Informative Articles in Response to Tax Day Flooding

A Roundup of Opinion on What Happened and Why

April 25, 2016

Houston neighborhoods shouldn’t be detention ponds

Commercial developers are dumping their runoff into our homes

By Bruce Nichols for the Houston Chronicle

April 19, 2016

Houston has a lot of great characteristics. It is open to new people, new ideas. It encourages entrepreneurs. Its energy-based economy is strong, despite the slowdown. But one big flaw is our failure to organize local government to protect homeowner investments, a big share of life savings for most of us.

The latest example of what this flaw leads to: Hundreds of homes flooded April 18. It was not a one-off event, a freak of Nature, as we have been assured. It will happen again, to more people, as more and more land is paved over without developers’ controlling their excess runoff.

Read the rest of this story in the Houston Chronicle.

 

Gary Coronado

Gideon Miller, Natanya Abramson and Yari Garner canoe along the 9300 block of Greenwillow in the flooded Willow Meadows neighborhood on Monday, April 18. Photo by Gary Coronado for the Houston Chronicle.

Don’t blame Mother Nature for flooding. Blame City Council.

The disasters are predictable. Why aren’t we preventing them?

By Cynthia Hand Neely and Ed Browne, Residents Against Flooding, for the Houston Chronicle

April 19, 2016

Man-made, preventable flooding has surged dirty, sewage-ridden water through Houston living rooms three times now in seven years, yet city government fails to prevent these recurring emergencies.

Really? If losing homes, livelihoods, retirement savings, health and sanity (and at least one life) aren’t reasons enough to make emergency detention and drainage improvements, what in the world does it take?

Right now, too many real-estate developments do not detain storm water run-off from their new construction, and instead allow it to flow downstream into other neighborhoods, into people’s homes. This new development is responsible for unnecessary flooding of neighborhoods that previously weren’t flood plains, weren’t prone to flooding. That new development is also responsible for flood insurance rising 100 to 200 percent (before the Tax Day flood) in these non-flood plains.

City government is allowing this to happen. Developers use loopholes and grandfathering to avoid doing what the city’s laws require them to do. Is it ethical to allow a new office building to flood an entire neighborhood even if a loophole makes it legal?

Read the rest of this story in the Houston Chronicle.

 

Photo by Jon Shapley for the Houston Chronicle

Meital Harari pushes water out the back door at her Meyerland home, Monday, April 18. Photo by Jon Shapley for the Houston Chronicle

Disaster by design: Houston can’t keep developing this way

We can’t stop growing. But to avoid flooding, we’ve got to be smarter about it.

By John S. Jacob for the Houston Chronicle

April 20, 2016

Let’s review the facts before this teachable moment fades away.

We live on a very flat coastal plain — much of it only a four-foot drop over a mile. And much of it with very clayey, slow-to-drain soils.  We also live in the region of highest-intensity rainfall in the continental U.S. So it is going to flood. Mother Nature will continue to deliver floods no matter what we do. Don’t count her out.

Flooding does not occur uniformly across the region. There are floodplains, and areas near the floodplains. There are low areas and there are higher areas. We need to know where these are. Obviously! — and yet we don’t seem to know.

But humans have screwed things up royally.

Read the rest of this story in the Houston Chronicle.

Wrecked wetlands lead to flooding. Here’s what you can do.

By Jennifer Lorenz for the Houston Chronicle

April 20, 2016

For the past twenty years, we at Bayou Land Conservancy have watched, horrified, as the Houston region’s wetlands are scraped and filled in — directly resulting in increased flooding.

When wetlands are allowed to function, they’re the kidneys of the area’s watershed. Their special soil types are surrounded by particular wetland plants that help hold water in shallow depressions. They clean the water as they allow some of it to filter slowly into the ground, the rest to drain slowly into our bayous. That process is the foundation of our region’s ecology.

The rampant destruction of our forested and prairie wetlands is upsetting this balance, drastically reducing the land’s ability to absorb water. By allowing so many wetlands to be turned into subdivisions, we’re not just kicking them to the curb; we’re turning them into curbs. We need the ecological equivalent of dialysis.

Read the rest of this story in the Houston Chronicle.

How policy fills Houston living rooms with water

We know how to lessen flood damage. But will we take the steps?

By David Crossley for the Houston Chronicle

April 21, 2016

The flooding of April 18, 2016, was a profound experience for many reasons. The electrifying videos from drones, so quickly and easily available on Facebook, and hours of television enterprise brought us the clearest picture we’ve ever had of the immensity and the tragedy of flooding in Houston, and another reminder that all neighborhoods are not equal.

It was a spooky and historic picture; that was the most one-day rain in Houston’s history.

Extreme rain events like this are going to be more common as we slide further into climate change. Are we doing things to ease the slide or are we making it worse?

Read the rest of this story in the Houston Chronicle.

People evacuate from Arbor Court Apartments in Greenspoint on Monday, April 18. Photo by Melissa Phillip for the Houston Chronicle

People evacuate from Arbor Court Apartments in Greenspoint on Monday, April 18. Photo by Melissa Phillip for the Houston Chronicle

Greenspoint, poverty and flooding

Would low-income families be better or worse off if flood-prone apartments were razed?

By Susan Rogers for the Houston Chronicle

April 22, 2016

Floods, like any natural disaster, are great levelers. All of those affected suffer equally. It is in the wake of a great loss that the disparity emerges. For some, it can be easy to find the resources to rent a new apartment, to move, to turn on your utilities — or at least not extremely hard. For others, those financial challenges are overwhelming.

That division shows sharply in Greenspoint, where some of this week’s worst flooding occurred.

The mall, office towers, multi-family apartment complexes, and strip retail development are disconnected and isolated from each other both physically and demographically. Fundamentally there are two communities: one community that caters to the area’s office workers, and one community for those who call the area home. The stores and restaurants that line Greens Road and Greenspoint Drive, which cater to office workers, are closed during the evenings and on weekends, when the area’s residents would be more likely to shop.

Read the rest of this story in the Houston Chronicle.

 

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.

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

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.

 

Valuable Insight About Stormwater Pollution of Our Bayous

Houston Gets a C- for Flood Control and Storm Drainage

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.

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

Crazy Widespread Disappearance of Wetlands around Houston

Wetlands in Buffalo Bayou Threatened Too

Aug. 3, 2015

The Army Corps of Engineers is not keeping track of whether developers are replacing tens of thousands of acres of wetlands lost to development in the Houston region as required by law.

Wetlands, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, “are part of the foundation of our nation’s water resources and are vital to the health of waterways and communities that are downstream. Wetlands feed downstream waters, trap floodwaters, recharge groundwater supplies, remove pollution, and provide fish and wildlife habitat.”

Under the federal Clean Water Act, the Corps of Engineers is charged with protecting our wetlands.

A study by the Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC), reported by the Houston Chronicle Friday, July 31, 2015, found that “more than 38,000 acres of wetlands vanished in greater Houston over the past two decades despite a federal policy that ‘no net loss’ can be caused by encroaching development.”

Read the rest of this story.

Wetland photo by John Jacob, Texas A&M University's Coastal Watershed Program, published in the Houston Chronicle, July 31, 2015. Printed with permission of John Jacob.

Wetland photo by John Jacob, director of Texas A&M University’s Coastal Watershed Program, published in the Houston Chronicle, July 31, 2015. Printed with permission of John Jacob.

Let’s Work With Nature, Not Against It

What’s the right way to protect Buffalo Bayou?

March 18, 2015 Updated: March 18, 2015 11:20am

Is the traditional vision of local and urban flood control agencies in conflict with federal and state agencies charged with protecting the health of our waterways?

Let me explain how I came to ask myself this question about mission conflict.

I grew up on Buffalo Bayou in Houston, and since early last spring I have been involved with a campaign to stop a flood control project that would destroy and then attempt to rebuild a healthy and relatively untouched riparian forest corridor running through the center of our city. It’s pretty rare to have a stretch of fairly wild river running through the middle of such a large city. The late great conservationist Army Emmott described our Buffalo Bayou as a ribbon of life running through the concrete. And that’s what it is: a living thing, a diverse and dynamic ecosystem that shows us the wondrous process of nature.

We are even more fortunate that in the words of the great river scientist Mathias Kondolf of Berkeley, this enchanting river has “room to move.” Here, in the middle of the city, we have space to “let the river be a river” — to let its banks change and its forest garden grow, as they would naturally. Dr. Kondolf traveled through this reach of the bayou in November, a reach that has never been channelized. The nearly 1.5-mile stretch targeted for destruction flows between the riparian forest and great cliffs of a public park (Memorial Park) and the forested terraces and high banks of a private golf course.

Read the rest of this article in the Houston Chronicle.

Note: This opinion piece is adapted from a presentation delivered February 12, 2015, at Texas’ first Urban Riparian Symposium, sponsored by the Texas Water Resources Institute, the Texas Riparian Association, and the City of Austin.

Looking over Buffalo Bayou from Memorial Park towards the River Oaks Country Club. This area is targeted for destruction by the $6 million Memorial Park Demonstration Project. Photo by Jim Olive.

Looking over Buffalo Bayou from Memorial Park towards the River Oaks Country Club. This area is targeted for destruction by the $6 million Memorial Park Demonstration Project. Photo by Jim Olive.

Save Buffalo Bayou Is One of the Top Ten Most Intriguing Ideas of 2014

Jan. 2, 2015

Naturally!

Lisa Gray, esteemed editor of Gray Matters, the Great Ideas section of the Houston Chronicle, has selected Save Buffalo Bayou as one of the Top Ten Most Intriguing Ideas of 2014.

She writes:

In May, when I pitched Gray Matters to the Chronicle, I wrote that it would be “about ideas” — a description that, I realized later, was fabulously broad. Everything worth talking about has an idea in it. I love you is an idea. I want a cookie is an idea. I want to do tequila shots at 9 a.m. is a bad idea. But it is an idea.

Obviously, some ideas are better than others. They’re more original. Or more powerful. More able to transform our lives — or, just as important, the way that we see our lives.

Anyway: In the six months since Gray Matters launched, these are the ideas, big and small, that have rocked my world. Or at least made it wobble on its axis.

Read the rest.