Flood Control Recently Spent $10 Million, Scraped Healthy Bank for No Reason
Aug. 26, 2021
Almost a year ago we told you about the Harris County Flood Control District scraping and bulldozing healthy, green banks of the bayou in Buffalo Bayou Park near downtown Houston.
At the time we predicted that trees would likely fall due to the loss of supporting vegetation.
And now a big elm has fallen on the bank scraped by the district.
It’s not the first tree to go as a result of the district’s work on the banks of the park since 2010. Numerous trees have collapsed in the stretch from Shepherd Drive to Sabine. There’s also the trees deliberately cut in the park by contractors working for Flood Control. Watch this slideshow of the evolution of the park showing the numerous trees removed by the district in the last decade.
Buffalo Bayou between Shepherd and Waugh drives on June 27, 2005, before the Harris County Flood Control District's "natural stable channel design" project.
The bulldozing of the bank last year was part of a $9.7 million “repair” project that narrowed the channel, lined it with concrete riprap, and basically turned our scenic river into an ugly drainage ditch.
A Waste of Federal Funds and Natural Resources
The nearly $10 million in federal funds were supposed to be used to “reshape and protect eroded streambanks.” But these areas, particularly upstream of Waugh, were not eroded. The bank shape was fine. The bayou, according to its natural plan, had planted tall goldenrod and horseweed, young willows and cottonwoods along its banks.
The Flood Control District cut it all down and left bare dirt. It wasn’t a “repair” project. It was a landscaping project.
Now, almost a year later, here’s what some of those multi-million dollar banks look like. So will they keep scraping the banks after the bayou plants them again with the deep-rooted wild stuff that’s needed to hold the banks together?
North bank beach below the Shepherd Bridge on Aug. 24, 2021
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