The Office of Management and Budget classifies Conroe as a principal city within the Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land metropolitan area. The city is about 40 miles (64 km) north of Houston.
Annexation
When Conroe incorporated in 1904, the city limits encompassed a 5.44 square mile area. From 1970 to 2000, the city limits expanded from 7.15 square miles to 42.35 square miles. Beginning in 2007, the city outlined a plan to continue expanding its city limits through annexation. According to Chapter 43 of the Texas Local Government Code, home rule municipalities like Conroe may annex territory that is adjacent to the city’s current boundaries, with certain restrictions. The city’s 2007 plan was to double its size through a combination of voluntary and involuntary annexations. In voluntary annexations, the city enters into an agreement with the property owner to annex the territory once it has been developed. Involuntary annexations occur when the city places adjacent unincorporated territory into a three-year annexation plan without obtaining the property owners’ consent. As of 2018, the city has annexed territory every year since 2007, increasing the city limits from 52.8 to 72.0 square miles.
April Sound, a gated community along the shores of Lake Conroe, was annexed by the city on January 1, 2015. Prior to annexation, the community’s water and sewage services were provided by two separate Municipal Utility Districts. When annexation was first approved by the Conroe city council in December 2011, the districts opposed it. In response, the city negotiated an agreement in 2013 that would allow the districts to continue to provide services to April Sound residents. However, some April Sound residents did not support the annexation, including a group of residents who filed a lawsuit against the city in April 2015. The lawsuit was dismissed in March 2017. Involuntary annexations were a major issue in the 2016 mayoral election, the first after April Sound residents were incorporated into the city. Proponents of annexation contended that it was a useful tool to “promote and facilitate growth and progress,” while those in opposition were concerned about whether annexed territories receive a “fair shake” in the negotiations. Toby Powell, who campaigned against “forced annexations,” won the election. In 2017, the city council voted in favor of additional involuntary annexations over Powell’s objection.
Ecosystem
Conroe is in the southwest corner of the East Texas Piney Woods. The Piney Woods consist of pine trees and hardwood forests. The most common type of tree in the southwest Piney Woods is the loblolly pine. Shortleaf pine are also abundant. Pockets of blackland prairie vegetation are also present, but are disappearing due to urbanization.
In 1926, the Texas A&M Forest Service purchased 1700 acres of Piney Woods to establish W. Goodrich Jones State Forest. The forest serves as a research and demonstration area for sustainable forestry techniques. The forest also preserves the habitat of the red-cockaded woodpecker, a species classified as Near Threatened by the IUCN. In 2017, Texas A&M asked Conroe state senator Brandon Creighton to author a bill setting aside 10 percent of the forest for educational and research-related development. The bill also opened the possibility of commercial development on the land. Public concern over the bill persuaded Creighton to revise it. The final version, which passed the Senate unanimously, protected the entire forest from development.
Water resources
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.
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