October 30, 2014
Some very strong, informed, and pointed questions from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to the Army Corps of Engineers about the Harris County Flood Control District’s $6 million project to raze riparian forest, level banks and cliffs, dredge, channelize, and reroute the last natural stretch of Buffalo Bayou as it flows between our great Memorial Park and the River Oaks Country Club golf course.
Reference File number SWG-2012-01007. Comments to Army Corps of Engineers
The Memorial Park Demonstration Project, is a pointless, expensive boondoggle that is needlessly destroying a healthy, natural, historic stretch of the river in order to re-engineer it with dubious methods that often fail. Rather than making the banks more stable, the project will de-stabilize the banks and cause greater erosion both within the project area and downstream.
Rivers erode and regenerate their banks. We are in favor of letting this river be a river. It’s an invaluable public asset in the middle of the city.
The recent flooding and resulting stability of the Buffalo Bayou is a proof that tampering with it could result in huge problems for the surrounding areas.
We need more time for comments, for a public hearings, and for an environmental impact statement that takes into account the cumulative effect of all the flood control projects on Buffalo Bayou, the operation of the Addicks and Barker dams, development, and increasing impermeable surface in the watershed.
Thank you, Francois.