Galena Park mayor seeks help to fix long-running stormwater problem
Galena Park’s new mayor says the city cannot rebuild its stormwater system alone, leaving flood-prone blocks near Galena Manor waiting on outside money.
Oscar Mireles spent part of Tuesday night in the Manor subdivision near Galena Manor and Clinton Drive, working to blunt a localized flooding problem that Galena Park has wrestled with for decades. The new mayor, on the job for about six weeks, described the city’s stormwater system as outdated, neglected and too expensive for Galena Park to fix quickly with its own money.
Mireles said the drains were never updated for a city that has grown older and more vulnerable to heavy rain and industrial runoff. He said debris from heavy ship channel traffic washes into narrow underground drains, clogging the system and making water rise faster during storms. No homes flooded during this event.
Galena Park was incorporated on September 21, 1935, sits on the north bank of the Houston Ship Channel and lists a population of 10,592. The Hunting Bayou watershed includes Galena Park and Jacinto City and drains toward the Houston Ship Channel. Most flooding happens in areas built before modern floodplain regulations. The district says a major flood occurs somewhere in Harris County about every two years.
Galena Park officials were already discussing storm drainage on Clinton Drive at a capital improvement meeting in 2017, and county filings from 2024 and 2026 show Harris County has continued to pursue drainage-related work in the city. One filing, 24-3890, covered improved drainage systems, rehabilitation of lift stations and street repairs throughout Galena Park that would benefit 10,800 people, 54.94% of them low-to-moderate income. Another county document said the existing drainage pipe system is undersized, causes surface water to back up and produces localized flooding. That same filing said historical flood data showed 307 homes reported structural flooding from Hurricane Harvey.
Mireles said Galena Park does not have enough money on hand to rebuild the infrastructure itself, so he has been reaching out to the Houston Port Authority and the Harris County Flood Control District for grants or other help.
In May 2021, the Texas General Land Office announced more than $90.4 million in drainage, water and wastewater infrastructure funding for Galena Park, Baytown, Jacinto City and Pasadena. A recent academic paper also used Galena Park as a stormwater planning case study and ranked it in the top five in Harris County for pollution-related diseases. The paper said climate change is likely to make flooding more frequent and severe in heavily industrialized areas. Crews will now send cameras into the drains to identify the worst failures.
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