FLOODSA Texas Congressman Is Quietly Helping Elon Musk Pitch a $760M Plan to Build Tunnels Under Houston to Ease Flooding
Experts in Houston have been studying the idea of building massive tunnels to divert floodwaters. Musk’s company wants a piece of the project.
This article was originally published by ProPublica, The Texas Newsroom, the Houston Chronicle, and The Texas Tribune as part of an initiative to report on how power is wielded in Texas.
The devastating flooding in Houston caused by Hurricane Harvey in 2017 killed dozens of people, inundated hundreds of thousands of homes, and left the community desperate for a solution.
Since then, local flood experts have extensively studied the possibility of a multibillion-dollar tunnel system across Harris County, where Houston is located. Studies have focused on the construction of pipelines, 30 to 40 feet in diameter, that could ferry massive amounts of water out to the Gulf in the event of a storm.
Now, after years of research and discussion, Elon Musk wants a piece of the project.
An investigation by The Texas Newsroom and the Houston Chronicle has found that the billionaire, in partnership with Houston-area Representative Wesley Hunt, has spent months aggressively pushing state and local officials to hire Musk’s Boring Company to build two narrower, 12-foot tunnels around one major watershed. That could be a potentially cheaper, but, at least one expert said, less effective solution to the region’s historic flooding woes.
Hunt’s team has said the Boring project would cost $760 million and involve the company getting 15 percent of the cost up front from state and local coffers.
Within two months of this push, the Harris County Commissioners Court unanimously voted to study a pilot program that included a look at smaller tunnels, with specifications similar to what Boring had pitched. The commissioners court, made up of five elected members including a county judge, oversees the county’s budget.
Both Musk and Hunt stand to benefit should Boring be selected to build any part of the project. Hunt is reportedly considering a challenge to U.S. Senator John Cornyn in next year’s Republican Senate primary. And landing a job like this would also be a significant win for Boring, which has not completed a major public project in Texas and faces criticisms for its ventures elsewhere.
The discussions about the Boring pitch have happened mostly out of the public eye. Hunt mentioned the project in passing at a town hall in Houston in February. Since then, he has refused to answer the newsrooms’ questions about when Musk sold him on the idea and why he became its pitchman.
