2023 Texas Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement Winner

November 2023

 

Last September at CECON 2023, the ASCE Texas Section members celebrated outstanding individuals and projects within the Section and throughout our civil engineering community. These deserving projects are nominated by their peers in recognition of their service and achievements. The Texas Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement (Texas OCEA) Award is given on an annual basis to a completed project that demonstrates the greatest contribution to civil engineering progress and society as a whole. It must have been designed and/or built-in Texas.

This year, the OCEA Award recipient was the Coastal Water Authority for the Luce Bayou Interbasin Transfer Project.

Originally conceived in 1938, the Luce Bayou Interbasin Transfer Project (LBITP) is the most significant water supply project built in the Houston region in the last 50 years. To address the growing demand for surface water, while reducing dependency on groundwater, the LBITP will transfer up to 500 million gallons of water per day from the Trinity River in an adjacent water basin over Capers Ridge to Lake. At the time it was founded, the Texas Water Development Board rated the LBITP as its top-ranked project in the State. The $381 million LBITP consists of three primary components: Capers Ridge Pump Station (CRPS), Dual 96-inch Diameter Pipelines and Pig Retrieval Facility, and the Canal System. The Luce Bayou Interbasin Transfer Project (LBITP) was layered with multiple political, environmental, and engineering challenges in finding a solution to the City of Houston’s (COH) growing water demand, abating regional subsidence, and ultimately reducing its reliance on groundwater. This could be accomplished only by increasing the supply of surface water by 500 million gallons per day (mgd). The entire water supply in the San Jacinto River basin was already claimed and Lake Houston does not have enough water to meet future water demands for the Houston area. The solution was to convey COH-owned water from the adjacent Trinity River basin to Lake Houston over 25 miles away

Read more about the project here