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Flooding on Buffalo Bayou

The View from Above with Photographer Jim Olive

April 19, 2016

Photographer Jim Olive took these shots from the air over Buffalo Bayou yesterday (Monday, April 18, 2016) following the extraordinary amount of rainfall that fell mainly on the far west side of town.

These photos show Buffalo Bayou as it flows past Memorial Park and the River Oaks Country Club as well as the confluence of White Oak Bayou and Buffalo Bayou downtown.

Buffalo Bayou flows from the Katy Prairie in west Houston through the center of the city through the Houston Ship Channel into Galveston Bay.

Looking east towards downtown with Memorial Park on the left, River Oaks Country Club golf course on the right. Photo April 18, 2016 by Jim Olive
Buffalo Bayou, April 18, 2016, with Memorial Park on the lower frame and River Oaks Country Club golf course above. Photo by Jim Olive
Looking north over Buffalo Bayou. River Oaks Country Club golf course on the south bank. Photo by Jim Olive
The confluence of White Oak and Buffalo bayous in downtown Houston on the afternoon of April 18, 2016. Photo by Jim Olive

April 19, 2016 No Comments More

Protecting Galveston, Houston, and the Texas Coast

Public Comment Needed By May 9

April 11, 2016

You may have heard about proposals to protect development along Galveston Bay, the Houston Ship Channel, and Houston itself from a giant storm surge. Dubbed the Ike Dike after Hurricane Ike in 2008, one leading plan is to build a 17-foot high levee for 50 miles along Galveston Island and Bolivar Peninsula, with a massive floodgate across the Houston Ship Channel.

Buffalo Bayou Runs Through It

But the Ike Dike is only one of several ideas being considered for the Houston-Galveston region by the US Army Corps of Engineers and the State of Texas. And in fact, in light of sea level rise (and due to subsidence, sea level is rising more rapidly on the upper Texas coast) and the potential flood damage from future storms, the Corps has been studying the entire Texas coast and gathering information for the past several years. In August 2014, the Corps issued a report called the Coastal Texas Protection and Restoration Project and held a series of four public workshops. And in May 2015 the Corps issued a Coastal Texas Protection and Restoration Study Final Reconnaissance 905 (b) Report.

Port of Houston, Houston Ship Channel, Buffalo Bayou. Photo by Jim Olive

A Notice of Intent to prepare a Draft Integrated Feasibility Report and Environmental Impact Statement for a Coastal Texas Protection and Restoration Feasibility Study, dated March 23, 2016, was published on the Corps’ Galveston District website. And on March 31 the Corps published a notice in the Federal Register calling for public comment on a draft Environmental Impact Statement for a Coastal Texas Protection and Restoration Feasibility Study. The public has only until May 9 to comment.

Read the rest of this story.

April 11, 2016 No Comments More

No Changes in Operation of Buffalo Bayou Dams

Release Rates May Be Looked At in Future

March 13, 2016

It was a dark and stormy night. Thunder boomed and heavy rain pelted the roof as a small group of us sat nervously in the middle of the rising Addicks Reservoir in far west Houston listening to the district commander of the Army Corps of Engineers tell us Addicks and Barker dams are safe.

Flanking Col. Richard Pannell last Wednesday, March 9, was a panel of officials from the Corps’ Galveston District office, as well as representatives from the Harris County Flood Control District and Granite Construction, the company awarded the $71.9 million contract to replace the leaky conduits in the 70-year-old earthen dams. The audience was a small crowd of about thirty hardy citizens who had braved the heavy traffic and heavy rain and managed to find the Bear Creek Community Center in the middle of a dark, wet forest despite the wrong address in the Corps’ public notice.

Col. Pannell made a thorough and convincing presentation of the history of the dams, the current problems, and what is being done about them. Among other work, the conduits in the two dams will be entirely replaced by new conduits in separate locations. This process will take about three years. He emphasized that the dams were in no immediate danger of failing and explained that the dams are labeled “extremely high risk” because of the potential consequences to Houston, the nation’s fourth most populous city, in the unlikely event that the dams failed.

Dams Operating Normally Despite Leaks

There were several questions about the capacity of the dams and the impact of repairs on the rate of future releases of water impounded behind the dams. The pattern of extended high releases and rapid drops has been criticized for damaging property on the bayou and killing trees and vegetation that control erosion.

After the enormous Memorial Day storm last year, the Corps began releasing impounded stormwater at 3000 cubic feet per second (cfs) for the first time. Normally the release rate is limited to 2000 cfs as measured by the Piney Point gauge. The Corps does not release water from the dams during a rain event, and the high releases began on June 1 and continued for ten days, finally dropping on June 12. The banks were already saturated from the storm, and the damage from the extended high flow was plainly visible up and down the bayou.

Read the rest of this story.

Tree on private property downed by extended high water releases from Buffalo Bayou dams in June 2015. Photo courtesy of Don Jones.

March 14, 2016 No Comments More

Public Meeting on Buffalo Bayou Dams

Corps of Engineers to Issue Repair Update Wednesday, March 9

March 7, 2016

Updated March 14, 2016

The US Army Corps of Engineers, Galveston District, is holding a public meeting Wednesday, March 9, 2016, to update the public about progress in repairing the Addicks and Barker dams on South Mayde Creek and Buffalo Bayou in rapidly developing west Houston.

The two earthen dams, completed in the 1940s, were labeled “extremely high risk” in 2009 when engineers noticed seepage around the dams’ gates and ends following a heavy storm. The “extremely high risk” designation did not mean the dams were in danger of failing soon. But the possibility of failure combined with the dams’ location upstream of a major metropolitan area lifted the dams into the urgent category.

As a result, the reservoirs, which are dry reservoirs and contain one of the region’s largest parks and recreation areas, cannot be filled to capacity during storms, which impacts the way water is released from the dams before and after storms: faster and more often. (Correction: The Corps of Engineers says that the structural problems with the dams have had no impact on the capacity limit or release rates.) This unnatural flow regime in turn impacts Buffalo Bayou downstream. (South Mayde Creek joins Buffalo Bayou just below the dams.) However, most of the flooding in Buffalo Bayou during heavy storms is caused by surface runoff from buildings, highways, streets, parking lots, and other paved surfaces below the dams, which are closed during rain events.

Read the rest of this post.

Barker Reservoir. Undated photo courtesy of USACE, Galveston District.

March 7, 2016 No Comments More

Support Your Forest on Buffalo Bayou

Annual District G Meeting with City Officials Thursday, March 3

March 2, 2016

Citizens concerned about our forests on Buffalo Bayou will want to attend the annual District G Capital Improvement Plan meeting tomorrow evening, March 3, 2016. The meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. in the Stratford High School Auditorium, 14555 Fern Drive, and features the district’s new city council member, Greg Travis, who was elected to City Council District G last November.

Capital Improvement Plan meetings “afford citizens an opportunity to learn, voice their concerns and address their respective City Council Members and City of Houston officials regarding project planning and delivery,” according to a statement on Travis’ website.

District G extends along Buffalo Bayou from Shepherd Drive to Barker Reservoir in far west Houston.

Members of Save Our Forest, which was successful last year in persuading the City of Houston to drop its plan to raze forest in Terry Hershey Park for a stormwater detention basin, are urging citizens to “show your support for the forest to our new City of Houston administration.”

“We now have a new city council representative, a new mayor and a new [Public Works and Engineering] director since we began our campaign to Save Our Forest,” wrote community activist George Crosby in an email. “It is important that they know how much you care about Buffalo Bayou.

The banks of Buffalo Bayou in Terry Hershey Park in West Houston. Straightened and channelized by the Army Corps of Engineers in the 1940s to speed storm waters, the bayou has since restored itself but remains threatened by public projects to build detention basins.

Detention Alternatives Without Destroying Forests

“Last year there were two major rainfall events which caused structural flooding in Houston. Regional detention alternatives that can reduce local flooding without having to destroy the forested areas of Buffalo Bayou are not happening. Cooperation between the City, County and Federal governments is required for a successful regional detention initiative.

“A cooperative inter-governmental effort begins with the City of Houston understanding our support for this approach. Please help us give emphasis to Save Our Forest,“ wrote Crosby.

The public forests of Buffalo Bayou are still threatened by a Harris County Flood Control District plan to build some 24 detention basins on both banks of Buffalo Bayou in Terry Hershey Park.

The flood control district is also waiting for a federal permit to raze the forest along more than 1.25 miles of one of the last natural stretches of the bayou as it flows past Memorial Park and the Hogg Bird Sanctuary.

It makes no scientific sense to destroy forests to create detention basins. Forests provide valuable natural detention by slowing, absorbing, and deflecting rainwater, in addition to many other valuable ecological services, including cleansing and filtering the water and protecting against erosion.

In October of 2015, the Obama administration issued an executive order directing all federal agencies to incorporate the value of ecosystem services in their decision-making.

In addition, the Harris County Flood Control District is obligated by state law to conserve forests. (PDF. See page 6.)

March 2, 2016 2 Comments More

Myths about Rivers

Courtesy of Steve Nelle, Riparian Notes, Note Number 28, December 2012.

February 7, 2016 No Comments More

The Waters of Our Lives

The fight for Texas’ prairie wetlands

They’re crucial to our water quality and flood control. But we’re losing them fast.

By John S. Jacob and Jen Powis, Gray Matters, The Houston Chronicle

December 18, 2015

Save Buffalo Bayou Note: Riparian areas, the trees and plants and soil along our bayous and streams, serve the same function as wetlands.

A flock of blue-winged teal flies over a Texas coastal wetland.

To Texas developers, a coastal prairie wetland looks like profit waiting to be made: The expanses of grassland are easily bulldozed, easily platted and paved. So it’s no wonder that they’re disappearing quickly: According to a report from Texas A&M University, of the Texas coastal prairie wetlands that existed in Harris County in 1992, more than 30 percent have been lost.

If you’ve lived in the Houston area awhile, you know what that means: The more we develop, the more we flood. Our wetlands serve as natural detention basins, absorbing and holding stormwater that would otherwise rush through our houses and streets.

And that’s not all that those wetlands do. While wetland plants and soil retain that water, they also filter it, cleaning it before releasing it. They keep Galveston Bay healthy and fishable, and provide major habitat for the migratory birds that crisscross our area. The more scientists study Texas’ coastal wetlands, the more important we realize they are.

Read the rest of this article in The Houston Chronicle.

John Jacob is board chair of Galveston Baykeeper. Jen Powis is a Galveston Baykeeper board member and an environmental attorney.

December 18, 2015 No Comments More

Valuable Insight About Stormwater Pollution of Our Bayous

Houston Gets a C- for Flood Control and Storm Drainage

By Luke Metzger and Sara Smith

Houston Chronicle Outlook

November 19, 2015 Updated: November 20, 2015 9:38am

Last month, more than 2 million gallons of raw sewage overflowed across Houston, the result of Halloween weekend rains swamping the sewage system.

The sheer volume of stormwater transmitted by roads and parking lots into sewers overwhelmed the capacity of the system and sewage was released to nearby bayous and ultimately to Galveston Bay.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t an isolated incident – there are more than 40,000 sewer overflows every year in the United States. These events, along with other pollution picked up by stormwater, contribute to 80 percent of the major waterways in Greater Houston not being safe for swimming or fishing.

In addition to bacteria and pathogens, stormwater carries litter, heavy metals and construction debris into our waterways. In its 2015 Galveston Bay Report Card, the Galveston Bay Foundation gave the Bay a “D” for overall pollution and identified stormwater-carried litter and spilled motor oil as threats to its overall health.

Read the rest of the story in the Houston Chronicle.

Raw sewage bubbling up through storm drain in downtown Houston during Halloween weekend 2015. Photo KHOU/USA Today.

November 22, 2015 No Comments More

Buffalo Bayou Doesn’t Like Sidewalks, It Seems

Buffalo Bayou Park Was Supposed to Be More Stable

Nov. 16, 2015

Updated Nov. 17, 2015

Update: “Endless Repairs: Buffalo Bayou Sets Its Own Terms,” Houston Chronicle, Nov. 20, 2019

Well, we can’t help but wonder if constantly scraping and repairing the sidewalks, forever reinforcing the collapsing banks somehow, and repeatedly replacing the trees and landscaping is fully covered by the $2 million annual maintenance budget for Buffalo Bayou Park paid by Houston city taxpayers.

The popular, much praised, and much needed park on the banks of the bayou between Allen Parkway and Memorial Drive is suffering from some serious erosion problems. And that matters to us not just because of the expense and waste. This $53.5 million project, a boon to adjacent property owners and those who live and work nearby, was touted as a successful example of what the Harris County Flood Control District, egged on by the Bayou Preservation Association, wants to do to our healthy, historic wild bayou further upstream in and around Memorial Park. Buffalo Bayou Park was supposed to be more stable! The flood control district calls it Natural Stable Channel Design, but it always looked to us like they were doing everything you’re not supposed to do on the banks of streams: dig up the banks, run heavy equipment over the banks, remove the trees and vegetation (yes, they did a lot of that), build concrete and asphalt sidewalks on the banks, plant grass and mow it.

Let’s Work With Nature, Not Against It

Once you’ve done all that, and the banks and channel start falling apart, it’s pretty difficult to fix it. Best to let the bayou do what it will do anyway. (And eventually the bayou will rebuild and replant it all.) But it seems unlikely that the City and the Buffalo Bayou Partnership are going to sit back and patiently let millions of dollars worth of sidewalks, lamps, and bridges collapse into the bayou. Can they stop it? Time will tell.

In the meantime, it does make one wonder about all those concrete trails they are carving out of the banks and floodplains of the bayous for the Bayou Greenways project. A nice idea, but is that going to work?

Here’s what we’re talking about. What this slide show of photos of Buffalo Bayou Park between Shepherd and Montrose taken on Nov. 15, 2015 (and updated with later photos).

Deposition, erosion on north bank and problematic drainage project on south bank at Shepherd Drive. There were trees here once. Photo Nov. 16, 2015, by SC
Increased deposition and erosion in same meadow, caused by runoff, exposing irrigation pipes. Photo Feb. 24, 2017, by SC
Another view of deposition and erosion in the formerly forested "meadow" on the north bank at Shepherd Bridge. Photo Feb. 24, 2017
Slumping in south bank downstream from Shepherd, Nov. 16, 2015.
Lone cottonwood still standing on south bank of Buffalo Bayou in November 2015 after parts of it were downed the previous winter.
Undermined by removal of surrounding vegetation, big cottonwood falls. Notice that the bayou has steepened its bank previously graded by Flood Control. Photo June 13, 2016.
Same fallen tree and bank on August 5, 2017.
Same location, former site of tall cottonwood as well as other trees, since removed, on Dec. 18, 2018.
Slumping south bank near Dunlavy threatening sidewalk, Nov. 16, 2015.
Same location on Feb. 24, 2017, after repeat repairs. Our research show that where the banks are collapsing is where the bayou's original meanders were.
The boat launch at The Dunlavy on the south bank, Nov. 16, 2015.
Boat launch and bank below The Dunlavy on Jan. 27, 2019
Sidewalk threatened on north bank, Nov. 16, 2015.
Detail of sidewalk about to collapse on north bank, Nov. 16, 2015.
Another section of sidewalk about to collapse on the north bank, Nov. 16, 2015.
Jogger on another section of sidewalk threatened by collapsing bank on north side of the park, Nov. 16, 2015.
Same location of repeat collapse on north bank opposite the Dunlavy two years later on Feb. 8, 2017.
Attempted repairs on same section of north bank on Feb. 8, 2017.
Collapsing south bank east of the Dunlavy, Nov. 16, 2015.
Collapsing south bank threatening sidewalk east of the Dunlavy, Nov. 16, 2015.
Erosion on same south bank below Wortham Fountain on Feb. 8, 2017
Vegetation destroyed and bank covered with sediment on north side of park, Nov. 16, 2015.
Bank collapse threatening to take out sidewalk on south side of park just west of Rosemont Bridge, Nov. 16, 2015
Deposition on south bank of Buffalo Bayou in the park near Montrose, Nov. 16, 2015.
Sediment collected on north bank of the park, possibly scraped from sidewalks, Nov. 16, 2015.
Sediment deposited by flooding bayou on north bank of park. Photo Feb. 7, 2017
Sediment on south bank scraped out of the dog park, Nov. 16, 2015.
Deposition and erosion on north bank near Montrose, Nov. 16, 2015.
Looking upstream at sunset west of the Rosemont Bridge, Nov. 16, 2015.
North bank of Buffalo Bayou in Buffalo Bayou Park moving upstream towards Dunlavy, Nov. 16, 2015.
Collapsing bank threatening sidewalk on south bank west of Montrose, Nov. 16, 2015.
Runner gazing into same bank collapse on south bank of the bayou, Nov. 16, 2015.
The upstream section of the same collapsing bank on the south bank moving upstream towards the Dunlavy, Nov. 16, 2015.
Repeat repair of collapsing bank where Buffalo Bayou is seeking out its original meanders. Photo Feb. 8, 2017.
Erosion undermining sidewalk on north bank on February 22, 2017
Slumped south bank again after Harvey, west (upstream) of the Dunlavy. Photo by SC March 30, 2018
The still-closed sidewalk upstream of the Dunlavy with the bank of Buffalo Bayou stabilizing itself naturally with vegetation. Photo Sept. 15, 2019 by SC

November 17, 2015 4 Comments More

Film: Letting the River Heal

Learning to Respect A River’s Natural Process

October 18, 2015

“We have to be patient,” says Steve Nelle, Natural Resources Conservation Service, retired.

“Nature’s going to recover that area at her own timetable in her own way. It’s best to accommodate that natural process.”

Watch this moving and informative 14-minute documentary about a river’s natural process and Best Management Practices for protecting against erosion and preserving a river’s important role in cleansing our water, slowing storm water and runoff, and providing wildlife habitat.

All of this applies to Buffalo Bayou as well as our other bayous, creeks, and streams in Harris County. Even a small riparian buffer of native trees and vegetation a few feet wide is important for our waterways and the cleanliness of the water flowing through our neighborhood streams and into our bays and oceans. But on Buffalo Bayou, especially as it flows past Memorial Park, we are fortunate to have room for the river to move. Letting the river be a river is the most current scientific thinking on river management, even in cities. A dynamic river creates the most beneficial and biologically diverse environment.

Let’s work with nature, not against it.

This lovely, short film was made about the Blanco River and the impact of the 2015 Memorial Day flood on Wimberly, Texas. We can all learn from it.

Watch the film.

Steve Nelle, Natural Resources Conservation Service, retired. Still photo from the documentary, “Letting the River Heal.”

October 18, 2015 No Comments More

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A Ribbon of Life Through the Concrete of Houston