For Immediate Release
June 16, 2014
Opponents of $6 million project to bulldoze the wild banks of Buffalo Bayou to address Houston City Council Tuesday, June 17
Project is a pointless waste of money and will cause irreversible loss of natural flood, erosion, and sediment control, wildlife habitat, and hundreds of trees in middle of city.
Houston, TX, June 16, 2014—Opponents of a bizarre plan to destroy Buffalo Bayou in order to “restore” it will urge Mayor Annise Parker and members of city council to withdraw their support for the costly project.
The project will raze hundreds of trees and all the vegetation from nearly 1.5 miles of some of the only natural bayou left in the center of Houston. Speakers will argue that the plan will destroy a unique natural treasure. Houston is one of the only large cities in the country with such a wilderness resource available to the public in its center.
The City of Houston is spending $2 million for a project to scrape, excavate, and rechannel Buffalo Bayou as it flows through the Hogg Bird Sanctuary and past Memorial Park on the north and the River Oaks County Club golf course on the south. Harris County and the country club are each contributing $2 million also, although the club owns half of the project area.
The dotted red lines show the 14.35 acres of riparian forest to be scraped and bulldozed. According to the HCFCD, 80 percent of the vegetation in the targeted area will be removed. Note the areas to be cleared of trees extends into the interior of Memorial Park towards the maintenance facility. This is for access by heavy equipment to the bayou. Also note the land and forest to be lost by the River Oaks Country Club on the south, and the destruction of a scenic tributary and a magnificent high bluff in the Hogg Bird Sanctuary on the north.
Take a eco tour down the bayou and notice the difference between the natural side vs the side where rich people have tried to save their property at the expense of the earth. Let mother nature be natural. What she takes away one day, she will give back another.