Harris County Water Control and Improvement District No. 96

The Harris County Stay Home / Work Safe Order includes the following:

• Individuals may go to public parks and open outdoor recreation areas. However, public playgrounds may increase spread of COVID-19 and, therefore, shall be closed.

The Fall Creek Sports Complex therefore remains open but the playgrounds are now closed. The playgrounds and sports equipment are NOT being sanitized and should not be touched as ordered by Harris County. The sand volleyball pit is now also closed in conformance with this order which closes sport courts.

For now, the restrooms remain open so you can wash your hands. However, there is wo way that we can sanitize the restrooms between users so use at your own risk. The restrooms are only cleaned twice per week. Please leave the soap and toilet paper for park patron use!

All field reservations and pavilion reservations have been cancelled through April 3 and money will be refunded. No organized group or team activities should be taking place in the Sports Complex. The governor’s previous order banned group gatherings.

The trails, however, do remain open for hiking and biking. However, proper infection control procedures and the Stay Home / Work Safe order mandate that anyone using the park or trails maintain proper social distancing and remain at least 6 feet apart.

Please stay safe, wash your hands, and get outdoors if you need a break. However, act responsibly and maintain social distancing as instructed by our local public health authorities.

The Fall Creek Sports Complex is cancelling all reservations for the sports fields and pavilion up to and including April 3 in accordance with the governor’s order to stop any gatherings of more than 10 people. No group of more than 10 people should be gathering in the park.

The governor’s directive today closed bars and restaurants but directed for parks to stay open. Therefore, the Fall Creek Sports Complex will remain open but all organized and team activities in the park and fields are now suspended through April 3. There will be no events or team activities in the Sports Complex through April 3.

Please be advised that, although the park will remain open regular hours for now, the Sports Complex does not not have staff to clean or sanitize the playground equipment and any use of the playground equipment will be at your own risk (or your child’s own risk). WCID 96 strongly discourages use of the playground equipment at this time.

Getting out to hike or bike the trails is allowed, but please maintain social distancing and stay 6 feet away from others as you use the park. The restrooms will also remain open regular hours during this time, but they are only serviced/cleaned twice a week, so use of the restrooms also remains at your own risk.

Please wash your hands frequently when using the park and please leave the toilet paper in the restroom for park patrons to use.

WCID 96 will continue to monitor the directives that come from the local, state and federal governments and WCID 96 may revise the policy of park use at any time. Just use common sense and listen to updates on the news about what do to. Please stay well and stay safe everyone!

There is currently NO boil water advisory for WCID 96. No boil water advisory has ever been issued for WCID 96 related to the City of Houston water main break.

WCID 96 is a wholesale water customer of the City of Houston and we get much of our water from the City although we also have our own water well. Our system is operated independently from the City of Houston and the WCID 96 operators have been consistently monitoring our system. Our water pressures have remained normal. Our levels of disinfectants and residuals have remained normal. Therefore WCID 96 has not issued a boil water advisory.

As a precaution, WCID 96 is flushing the system by opening up fire hydrants and running water out of the pipes. This operation is planned to turn over the water in the system twice just out of an abundance of caution to clear the system. This may continue through the day and evening on February 28.

Again, WCID 96 has not issued any boil water advisories due to the City of Houston water main break and all testing so far has shown normal water pressures and quality indicating the water is safe to drink.

No advisories have been posted to the web site because there has not been any issue with the water in WCID 96 so far. If there are any advisories issued, they will be posted here.

In September 2019, Tropical Storm Imelda damaged a United States Postal Service mail processing facility in the Houston area. As a result of the damage residents in Harris County Water Control and Improvement District No. 96 may experience a delay in receiving mail, including a delay in receiving a timely mailed water bill. Harris County Water Control and Improvement District No. 96 encourages residents to authorize electronic billing in order to avoid delays in receiving water bills. More information regarding billing and payment options may be found by visiting https://www.hcwcid96.com/water/.

Southern Hills Pipeline continues to work on its pipeline that runs east-west in the easement in the middle of the Fall Creek Sports Complex. They will be burying the pipeline crossing of Garners Bayou and doing other work on this section of pipeline where an anomaly was detected. This work is expected to last through mid December 2019.

Some of this work will impact parts of the walking trails, sections of which may have to be temporarily and periodically closed while workers are present, which is generally from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The trails will not be blocked all at one time, but portions will be affected as the work progresses. Please respect any trail closures which are for the safety of both park users and pipeline workers. Soon stairs will be installed over the working areas so that the trails will be accessible after work hours including on the weekends.

The pipeline work may also result from time to time in mud or debris washing onto portions of the trail, so please be aware of this. The pipeline workers have been reminded to keep the area clean and to minimize obstructions, mud, debris or blockages to the trail, and the pipeline workers should be cleaning up the trail where their work impacts the trail.

The pipeline work may also include digging between the playground and the baseball fields along the easement if the work needs to move that far to the west, but we will maintain access to the ball fields if the pipeline work impacts that area by placement of temporary stairs to allow people to walk up and over the pipeline work to access the ball fields.

During the course of this work, please stay away from the work areas (and more importantly, tell your kids to stay away from the work areas) and please honor any closed areas.

This work is unrelated to the drinking water pipeline installation project that continues along Beltway 8.