Save Buffalo Bayou Needs Your Support

Nov. 22, 2022

Save Buffalo Bayou is a unique voice advocating for our streams and forests, for enlightened flood risk management, and for nature in the city. There are many environmental groups doing excellent work in the Harris County region, and we do our best to complement, amplify, and publicize what they do as well. Through our journalism, we try to educate the public and public officials

We need your financial support now. Use the Donate button to the right of the page. But you can also send a check. See below.

Our budget is small. It goes a long way. We rarely ask for money. But in order to maintain our public charity status, the IRS requires that we have a substantial amount of small individual donations. We’d rather not have to spend any time raising funds, a burden for a small organization. But before the end of the year, we need to raise at least $10,000 in gifts smaller than $1,000. Of course, Save Buffalo Bayou is a 501c3 nonprofit and donations are tax-deductible.

Why Should You Support Save Buffalo Bayou?

Looking upstream on Buffalo Bayou in Memorial Park. Photo September 2021.

In the past year we have published over a dozen major reports on nature-based flood management, exposure of damaging and outdated practices by local agencies and organizations and private engineering contractors; explaining development of local, regional, state and federal flood management plans, and describing what other cities and states are doing to reduce flooding and flood risk, as well as exposing long-term violations of the Open Meetings Act by the Houston Parks Board LGC.

We have done major investigative research, including public information requests, into at least nine different project areas related to flooding, flood risk management, and stream channel maintenance.

We have participated in over 100 meetings of various governmental agencies, public and private groups concerning flood management and planning, the environment, and nature in the city.

We have given several public presentations or participated in panel discussions about Buffalo Bayou, understanding rivers, and modern flood management.

And more.

So please think about a gift to Save Buffalo Bayou. We prefer checks because PayPal takes some three percent of all donations. Send checks to Save Buffalo Bayou at 3614 Montrose #706, Houston, TX 77006. But it’s true that PayPal is quicker and easier.

Thank you for your support.

SC

Fall on the Bayou

A Misty Sunrise on that Bend in Buffalo Bayou

And the Benefits of Wildness in the City

Nov. 21, 2022

It was a beautiful misty morning on Buffalo Bayou in Houston’s Memorial Park. Technically it was fall but our seasons are not obvious in Houston. Unless it’s hurricane season or an ice storm perhaps. Definitely winter if there’s ice hanging from the drooping telephone wires and people are trapped in their homes.

Perhaps we should name our seasons after what actually happens, as the Egyptians did.

We were traipsing through the forbidden woods just after dawn, talking too much probably, headed towards the high bank overlooking that bend in the river we’ve been documenting throughout the seasons for over eight years now. Jim Olive, our boss photographer, was not available so the assistant photog was leading the way down the shadowy dirt path, accompanied by a backup assistant.

The big woods were forbidden, still, because the private conservancy that manages our public park decided several years ago for dubious reasons that the paths through these lovely woods were closed, throwing up threatening signs, wire fencing, and piles of cut tree trunks and branches.

In rebellious response, someone recently had blocked out the “Not” on the “Do Not Enter” sign. The simple path, as always, was well maintained by anonymous volunteers and well used by walkers, runners, and other creatures.

Read the rest of this post.

Altered sign attached to beaten down wire fencing blocking the path into the bayou woods on the southeast side of Houston’s Memorial Park.