Recent Photos of Buffalo Bayou: Slowing the Flow

Summer Down on the Bayou

July 17, 2018

In case you missed Jim Olive‘s summer shot of that Bend in the River, here is the latest addition to our series of photographs taken from the same high bank on the north side of Buffalo Bayou in Memorial Park. The view has changed over the course of four years. In particular, since the high waters of Harvey, the bayou widened to accommodate the massive flow. Banks slid or slumped away, as they will do on the bayou when water rises over the banks and onto the natural floodplains. Trees and vegetation slide down too.

Ideally this woody debris, often still living, should be left in place to collect sediment, reinforce the banks, and facilitate regrowth and rebuilding of the banks. It’s a cycle that has been continuing on rivers for millions of years. Unfortunately, the Harris County Flood Control District hired contractors and paid them by the pound to collect as much of the fallen vegetation as possible.

Summer sunrise on Buffalo Bayou. That bend in the bayou on July 1, 2018, with flow at about 280 cubic feet per second. Photo by Jim Olive, of course.

 

Other Recent Photos of Buffalo Bayou

Known as Houston’s Mother Bayou, in large part because most other bayous and streams flow into it, Buffalo Bayou is some 18,000 years old, more or less, and one of the few natural waterways in the city that remains largely unchannelized. The beauty of it flowing past Memorial Park is that this forested stretch is one of the last accessible to the public. It’s a historic nature area, ever changing and adapting, filled with ancient high banks and sandstone, beaver, otter, massive turtles and other wildlife.

Though in the wake of Harvey there are calls to “improve” our bayous, including Buffalo Bayou, by widening and deepening, even straightening, the fact is that meandering streams carry more water — because they are longer. Artificially widening and deepening streams doesn’t last: the banks collapse and the channel fills with sediment. Rivers are living, dynamic systems and will adjust to stabilize themselves. The trees and vegetation on the banks help absorb and cleanse stormwaters and prevent flooding by slowing and diffusing the energy of the stream.

Our political and civic leaders should focus on slowing the flow with green spaces, prairie and wetlands, swales and rain gardens — stopping, spreading, and soaking up stormwater before it floods our natural and built drainage systems.

  • Outstanding sycamore on the south bank of Buffalo Bayou upstream from that Bend in the River that we have been documenting for four years now. Photo by Jim Olive on July 1, 2018.
  • This creek flows into the bayou from the center of Memorial Park. It enters the bayou just downstream from the bend that we have been photo-documenting through the seasons. Photo by SC, July 1, 2018
  • Early morning joggers descending the bank towards the small tributary. Note the tree stump cut recently apparently by Harris County Flood Control maintenance contractors. Photo by SC
  • Closer view of the tree cut for no good reason on the bank of the creek flowing through Memorial Park into the bayou. Photo July 1, 2018
  • Looking up the creek that flows from the center of Memorial Park into Buffalo Bayou. Photo July 1, 2018
  • A big pine standing on the high bank of Buffalo Bayou in Memorial Park. Asking for a hug.

 

Watch this video of a summer sunrise on Buffalo Bayou in Memorial Park, July 1, 2018.

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