Houston called the amendment politically charged and said he didn’t want “the destruction and political harm and risk that was coming from this ongoing debate.”
ON YOURCONROENEWS.COM: Search ends for missing Woodlands man Colby Richards in Montgomery County, family continues efforts
“It’s a horrible precedent,” Houston said. “It’s horrible legislative policy…to have the Legislature single out an employee in the executive branch is pretty awful.”
House Bill 1540 was created to bring the agency in line with recommendations made by the Sunset Advisory Commission in 2022.
During the 2020-21 biennium, commission staff found public trust in the river authority had suffered due to legal disputes over contracting issues and water policy decisions related to lake levels.
The staff recommended requiring the river authority to develop a public engagement policy and improve its public communications strategy, but the Sunset bill did not pass.
In the 2022-23 biennium, commission staff found the river authority had made concerted efforts to meaningfully engage with the public, but said the authority’s relationship with the public was still strained and there was more improvement to be made.
State Rep. Will Metcalf, R-Conroe, added the amendment to remove the general manager of the river authority. The legislation passed the House on Saturday and the Senate on Sunday.
“I want to be clear that my amendment to the SJRA sunset bill has nothing to do with my opinion of the SJRA general manager as a person,” Metcalf said. “This is strictly about doing what is best for my community that I love and trying to find a long overdue resolution to our county’s ongoing water issues.”
Metcalf said issues related to the river authority’s surface water treatment plant on Lake Conroe and fees have remained a top concern for residents. There has been ongoing litigation with the river authority over contracts related to the countywide groundwater reduction plan for more than 7 years, he said.
The groundwater reduction plan was developed to reduce Montgomery County’s use of its shrinking ground water supply by allowing the river authority to pump surface water from Lake Conroe to The Woodlands and other parts of the county. The plan limits the amount of water that the county pumps from underground to avoid depleting the Gulf Coast Aquifer and causing land to sink.
To distribute the water, the river authority launched a roughly half-billion dollar project to construct and operate a water treatment plant on Lake Conroe, a pumping station and more than 50 miles of water pipeline.
“New boards, councils and elected officials have come and gone since the beginning of our county’s water wars over a decade ago. However, one common player remained, and that was the SJRA general manager,” Metcalf said.
James Stinson, former general manager for The Woodlands Water Agency, called the removal of Houston “wrong and distasteful to me and many others in this community.”
“The fact that a few entities are able to bring us to this point…it doesn’t make sense,” Stinson told board members during a special meeting. “Jace is respected and needed by a much larger cross-section than that.”
Several local leaders spoke on May 12 in support of Metcalf’s amendment during a water, agriculture and rural affairs committee hearing, including Jim Spigener, president of the Lone Star Groundwater Conservation District.
“We as a groundwater district are really concerned about Montgomery County’s ability in the future to have enough water to support the growth and affordable water for our citizens,” Spigener told committee members during the hearing. “Nobody is more wanting to solve this problem in Montgomery County and nobody is tired of it than we are. The reason we’re here is we believe we’re road blocked until we get new leadership.”
The river authority is expected to hire a search firm to look for a new general manager. Houston will serve in the role until June 30.
“My main concern is Montgomery County’s water future,” Houston said. “These guys are dead wrong on the science and what they’re doing is putting Montgomery County’s water future at tremendous risk. They really don’t understand what they’re doing and the problem it’s going to create in the future, but hopefully the river authority will continue its good work. And eventually, this litigation will be resolved and this will be behind us.”
cdominguez@houstonchronicle.com
