Summer on the Bend
On Buffalo Bayou in Memorial Park
Plus Land Bridges For Publicity, Not Necessary For Wildlife
July 10, 2022
There was an occasional surprise smell of mushrooms on the dirt path through the tangled woods on this early morning. Crows laughed and gossiped in the treetops. Cardinals and wrens flirted back and forth high in the blue sky. Down low there was an annoyed hissing and rapid rustling and hustling away in the crispy fallen leaves.
It was summer and time for our seasonal photograph of the Bend in the River in Houston’s great Memorial Park. But Big Jim, our devoted photographer, naturalist, and conservationist, was not in town, so it fell to the assistant to take the shot. We’ve been documenting the same bend in Buffalo Bayou throughout the seasons for the past eight years.
The Memorial Park Conservancy, preoccupied with bulldozing trees, pouring concrete, and hanging name plates, does its best to block access to this wild and peaceful southeastern section of our beloved people’s Memorial Park, throwing up wire fencing, tree limbs, and warning signs. But the simple, narrow paths are well-trodden and maintained by anonymous volunteers. Someone has restored the wood handle on the rope swing used by the adventurous to fly across the lovely, shaded creek that drains the center of the park. Further downstream someone else has hung a small rubber swing on the bayou bank.
There is a long Houston tradition of swings over the bayou, of course, thanks to the strong, gracious trees that grow near the sloping banks. Historically this was a thrill mainly available to those privileged to grow up in upscale neighborhoods on one of the only local bayous that hadn’t been stripped of its trees and straightened in misguided and counterproductive flood control projects. But Memorial Park belongs to everyone, and for many years there was a knotted rope swing hanging from the great arm of the ancient Southern Magnolia that still stands on the bank even further downstream. The rope disappeared years ago, and the massive tree is looking somewhat haggard. One of the world’s oldest plants, there are few magnolias left in the wild. This Magnolia grandiflora could be 200 years old. Could have been there when the great landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted passed through, noting the beauty and perfume of the magnolias on Buffalo Bayou. (p. 29)
Here’s a short video of the woods and the bayou taken from the bank, along with a glimpse of the sandy creek flowing nearby.
Summer on the Bend
On Buffalo Bayou in Memorial Park
Plus Land Bridges For Publicity, Not Necessary For Wildlife
July 10, 2022
There was an occasional surprise smell of mushrooms on the dirt path through the tangled woods on this early morning. Crows laughed and gossiped in the treetops. Cardinals and wrens flirted back and forth high in the blue sky. Down low there was an annoyed hissing and rapid rustling and hustling away in the crispy fallen leaves.
It was summer and time for our seasonal photograph of the Bend in the River in Houston’s great Memorial Park. But Big Jim, our devoted photographer, naturalist, and conservationist, was not in town, so it fell to the assistant to take the shot. We’ve been documenting the same bend in Buffalo Bayou throughout the seasons for the past eight years.
The Memorial Park Conservancy, preoccupied with bulldozing trees, pouring concrete, and hanging name plates, does its best to block access to this wild and peaceful southeastern section of our beloved people’s Memorial Park, throwing up wire fencing, tree limbs, and warning signs. But the simple, narrow paths are well-trodden and maintained by anonymous volunteers. Someone has restored the wood handle on the rope swing used by the adventurous to fly across the lovely, shaded creek that drains the center of the park. Further downstream someone else has hung a small rubber swing on the bayou bank.
There is a long Houston tradition of swings over the bayou, of course, thanks to the strong, gracious trees that grow near the sloping banks. Historically this was a thrill mainly available to those privileged to grow up in upscale neighborhoods on one of the only local bayous that hadn’t been stripped of its trees and straightened in misguided and counterproductive flood control projects. But Memorial Park belongs to everyone, and for many years there was a knotted rope swing hanging from the great arm of the ancient Southern Magnolia that still stands on the bank even further downstream. The rope disappeared years ago, and the massive tree is looking somewhat haggard. One of the world’s oldest plants, there are few magnolias left in the wild. This Magnolia grandiflora could be 200 years old. Could have been there when the great landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted passed through, noting the beauty and perfume of the magnolias on Buffalo Bayou. (p. 29)
Here’s a short video of the woods and the bayou taken from the bank, along with a glimpse of the sandy creek flowing nearby.
Low Flow in the Bayou
The flow in the bayou on this summer morning was exceptionally low, due to the lack of rain. Base flow is low anyway, around 150-200 cubic feet per second, but the flow was half that. Sandstone outcroppings and strange chunks of asphalt not normally seen were visible in the channel bottom.
But greenery was still growing on the bank, so much so that it wasn’t easy to get a good, clear shot of the bending bayou. It’ll have to do for now.
On the roundabout walk back through the woods, with the cicadas overhead rattling singsong hymns to the heat, the substitute photographer noticed that she had possibly missed the mustang grape season, which may have come early this year due to the heat and drought. The path was littered with smashed purple grapes, which make an excellent sorbet, among other tasty things. Not the smashed ones, but no clusters were visible overhead.
Ode to Concrete. $70 Million Land Bridge Falsely Promoted as Necessary for Wildlife
It’s shocking to see that in addition to the horror of the two concrete tunnels replacing the gentle drive through the soft, green flora of the park, the conservancy has now installed concrete walls announcing the tunnels on the east and west sides. Haven’t asked yet but guessing this might announce the names of those responsible.
Let us be clear. The $70 million spent on those tunnels is not for a wildlife crossing. It’s for publicity. Getting Memorial Park (and the rapidly developing nearby Uptown District) into national media.
The hugely expensive project has been sold, particularly to the environmental community, as a benevolent project to aid wildlife trying to cross Memorial Drive. Land bridges for wildlife across major highways are important. But wildlife in Memorial Park have always had a way to cross the road, as Frank Smith, our founding president, a founding member of the conservancy, has long made clear.
There are several large concrete culverts channeling streams under Memorial Drive and Woodway that have long been used by wildlife in the park. In addition, the land bridge plan includes a stream culvert specially adapted for wildlife to safely pass under the tunnels. There is also a living bridge for pedestrians to cross Memorial near the running center.
The excessive use of concrete violates the spirit of the original planners of the park, who sought to emulate the principles of Olmsted, the great park designer. (pp. 120-121) A park was to be a respite from the “brick and steel, cement and fumes” of the city.
And as our founding president has also argued, the excessive use of concrete also violates the intention of the original park guardian Ima Hogg, who wanted the park to remain natural.
Here’s a video of the experience of driving through the tunnels, once a scenic, soothing drive through tall trees.
SC
Early Fall on That Bend in the Bayou
Time is Passing
Oct. 8, 2021
We’d just had a big storm, a hurricane actually, named Nicholas. Its big winds tore up the trees and ripped out power lines, leaving tottering poles and a hundred thousand people without electricity up and down the Gulf Coast, including in Houston.
It also brought in our loyal photographer, native Texan Jim Olive, who blew in from the dry California desert, where the daytime temperatures had been well over 100 degrees. The plan was to take our fall shot of that Bend in the River, the same location on Buffalo Bayou that we’d been photographing throughout the seasons for seven years now.
We met at sunrise at the east entrance to the Picnic Loop south of Memorial Drive, where the massive $70 million land bridges are still under construction. The park gates, usually open, were closed, apparently due to possible falling limbs and tree damage from the storm. But helmeted cyclists were shoving their slim bikes through the gates anyway and hikers were slipping through.
Big Jim recently had had major surgery and had spent quite a bit of time laid up. The prospect of walking through the morning heat to our spot was daunting. But he soldiered down the curving drive and into the woods.
A Changing Scene
The popular path into the bayou woods was still blocked by the Memorial Park Conservancy with wire fencing and branches. But the much-used dirt path through the woods itself seemed changed. There had been a big storm after all, and there was debris—leaves and tree limbs—blocking the narrow trail, which usually was kept clear by anonymous volunteers. It was difficult to tell how much of the debris blockage had been caused by the winds and how much might have been placed there by park employees.
The bayou banks were remarkably green and lush. The sediment-laden water was flowing fairly high and fast, around 800 cubic feet per second. We stood patiently on the high bank, listening to the sounds of the woods and water. The sun rose over the tall trees, big oaks and pines. The assistant wandered off, as usual. Jim got his beautiful shots, miraculously without tumbling over the steep, high bank and into the fast-flowing stream. But then, once out of the woods, he opted to rest, wait by the paved loop, and watch the cyclists whiz past. Years ago Jim also used to bike regularly, every morning two or three times a week, around this loop, as well as around the trails in Buffalo Bayou Park, then shaded with overhanging trees. Afterwards he and his physically fit friends would swim a mile or so in the nearby Masterson YWCA pool that used to be on Waugh near the bayou.
The assistant hurried to fetch the car, hoping the gates were now open. They were not. So, anxious about Jim, she jogged back along the road and splashed through the soggy grass field towards some park employees with an electric cart inspecting the trees. Cyclists circling around the loop kept an eye on Jim, who was out in the sun.
The assistant approached the conservancy staffers, waving her arms and calling out for help transporting the photographer back to the car. The answer was no. Only park employees allowed in the electric cart. But they did offer to unlock the gate so that the assistant could take the time to hurry back, get the car, drive it into the park, and pick up Jim.
Well, we were grateful for that, at least. Jim, who has donated numerous photographs to the Memorial Park Conservancy, survived. (He also happens to be a trained emergency medical technician.) The assistant was steamed. We continued on for our traditional breakfast taco at Sunrise Taquitos down the road.
We’ve asked the Conservancy, a private foundation which runs the public park on behalf of the City, for its rules and guidance on medical and other emergencies in the park. We’ll update our report when we hear back.
SC
Late Fall on that Bend in the Bayou
Jim Olive Returns
Nov. 12, 2020
We could say it was late fall by some calendar. If we actually had fall here in Houston, where the temperatures are still summerish, ten degrees above normal, and the leaves fall in the spring. Our devoted photographer, Jim Olive, has been exiled to the edge of the California desert where the temperatures until the end of October have been frequently over 100 degrees.
But recently he was able to return to take the Fall 2020 photograph of that Bend in the Bayou we’ve been documenting through the seasons for the last six years. Jim welcomed the relatively cool weather.
Just after sunrise we drove past the depressing monument that serves as the ugly new east entrance to Memorial Park on Memorial Drive. (And was not included in the 2015 Master Plan. p. 61) Apparently our beloved park is now a cemetery as well as a glorification of golf and wealthy developers, who now dominate management of the park.
While the park at some 1400 acres is frequently touted as being almost twice the size of New York City’s Central Park, with the recent expansion of the golf course and related buildings and the felling of hundreds of trees, less than half of the land is actually the park that it was when it was gifted to the city nearly a century ago on the condition that it remain natural.
The private Memorial Park Conservancy is spending some $70 million in public and private funds cutting down massive, mature loblolly pines, among other great trees, to make way for their glamorous land bridges. Neighborhood residents report seeing fleeing wildlife hit by cars and desperately seeking shelter in backyards. However, the land bridge/tunnels are sure to attract magazine publicity and landscape architect awards, helping to promote the Uptown/Galleria district, which is now actually running development of the historic park.
But for now the wild woods and trails on the south side near the bayou remain, despite efforts by the Conservancy to block public access. As the central entrance was closed for construction of the land bridges, we entered the park south of Memorial through the crowded, recently opened east gate on the Picnic Loop. We circled around the apparently no longer maintained picnic area with its moldy restrooms, boggy grass, and graceful clusters of oaks dripping with moss, wondering how many of these elegant trees will remain. According to the 2015 Master Plan, this area is to become a Pine-Hardwood Savannah. (p. 88)
We parked and made our way around the offensive fencing put up by the Conservancy to block hikers from using public trails through our public bayou woods that have been open for many decades. Trail users elsewhere in the park have expressed their displeasure with these arbitrary barricades.
Stepping along the winding, narrow dirt path, we passed the 100-year-old cement remnants of sewer lines from Camp Logan, the World War II military training camp and hospital set up in the woods and prairie next to the bayou, part of which became Memorial Park. We’d once seen a huge rat snake coiled up in the pipes. And another time we encountered a beautiful coral snake slithering across the path here.
The huge log that once lay across the path has now completely disintegrated. And a rotting loblolly snag once inscribed with the name “Jesus” inside a heart has been cut down.
Despite the elaborate fencing and many signs warning this was not a trail, the soft footpath was clearly well used and even maintained. Mushrooms were growing. Animals burrowing.
We reached our customary spot on the high bank. Part of the bank had collapsed, the face slumping down, the roots of plants sticking out. Some people think this is damage and we have to do something to fix it. Other people think this is a natural process, that the bayou can fix itself.
But hardening banks with concrete, for instance, can cause bank erosion elsewhere. It’s a good idea to observe Best Management Practices on riverbanks.
The bayou is naturally widening here, adjusting to increased flows. The river is much more visible and closer to the trail. Based on Google Earth, a rough estimate is that the top of the channel in April 2014 was around 109 feet from upper bank to upper bank. In Dec. 2019 from bank to bank the distance was approximately 150 feet.
The Corps of Engineers wants to widen the channel even further–to 230 feet, and dig the sandstone bottom nearly 12 feet deeper. Be sure to send in your comments about that before Nov. 20. We’ll have more insight for you soon.
Here is Jim’s beautiful fall photo of the bend and another photo looking upstream where the River Oaks Country Club has bulldozed the historic bank and trees and installed concrete and sheet pile, no doubt contributing to increased erosion of the banks in the park across the way.
Send your thoughts, comments and concerns about Memorial Park and the Master Plan to comments@memorialparkconservancy.org
And be sure to check out the entire series of Jim’s amazing photographs of our living bayou, A Bend in the River.
SC
Review: Memorial Park’s Eastern Glades
Good, Better, and Some Ugly
August 15, 2020
The best part about Memorial Park’s new Eastern Glades is the boardwalk through the woods.
Visitors to the popular park on Buffalo Bayou in the middle of Houston can now easily wander and wonder at our native woods and wetlands, complete with dead trees or snags, a vital part of the forest ecology. (Perhaps some signage will be coming along to explain the snags and wetlands to city slickers.)
There are also vast expanses of thick green exotic Zoysia grass for picnicking or just lying around, a Live Oak Court for events, and some lovely pavilions and picnic areas for outdoor grilling and dining, though the pavilions are currently closed due to the Covid.
The 100-acre Glades, on the east side of the park north of Memorial Drive, opened at the end of July. The $35 million project, including $10 million in public funds, features a 5.5-acre artificial lake for detention and water re-use, 2.5 miles of new trails, and environment-friendly dark sky lighting. It’s the first phase of a long-term renovation of the 1,464-acre park, about 40 percent of which is the 600-acre plus golf course (until 1995 the course occupied only 260 acres), recently redone with $13.5 million in private funds to support the PGA Tour’s Houston Open. Sadly, this redoing involved the removal of large numbers of trees so that crowds of spectators can have a better view of the professional golfers during tournaments.
More Green, Less Gray, Some Bad and Very Ugly
The Eastern Glades is part of the long-term Master Plan for the once heavily forested park. Next comes the controversial Land Bridge, which will cover Memorial Drive and connect the north and south sides of the park. This too involves the removal of a great many more trees, although the current design looks greener and less industrial than previous drawings.
Although many trees were removed for the Eastern Glades and a thick carpet of exotic grass laid down, as built the area also seems somewhat gentler, greener, wetter, and wilder than the original plans, allowing at least for a less manicured, more natural experience of the remaining woods. We, and many others, are thankful for that, as Memorial Park was always meant to remain in as natural a state as possible. Let’s hope this aesthetic influences treatment of the rest of the park.
And maybe those bright purple irrigation lines snaking through the woods near the boardwalk are only temporary.
Big Depressing Mistake
The design of the formal Oval Promenade of the Eastern Glades is loosely based on the 1920’s Hare and Hare plan (p. 21) for a formal entry into the park at Blossom Street. From 1917-19 the land which became the park in 1924 was part of Camp Logan, a World War I military training facility and hospital that at the time extended past what is now Westcott Street. See note below. (Ed. Note: An earlier version of this post incorrectly said the original entrance to Camp Logan was at Blossom Street. The camp entrance was at what is now Washington Avenue and Arnot.)
Alas, the massive, newly built stone entrance into the park at Blossom Street is preposterously ugly, jarringly out of character in material, color, texture, style, and scale with the surrounding natural scenery and the airy, restrained architecture of the cabin-like pavilions. Built of depressing gray and blindingly bright hot white, beige-y Central Texas limestone or shellstone, the design intentionally evokes the 1920s or 30s. Why? Does it have to look dated? Can we not move forward?
Review: Memorial Park’s Eastern Glades
Good, Better, and Some Ugly
Good, Bad, and Ugly
August 15, 2020
The best part about Memorial Park’s new Eastern Glades is the boardwalk through the woods.
Visitors to the popular park on Buffalo Bayou in the middle of Houston can now easily wander and wonder at our native woods and wetlands, complete with dead trees or snags, a vital part of the forest ecology. (Perhaps some signage will be coming along to explain the snags and wetlands to city slickers.)
There are also vast expanses of thick green exotic Zoysia grass for picnicking or just lying around, a Live Oak Court for events, and some lovely pavilions and picnic areas for outdoor grilling and dining, though the pavilions are currently closed due to the Covid.
The 100-acre Glades, on the east side of the park north of Memorial Drive, opened at the end of July. The $35 million project, including $10 million in public funds, features a 5.5-acre artificial lake for detention and water re-use, 2.5 miles of new trails, and environment-friendly dark sky lighting. It’s the first phase of a long-term renovation of the 1,464-acre park, about 40 percent of which is the 600-acre plus golf course (until 1995 the course occupied only 260 acres), recently redone with $13.5 million in private funds to support the PGA Tour’s Houston Open. Sadly, this redoing involved the removal of large numbers of trees so that crowds of spectators can have a better view of the professional golfers during tournaments.
More Green, Less Gray, Some Bad and Very Ugly
The Eastern Glades is part of the long-term Master Plan for the once heavily forested park. Next comes the controversial Land Bridge, which will cover Memorial Drive and connect the north and south sides of the park. This too involves the removal of a great many more trees, although the current design looks greener and less industrial than previous drawings.
Although many trees were removed for the Eastern Glades and a thick carpet of exotic grass laid down, as built the area also seems somewhat gentler, greener, wetter, and wilder than the original plans, allowing at least for a less manicured, more natural experience of the remaining woods. We, and many others, are thankful for that, as Memorial Park was always meant to remain in as natural a state as possible. Let’s hope this aesthetic influences treatment of the rest of the park.
And maybe those bright purple irrigation lines snaking through the woods near the boardwalk are only temporary.
Big Depressing Mistake
The design of the formal Oval Promenade of the Eastern Glades is loosely based on the 1920’s Hare and Hare plan (p. 21) for a formal entry into the park at Blossom Street. From 1917-19 the land which became the park in 1924 was part of Camp Logan, a World War I military training facility and hospital that at the time extended past what is now Westcott Street. See note below. (Ed. Note: An earlier version of this post incorrectly said the original entrance to Camp Logan was at Blossom Street. The camp entrance was at what is now Washington Avenue and Arnot.)
Alas, the massive, newly built stone entrance into the park at Blossom Street is preposterously ugly, jarringly out of character in material, color, texture, style, and scale with the surrounding natural scenery and the airy, restrained architecture of the cabin-like pavilions. Built of depressing gray and blindingly bright hot white, beige-y Central Texas limestone or shellstone, the design intentionally evokes the 1920s or 30s. Why? Does it have to look dated? Can we not move forward?
The choice of materials is justified because the stone is native (to Central Texas, a completely different environment) and used in big civic projects like the San Jacinto Monument and Houston City Hall. (p. 80) But THIS IS A PARK, NOT A BUILDING! A park that, once again, was intended to provide people with a soothing, consoling experience of nature, not more built environment and hard, hot, glaring surfaces. The uncomfortable stone benches belong in a bus station waiting room.
We have local materials that could have been used with subtlety and taste. Buffalo Bayou is lined with sandstone, and sandstone historically has been mined in the region and used for building materials. (Chimney Rock?) Dark reddish brown irregular sandstone would have blended in nicely with the surrounding park.
Brick factories have a long history in the Houston region, and within the boundaries of the park itself was a brick factory that fired bricks from local clay. The remains of this brick factory still exist on the banks of the bayou in that section of the park known as the Old Archery Range west of Loop 610. A short, low, modest wall made of local earth-colored brick would have been more appropriate.
Wood railings have been the historic fencing in the park. Why not simple, light wooden railings made of some of the many trees that have been taken down?
Like a Mausoleum
Some have described the Blossom Street entrance as looking like the entrance to a mausoleum. And in fact the entrance leads to a grassy allée lined with what appears to be blank, yellowish tombstones. These are, again, totally out of sync in every way with the surrounding natural environment. And yes, the funereal headstones are depressing not just because they’re alien, confusing, and weird. It turns out that they are supposed to interrupt our picnic and make us think of those who died in World War I.
The whole park is named Memorial Park in honor of those who died in World War I. We don’t have to turn the park into a gloomy cemetery in order to do that. Next they plan to take out more forest on the west side of the park and plant pine trees in rigid, unnatural rows to make us miserable there too.
As if we don’t have enough to feel uncomfortable about. In these difficult times, many people come to the woods of Memorial Park for solace and uplift. Perhaps those who served and died in World War I would prefer that for us.
A Performance: Black Lives Matters 1917
On the other hand: there was once some talk about a memorial in the park to the Houston Riot of 1917, also known as the Camp Logan Mutiny. That hasn’t happened, but those events are particularly relevant today.
On Aug. 23, 1917, during the Jim Crow-era, black soldiers stationed as guards at Camp Logan, then under construction, reacted to racist verbal and physical abuse from the police and white residents and to rumors of the murder of a fellow soldier by the police. They mutinied and marched through the city, with tragic results.
On Aug. 19, 2020, Diverseworks will broadcast a free online performance called “Fire and Movement Revisited” inspired by the those events. Registration required.
SC
Let’s Keep Memorial Park Natural, Just as Ima Hogg Wanted
Opinion by Frank C. Smith Jr, The Houston Chronicle, March 27, 2019
Smith is an original member of the group that became the Memorial Park Conservancy and the founding president of Save Buffalo Bayou.
Many of us remember the shocking impact of the years of droughts on our beloved Memorial Park. The record dry spell in 2011 killed more than half the trees in the 1,500-acre park on Buffalo Bayou. Scores of distraught Houstonians were moved to raise funds and plant new trees.
But now hundreds of trees, including towering pines and oaks, are being deliberately felled as part of a $200 to $300 million landscaping plan. Anyone walking in the park or even driving through can plainly see the bright plastic ribbons wrapped around the trunks of the legions of trees facing imminent doom on both sides of Memorial Drive.
Many more trees still unmarked are to be cut down on the west side of the park to make way for sports facilities, a relocated Memorial Drive and, in an unhappy irony, an ecologically damaging monoculture of pines to be planted in unnaturally regimented rows as a memorial to those who served in World War I.
As though this were not disturbing enough, the landscaping plan includes creating artificial streams and hardening them with wire, concrete rubble and “rock” of some sort.
Mature pines felled north of Memorial Drive for land bridges. Photo by SC Jan. 24, 2019
The Beauty of Memorial Park
The unique beauty of Memorial Park and its distinctive benefit to Houstonians has been its forests and clear, sand-bottomed streams flowing through deep, winding ravines to Buffalo Bayou. This is part of Houston’s natural history, and this great public park offers our city residents the rare opportunity to experience the wonder of these living trees and streams.
I have been involved with Memorial Park for more than 50 years. Before she died in 1975, I promised my friend Ima Hogg that I would always be a guardian of the natural character of the park. Miss Ima’s family sold the land for the park, previously a World War I training camp, to the city at cost in 1924.
There are admirable aspects of the current master plan for the park — notably the Eastern Glades and the “naturalization” of what are now ball fields south of Memorial Drive, facilities that will be moved to the north. However, a previous plan from 2004, approved by City Council, was less intrusive and more respectful of the character of the park. It described the park as “Houston’s foremost natural wooded bayou park” and “a refuge from intense urbanization.”
Read the rest of this editorial in the Chronicle.
Developers Plan to Improve Memorial Park by Cutting a Lot of Trees, “Re-establishing” Streams
Business Group Requests Federal Permit for Dredging, Filling Wetlands, Hardening Tributaries to Buffalo Bayou
Public Comment Due by April 4, 2019
March 13, 2019
A Galleria-area development group has asked for a federal permit to fill wetlands and dredge and armor streams in Memorial Park in order to build two “earthen land bridges” over Memorial Drive. The project, part of a controversial $200-300 million landscaping plan for the public park, requires the felling of hundreds of trees, including mature pines, digging up and lining the streams with concrete rubble and wire baskets of “rocks,” covering Memorial Drive with concrete tunnels, and relocating playing fields and picnic areas.
The Harris County Improvement District 1, otherwise known as the Uptown Houston District is a local government corporation composed of property owners and developers and funded by special property tax levies. Its members are appointed by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. In 2013 the boundaries of the Uptown District, which is also governed by the Uptown Development Authority or Uptown Houston Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone (TIRZ 16), though they have different boards, was expanded to include Memorial Park, a 1,500-acre semi-forested park on Buffalo Bayou in the center of Houston. The TIRZ uses local property taxes that would otherwise go to the City’s general fund.
Location of proposed concrete tunnels and “land bridges” over Memorial Drive and same location in 2017.
The park, formerly the site of a World War I-era military training camp, is also a State Antiquities Landmark. (See also here.) Parts of a small constructed channel connecting the two originally natural though partially altered tributaries appear to be walled with stone possibly dating from that period. The two tributaries flow through deep wooded ravines lined with lovely dirt paths and empty in Buffalo Bayou.
“Rocks,” other than ancient sandstone, are not natural to Houston’s streams.
Location of streams, marked in blue, within project area in Memorial Park south of Memorial Drive subject to Clean Water Act because they are tributaries to Buffalo Bayou. Image from p. 15 of permit application mitigation plan.
Public Comment Period Until April 4
The Improvement District last week filed an application for a permit from the US Army Corps of Engineers, which enforces the federal Clean Water Act. The Corps is seeking public comment on the permit application, including on whether a public hearing should be held. The public has until April 4 to comment. See below for how to comment.
Developers Plan to Improve Memorial Park By Cutting a Lot of Trees, “Re-establishing” Streams
Business Group Requests Federal Permit for Dredging, Filling Wetlands, Hardening Tributaries to Buffalo Bayou
Public Comment Due by April 4, 2019
March 13, 2019
A Galleria-area development group has asked for a federal permit to fill wetlands and dredge and armor streams in Memorial Park in order to build two “earthen land bridges” over Memorial Drive. The project, part of a controversial $200-300 million landscaping plan for the public park, requires the felling of hundreds of trees, including mature pines, digging up and lining the streams with concrete rubble and wire baskets of “rocks,” covering Memorial Drive with concrete tunnels, and relocating playing fields and picnic areas.
The Harris County Improvement District 1, otherwise known as the Uptown Houston District is a local government corporation composed of property owners and developers and funded by special property tax levies. Its members are appointed by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. In 2013 the boundaries of the Uptown District, which is also governed by the Uptown Development Authority or Uptown Houston Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone (TIRZ 16), though they have different boards, was expanded to include Memorial Park, a 1,500-acre semi-forested park on Buffalo Bayou in the center of Houston. The TIRZ uses local property taxes that would otherwise go to the City’s general fund.
Location of proposed concrete tunnels and “land bridges” over Memorial Drive and same location in 2017.
The park, formerly the site of a World War I-era military training camp, is also a State Antiquities Landmark. (See also here.) Parts of a small constructed channel connecting the two originally natural though partially altered tributaries appear to be walled with stone possibly dating from that period. The two tributaries flow through deep wooded ravines lined with lovely dirt paths and empty in Buffalo Bayou.
“Rocks,” other than ancient sandstone, are not natural to Houston’s streams.
- Location of streams, marked in blue, within project area in Memorial Park south of Memorial Drive subject to Clean Water Act because they are tributaries to Buffalo Bayou. Image from p. 15 of permit application mitigation plan.
Public Comment Period Until April 4
The Improvement District last week filed an application for a permit from the US Army Corps of Engineers, which enforces the federal Clean Water Act. The Corps is seeking public comment on the permit application, including on whether a public hearing should be held. The public has until April 4 to comment. See below for how to comment.
The application seeks, among other things, to alter wetlands and “re-establish” some 1,485 linear feet of streams on both sides of Memorial Drive. The plan is to remove hundreds of trees in the channel of these streams, along the banks, and in the adjoining floodplains in an area of about 108 acres.
Removing trees that hold the streambank together and help deflect and absorb rain and runoff is pointless and counterproductive.
Great egret among trees north of Memorial Drive marked for clearcutting for land bridge. Photo by SC Jan. 31, 2019
The permit seeks to use in part a costly, damaging, and discredited stream “restoration” method called “natural channel design,” or “natural stable channel design,” as it is called by the Harris County Flood Control District. Despite widespread criticism, the system is still used by public agencies across the country.
In addition to lining the stream channels with “rock” (often concrete rubble known as riprap) (p. 153) and gabions or wire baskets filled with rock, the applicant plans to destabilize the bank by digging it up with heavy equipment in order to bury tree trunks with root wads sticking out into the stream.
Armoring or hardening streams in an attempt to stabilize them can actually de-stabilize them. (p. 29)
The City of Houston has entered into an agreement allowing the newly-formed Astros Golf Foundation to enlarge and remodel the public golf course in the park for use as a PGA Tour tournament course. The Mayor’s Office has refused a Public Information request from Save Buffalo Bayou for information about the golf course plans or terms of the agreement. However, sources report that the renovation involves (has already involved) the felling of trees.
Hundreds of trees have been taken down for the landscaping of the 100-acre Eastern Glades on the east side of the park north of Memorial Drive. In addition, the master plan for the park currently includes the removal of large swaths of trees on the west side of West Memorial Loop Lane north of Memorial Drive for the planting of a monoculture of rows of pine trees.
Comments about the plan (including a request for a public hearing) should reference file number SWG-2018-00549 and be sent before April 4, 2019, to the Galveston District of the Corps Engineers by either mail, fax, or email:
North Unit
Regulatory Division, CESWG-RDE
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
P.O. Box 1229
Galveston, Texas 77553-1229
409-766-3869 Phone
Fax:
409-766-3931 Fax
Or email:
swg_public_notice@usace.army.mil
SC
Removing Trees on Buffalo Bayou Because It’s Cheap and Easy
A Stormwater Project with Little Benefit and A Lot of Uncounted Cost
February 26, 2019
A large number of trees will be cleared in one of the city’s last remaining public forests on Buffalo Bayou because it’s the “easiest and cheapest” stormwater project to do, city and county flood control officials explain.
The trees are being removed to dig out shallow basins on the bank of upper Buffalo Bayou in Terry Hershey Park in west Houston, a rolling wooded area with paths used by hikers and bikers and wildlife. When the bayou overflows, the basins are meant to hold briefly a modest amount of water which then continues flowing downstream.
But the calculation of “cheapest and easiest” does not include future repair and maintenance costs where now there are none. A similar project on the once-forested opposite bank has required many millions of dollars in taxpayer funds for maintenance and repeat repairs to the bank in the decades since trees were cut.
Nor does this calculation include the additional flow into the bayou from the loss of trees and vegetation, which significantly slow and absorb rainfall and runoff. A study by the University of Arkansas reports that removing forest can increase runoff into streams by as much as four or five times. (p. 3)
It does not consider the financial value that the forest provides by cleansing the water and the air for free. Studies have shown that riparian vegetation is cheaper and more effective at cleansing our polluted water than even sewage treatment plants. A study of Houston’s urban forest by the US Department of Agriculture found that even including invasive trees, our modest tree cover captures carbon and other pollutants from the air worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Also not included: the value of the mental and physical health benefit that trees provide to Houstonians, who suffer from a deficit of nature, many of whom were traumatized by the flooding from Harvey. Since ancient times wise people have known that the experience of even a small piece of nature has health benefits. (See also here.)
Looking downstream on the straightened channel of Buffalo Bayou in the area where trees are to be removed and basins excavated in Terry Hershey Park in west Houston. Photo June 2018.
Nature is the Best Engineer
Making room for the bayou to overflow is a good thing, as is a focus on detention or “slowing the flow.” Cutting down trees and removing vegetation next to the bayou is not.
“Engineers have a hard time understanding,” says Bob Freitag, director of the Institute for Hazards Mitigation Planning and Research at the University of Washington and co-author of Floodplain Management, A New Approach for a New Era. “Trees aren’t in their model.
“We want trees,” says Freitag. “Trees do a lot of good things.”
There is a new field of engineering that understands and imitates the process of nature, melding engineering and biology and valuing ecosystem services, points out Freitag. “But those who do it are few and far between. It’s a pretty new field.”
No Reduction in Flooding
The planned detention basins next to the bayou channel do not even reduce flooding, despite a popular belief that they will. Officials confirm that the small basins will do nothing to reduce flooding downstream. “No, they’re not going to save people from flooding downstream,” said Matt Lopez, the Harris County Flood Control District’s Precinct 3 coordinator. “They’re not going to save folks from Harvey or any other storm.”
The purpose of destroying forest to dig out detention basins next to Buffalo Bayou in west Houston is to allow the City of Houston to drain more water from city streets into the bayou sometime in the future. This is the so-called “no-rise” requirement enforced by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). To protect us from increased flood risk, FEMA requires that the City and everyone else prove that development within designated floodplains does not add to the flow in the bayou.
“We think there are advantages for the future when comes to drainage,” said Lopez.
Currently the City has no plans to drain more stormwater into the bayou, said Tommy Artz of the City of Houston Public Works Department’s Interagency Coordination Section. But the City has already paid $1 million to Flood Control to purchase some 30 acre-feet of the planned stormwater detention for future projects, said Artz
Some residents in neighborhoods near large commercial districts and Interstate 10 on the north side of the bayou are pushing for more drainage into the bayou. A representative of their neighborhood coalition declined to comment.
Artz explained that it was cheaper to purchase the detention from Flood Control than to buy land to build and maintain detention basins or install large underground culverts for temporarily holding stormwater. He described the purchase as a “bargain.”
Lopez explained that the flood control district already owns the land next to the bayou in Terry Hershey Park and has always planned to use it for flood management projects.
He said he believed that the agency planned to try to leave trees on the banks. “Trees help us prevent erosion,” he said.
Flood Control is planning three initial basins on the south bank of the bayou between North Eldridge Parkway and Dairy Ashford Road. Construction is to begin within weeks. The basins will briefly hold about 90 acre-feet of overflow from the bayou when it floods before allowing it to drain back into the bayou.
The district has already spent millions on the south bank linear detention basin project in the past decade, including paying various engineering firms for vegetation surveys and design. Lecon, Inc. has the $1.8 million contract to construct the initial three basins.
Proposed overflow detention basins along south bank of Buffalo Bayou in Terry Hershey Park. Image courtesy of the Harris County Flood Control District.
Area of proposed basins on wooded south bank of Terry Hershey Park on Oct. 28, 2017. Green space on north bank is grassy park with white line of sidewalk where trees were removed for detention decades ago. Buffalo Bayou is thin gray-green line between trees.
Decimation of Our Urban Forests
The tree removal project comes at a time when Houston’s remaining urban forests are being decimated. Hundreds of trees have already been felled in Memorial Park, our once-great public forest in the middle of the city, as part of a $200-300 million landscape plan for the park. Hundreds more, including towering pines, are already tagged for removal to make way for an artificial land bridge over Memorial Drive. More trees are being felled for the $13.5 million remake of the park’s popular public golf course into a professional tournament course, the plans for which city officials refuse to reveal. And then there are the numerous big trees that will be cleared in order to plant a monoculture of young pines in rigid rows on the west side of the park – a planned memorial to those who died in World War I. Planting a single species of trees in regimented rows, however, is a prime example of the wrong thing to do in the midst of an alarming loss of the biodiversity that supports life. Also it’s ugly and unnatural.
Mature pines recently felled in the forest of Memorial Park north of Memorial Drive are only a few of the hundreds of trees being removed as part of the $200-300 million landscaping plan. Photo by SC Jan. 24, 2019
Years ago the Harris County Flood Control District, in collaboration with the Buffalo Bayou Partnership, stripped trees and scraped vegetation from the banks of Buffalo Bayou in Buffalo Bayou Park downstream from the Shepherd Bridge. The result has been a disaster, with continuous costly repairs to collapsing banks and sidewalks.
The flood control district continues its decades-long practice of cutting and bulldozing trees on streams, oftentimes merely to provide access for bulldozers and other heavy equipment to the bank. Most recently, for example, Save Buffalo Bayou documented piles of large trees felled by the district’s contractor along Langham Creek in Addicks Reservoir. (See photo below.)
The district is legally responsible for the “conservation of forests” according to its 1937 founding charter. (P. 1)
Trees cut by Harris County Flood Control along the natural channel of Langham Creek in Addicks Reservoir. Photo Dec. 9, 2018, by SC
The Background
In the wake of Hurricane Harvey, the Harris County Flood Control District revived a controversial plan to capture flow out of the bayou with a series of shallow basins on the forested south bank of the stream in Terry Hershey Park. Residents, conservationists, and others, banding together as Save Our Forest, have been fighting to preserve the trees on the south bank since at least 2010. However, many of those forest activists were among the thousands who flooded on upper Buffalo Bayou during Harvey. With homes destroyed and health damaged, their ability to oppose the project has been weakened.
“I feel like they are pushing this thing now when they know people are too distracted to resist them,” said one distraught resident.
Terry Hershey Park, run by Harris County Precinct 3, occupies about 500 acres of land along some six miles of bayou that the district purchased from the federal government in the Sixties. The federal government had stripped, straightened, and shortened the bayou there below the two federal flood control dams, Addicks and Barker, during the late Forties. Straightening—channelizing—the bayou essentially reduced its capacity, rendering future residents more vulnerable to flooding, besides damaging its essential functions. Channelizing streams for reducing flood risk has been largely abandoned by the federal government and agencies elsewhere because it actually increases flooding, among other problems.
Modern stormwater management emphasizes stopping, slowing, and absorbing stormwater before it floods a stream, not after. (See Freitag, et al.)
Allow Bayou to Increase Capacity Naturally and For Free
The straightened bayou in Terry Hershey Park, like all rivers and streams, continues to try to restore its natural bends or meanders and recover its former length and capacity. Allowing it to do so would in fact probably be the easiest and cheapest stormwater management project. Restoring meanders to channelized streams is modern practice. “Restoring meanders to rivers that have been straightened … increases the in-stream storage capacity and slows the downstream propagation of the flood peak, thereby decreasing downstream flood risk …,” reports the nonprofit International Rivers. (p. 11)
The park is named for legendary environmentalist Terry Hershey, who in the Sixties and Seventies organized landowners, conservationists, garden club members, and influential politicians, among many others, to protect Buffalo Bayou from being stripped, straightened, and covered in concrete.
Learn more about Houston and trees from the City of Houston’s Office of Sustainability.
What to do: Contact Harris County Precinct Three Commissioner Steve Radack. He’s in charge.
SC
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