Dock, bulkhead and dredging work in Riverside.
The town came first: Riverside was a railroad stop on the Trinity for nearly a century before the river became a lake. Now it sits where the Trinity enters Lake Livingston — riverine water, standing timber, and some of the closest bank on the lake to Shoretech's shop.
A town of 1872, on a lake of 1969.
Founded by the Houston and Great Northern Railroad, incorporated in 1968 — one year before the water rose.
Riverside sits in Walker County, 13 miles northeast of Huntsville on FM 405 east of SH 19, on the west bank of the Trinity River at the upper end of Lake Livingston. The SH 19 bridge nearby carries the highway across the river toward Trinity County. When the lake was impounded in 1969, a town that had spent its first century on cotton, lumber and stockyards found the reservoir backed up to its doorstep.
The upper lake is its own kind of water. Texas Parks & Wildlife's access list routes several upper-lake entry points through Riverside — a boat ramp off SH 19 north of town before the bridge, and access by FM 980 east to Shorewood Drive, where the Green Rich Shores subdivision holds lakeside lots. And the federal river gauge that carries the town's name, Trinity River at Riverside, is the official reference for inflow into the reservoir — everything the river carries arrives at this end first.
For construction that means narrower water than the broad basin downlake, shallow riverine margins, standing timber, and silt that keeps coming. Docks, bulkheads and dredging here are designed around all three.
Timber, silt, and a permit that knows both.
Shoretech's precision dredge barge on Lake Livingston — the machine this end of the lake asks for most.
The general permit that authorizes shoreline structures here, SWG-2007-00720, was written for this lake's conditions. Stumps in a structure's footprint may only be sawed or sheared with TRA's permission, every cut piece removed from the water. Pilings are jetted or driven, nothing else. And new dredging is not covered at all — it runs separately under Nationwide Permit 19 with TRA's dredging application.
One more layer: the federal authorization is not valid without every other required approval, so the Walker County paperwork gets checked too — Shoretech folds all of it into the project.
Home water, measured in minutes.
Shoretech is based in Trinity, just across the river crossing at the Walker–Trinity county line — which makes Riverside some of the closest water on Lake Livingston to the shop. That proximity changes how a job runs: a site visit happens when the water is at the level worth seeing, a barge move is short, and a punch-list item gets fixed the week you call about it.
The work itself is the full residential range: fixed piers and docks set tight to a pool that TRA holds near 131 feet year-round with only one to two feet of annual movement, bulkheads in galvanized steel, vinyl, FRP composite or heavy timber matched to a riverbank soil, and slip and channel dredging. The current general permit runs through December 31, 2028.
Riverside FAQ.
Who issues the permit for a dock or bulkhead at Riverside?
The Trinity River Authority, same as everywhere on Lake Livingston. TRA owns the lakebed up to the 131-foot normal pool, and shoreline structures are federally authorized under U.S. Army Corps of Engineers General Permit SWG-2007-00720 — valid by its own terms in Polk, San Jacinto, Walker and Trinity Counties, so Riverside's Walker County frontage sits squarely inside it. Applications run through the Lake Livingston Project's online portal, and the permits office answers at 936-365-2292. Shoretech prepares that package as part of the job.
The upper lake is full of standing timber. Can the stumps come out?
Only some, and only the right way. Under the general permit, stumps in a structure's footprint may be sawed or sheared off with TRA's permission, and every cut portion has to come out of the lake — excavating the root ball is not authorized. Pilings go in jetted with hand-held nozzles or driven, the only two methods allowed. Shoretech plans the footprint around what can actually be cleared, not the other way around.
Can my slip or channel be dredged at this end of the lake?
Yes, but not under the general permit — dredging on Lake Livingston runs separately, under Nationwide Permit 19 with TRA's own dredging application, and prop-washing a channel clear is expressly prohibited. The question comes up more at Riverside than anywhere: the Trinity River enters the lake here, and its inflow carries the river's sediment with it. Shoretech's precision dredge pumps spoil for backfill reuse rather than hauling it off by truck.
What decides what a bulkhead or dock at Riverside will cost?
The site, not a price sheet: wall height, the soil behind the bank, water depth at the toe, equipment access, material — galvanized steel, vinyl, FRP composite or heavy timber — and the TRA-permitted design the structure has to satisfy. Upper-lake lots add their own variables, standing timber and shallow riverine margins among them. The honest answer comes from a site visit — and Riverside is about the easiest one for Shoretech to make.
How far away is Shoretech, actually?
Just up SH 19. Shoretech is based in Trinity, on the other side of the river crossing at the Walker–Trinity county line, so the Riverside stretch is some of the closest water on Lake Livingston to the shop. When a crew, a barge or Dave himself needs to stand on your bank, nobody is driving across Texas to do it.
Down the lake and across it.
Riverside frontage silting in or washing out?
Tell Dave where the lot sits — river channel or cove — how much water is left at the end of the dock, and what the bank is doing at the waterline. He can be standing on it sooner here than anywhere else on the lake.