Corps Studying the Issue. Public Comments Due by May 31.
Last Public Meeting Tonight
May 9, 2019
The Corps of Engineers is studying ways of reducing flooding along Buffalo Bayou and its many tributaries, including upstream and downstream of Addicks and Barker dams in west Houston, as well as the federal dams themselves.
The Corps’ Galveston District has been conducting a series of public meetings explaining possible approaches to reducing flood risk and seeking public comment. The last public meeting is tonight, May 9, from 6 to 9 at the Cypress Ridge High School, 7900 N. Eldridge Parkway. But the public comment period doesn’t end until May 31.
Here is a link to the Corps’ presentation at the meetings. Here is a link to the storyboards presented at the meetings.
And here is the email address for asking questions and sending in your comments and suggestions about what the Corps and the Harris County Flood Control District (and Fort Bend County) should be doing about flooding. Note that this does not include what the City of Houston could or should do.
The three primary problems being addressed by the Corps are:
- Flooding downstream of the reservoirs on Buffalo Bayou
- Performance and risk issues related to flow around and over the uncontrolled spillways
- Flooding upstream of the reservoirs
The various suggested approaches are heavy on big engineering projects like flood tunnels, bypasses, new dams and reservoirs, increasing the storage capacity of the reservoirs, and “channel improvements” along Buffalo Bayou and other streams flowing into it.
But the alternatives also include floodproofing, better warning systems, signage, and public education; stormwater detention, and “property acquisition,” which could mean buyouts of flood-prone properties as well as preservation of forest and prairie, which help slow and absorb rainwater.
Save Buffalo Bayou is in favor of stopping and slowing stormwater runoff before it floods our bayous and streams. This is modern floodplain management. That means more trees and greenspace, more wetlands and prairies, more detention in neighborhoods and shopping malls, more permeable surface. Focusing on collecting and conveying more stormwater faster—and destroying our natural landscape and drainage system in order to do it—only leads to more flooding. Dredging, deepening, and widening the bayou and other streams only leads to bank collapse, constant maintenance and repair, and more flooding. (See here and here and here.) It’s like building bigger freeways: it doesn’t work.
Another problem with hard structures: They don’t move. Nature does.
Preserving old stands of trees, natural swales, wetlands, oxbows, vegetated riparian areas, and meanders; building small weirs, sediment structures, wet gardens, and setback levees; lengthening streams, and accepting large woody debris in the channel are useful techniques. Using these practices to work with the natural motion of the river is more effective – and less expensive – in reducing flood damage and helping us realize benefits from the water.
Floodplain Management: A New Approach for a New Era, p. 137
Image courtesy of the Galveston District, Corps of Engineers
Dam Right