More than 100 people gathered last Friday evening to hear Mathias Kondolf <\/a>speak about rivers, river restoration, and the state of Buffalo Bayou at the Assembly Hall of St. Theresa Memorial Park Catholic Church.<\/p>\n Kondolf is a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, a world-renowned river scientist, and a leading critic of the destructive and often-failing methods proposed for a $6 million \u201cerosion control\u201d and \u201cbank stabilization\u201d project on Buffalo Bayou. He spoke for nearly two hours to a crowd that included people on all sides of a controversial project to bulldoze the riparian forest and dredge and channelize nearly 1.5 miles of one of the last natural stretches of the bayou in the city.<\/p>\n The project, known as the Memorial Park Demonstration Project, was conceived by the Bayou Preservation Association, which actively promotes the plan. The Army Corps of Engineers is considering whether to issue a permit to the Harris County Flood Control District for the project.<\/p>\n Riparian forest or buffer<\/a>, also called a riparian zone<\/a>, consists of specially adapted trees and plants along the edge of a waterway. Among the many important functions of riparian zones are protecting the land from erosion, filtering pollution, cleansing the water, slowing flood water, and providing wildlife and human habitat.<\/p>\n Kondolf had spent hours inspecting the bayou in the rain earlier in the day. The project area is bounded entirely on the south by the River Oaks Country Club golf course, which is currently being renovated. The north bank of the project is our public Memorial Park, along with the Hogg Bird Sanctuary and some private property. Taxpayers are contributing $4 million to this project.<\/p>\n Rivers Are Naturally Dynamic <\/strong><\/p>\n Kondolf spoke about the natural dynamics of rivers and gave numerous examples from around the world. \u201cThe most ecologically diverse, the most valuable ecosystems are those that are dynamic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Because of the importance of letting the river move around, the concept of l\u2019<\/em>espace de libert<\/em>\u00e9<\/em> or \u201croom for the river\u201d has become one of the central ideas of river restoration and management in Europe, Japan, and in places like Washington state, where it\u2019s called a \u201cchannel migration zone.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe basic idea is that you give the river some room,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd you don\u2019t build right up to the edge. Because when you do that you inevitably create conflicts with the river. You give the river some place where it\u2019s okay to erode, where it\u2019s okay to deposit, it\u2019s okay to be a river.\u201d<\/p>\n Kondolf showed several examples of projects similar to the one proposed for Buffalo Bayou that had failed and washed out. Proponents of a failed project in Deep Run, Maryland, for example, \u201cnever did an analysis to figure out\u201d where problems \u201cwere coming from.\u201d (It turned out to be construction of a shopping center upstream.) The authorities removed a \u201cnice riparian forest\u201d and created perfectly symmetrical meander bends that increased the velocity of the river resulting in the river cutting a new channel.<\/p>\n \u201cAny time that you go in and remove existing riparian forest to build some idealized form, you have to be aware that since [the river] is no longer slowed down when it goes overbank \u2026 it is going to find its own way.\u201d<\/p>\n We\u2019ll have more later on Kondolf\u2019s highly informative lecture and the lively discussion that followed. Basically he said that the proposed project is unnecessary, likely to fail, and that in this historic natural area there is room for this river to move. So we should let the bayou be a bayou.<\/p>\n Here is a link to the video of Dr. Kondolf’s lecture <\/a>on Friday, Nov. 21, 2014.<\/p>\n
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