No More Money for Incompetent Flood Control

Vote No on Proposition A

Oct. 31, 2024

The Harris County Flood Control District is asking county voters for a property tax increase to raise an extra $100 million a year for maintenance operations. The increase would nearly double Flood Control’s annual budget (p. 80), not including the money from the $2.5 billion bond program approved by voters in 2018.

We’ve been monitoring the agency for ten years. Here’s why the vote on Flood Control’s Proposition A should be NO.

A Unique Agency. Little Authority. Destructive Maintenance Practices. Private Profit

First of all, it’s important to note that Flood Control, the only agency of its kind in the state, has very limited responsibility. It does not manage flooding throughout the county and has no regulatory powers. Flood Control only has authority over our local bayous and creeks. And with little else to do, they have gouged out, straightened and stripped most of our streams of natural vegetation, turning them into ditches and concrete channels. Unfortunately this only increases flooding and erosion, as many experts point out. (p. 155) The agency, which bizarrely misrepresents the causes of Houston’s flooding and dismisses effective non-engineering solutions, is not responsible for storm sewers, street or neighborhood flooding. And these new funds are not for useful new projects, like a stormwater detention basin. This money is exclusively for “maintenance.”

But Flood Control’s so-called “maintenance” of our streams and channels is not only outdated and backwards: it’s also damaging, destructive, ineffective, pointless, and possibly corrupt. The main benefit is to the private engineering contractors (rarely if ever hydrologists or scientists) who do the (beneficial) analysis and then the work and reap millions in profits. Over and over again.

Not to mention that these private engineering reports have been filled with errors that happen to justify their contracts: exaggerating the amount of sediment deposited in streams and misrepresenting the causes of local flooding (see below), among other major mistakes, including the bizarre claim in the past that there’s no sandstone and no vertical bank collapse, i.e. slumping, in Buffalo Bayou, which is actually what happens.

Clearing Debris

For example, contractors are paid by the pound to collect woody debris in and along the stream after storms. Thus motivated they cut down healthy trees, scrape the banks and bottom with backhoes, grab fallen trees that should be left against the bank to provide habitat and defend against erosion. All of this destabilizes the banks and bottom, leading to more maintenance contracts. It is hugely damaging to the ecosystem, killing creatures and vital habitat and ruining the natural system that slows and absorbs stormwater, cleanses the water and air, and keeps life flowing.

Dredging or Mining Sand?

Dredging streams can make flooding worse and cause more siltation. (See also here and here and here.) Left alone, streams naturally flush out sand and sediment, distributing it along the bank where it needs to go. But Flood Control’s stream dredging operations are not only counterproductive. They appear to be basically an undercover sand mining operation – in a world where valuable sand is in short supply.

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Bend Fall Down

Over the River Through the Woods

Plus: 

A Geology Study of Buffalo Bayou

Zombie Memorial Groves in Memorial Park – Comment and Petition

Flood Control Proposes a Tax Increase

Oct. 7, 2024

The massive loblolly pine was lying across the path in the bayou woods. A regal giant downed by the monster winds of Hurricane Beryl. It was a profoundly sad sight.

We hadn’t been to the woods in this part of Houston’s Memorial Park since the storm in July. We were there to take our seasonal fall photo of that bend in the bayou from a high bank located off the Picnic Loop in the southeast side of the park. You can see the entire series of photos here. We’ve been documenting the bend from the same spot throughout the seasons for the last ten years – ever since Save Buffalo Bayou was founded to protect this stretch of the river, one of the only remaining natural stretches of the bayou’s riparian forest accessible to the public.

Because that broad-based effort was successful in stopping the bulldozing and landscaping of the park’s banks, the geologic history of the region is still visible. Using as a foundation the work of our board member, geologist Tom Helm, the Houston Geological Society has recently published a paper on that geology.

We entered the woods, passing by the familiar pile of century-old cement sewer line junk from Camp Logan. The first shock was the amount of vegetation that had been cleared – by the storm and by humans. Now we could easily see into the open right-of-way where poles and power lines traverse the park from east to west.

The woods were not exactly lush. We’ve had record heat and violent weather. Before Beryl ripped through in July, we had a nightmarish derecho in May. The region is still in a state of abnormally hot and dry weather.

But as we stepped down the soft sandy path just after sunrise, the woods were surprisingly cool.

We took some photos and walked east towards the lovely winding creek that drains from the center of the park, flowing under Memorial Drive south towards the bayou. Its mouth where it enters the river was stuffed with debris – branches and bits of trash.

Zombie Groves Planned for Memorial Park Forest

At least we still have these wild woods for now.

But the 2015 Master Plan for our city’s great Memorial Park includes a deeply unpopular project that many assumed had been cast aside. Apparently it’s still alive. But you can sign a petition opposing it here.

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