Podcasts: The Corps of Engineers, Flooding, and Buffalo Bayou

November 2020

Here are links to discussions about the Corps of Engineers’ proposed solutions for too much stormwater flowing too fast into the federal flood control dams, Addicks and Barker, in far west Houston. The unpopular proposals include deepening and widening Buffalo Bayou for some 22 miles from the dams to downtown Houston and building a dam and reservoir on Cypress Creek and the Katy Prairie.

Michael Gold talks with Bob Freitag and Susan Chadwick, President and Executive Director of Save Buffalo Bayou on Oct. 22, 2020. Freitag is the lead author of Floodplain Management: A New Approach for a New Era and Director of the Institute for Hazards Mitigation Planning and Research at the University of Washington. Here’s the link to the podcast.

Michael Gold talks with Mary Anne Piacentini of the Katy Prairie Conservancy on Oct. 23, 2020, about the conservancy’s concerns and alternatives to the Corps’ proposals. Piacentini is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the conservancy. Here’s the link to that podcast.

Sam Oser talks with Susan Chadwick of Save Buffalo Bayou on Oct. 24, 2020.

On Nov. 18, 2020, Oser moderated a discussion hosted by Residents Against Flooding between Piacentini and Chadwick about the Corps’ proposals. The conversation focused on natural functions and nature-based engineering and why they work better than more costly, traditional, and outdated structural approaches to flood management—which can actually increase flooding and place more people in harm’s way.

Listen to the discussion here and learn about the value of prairies, wetlands, and forested, meandering streams in slowing and reducing flooding and cleansing our polluted, urban waters.