{"id":1055,"date":"2014-10-21T17:25:11","date_gmt":"2014-10-21T22:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/?p=1055"},"modified":"2017-10-15T16:15:22","modified_gmt":"2017-10-15T21:15:22","slug":"engineers-vote-for-more-work-for-engineers-on-buffalo-bayou","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/?p=1055","title":{"rendered":"Engineers Vote for More Work for Engineers on Buffalo Bayou"},"content":{"rendered":"

Developers Eager to Pave More Streets and Parking Lots<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oct. 21, 2014<\/p>\n

Raise your hand if you ever heard of the Harris County Flood Control Task Force.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Katy Freeway in west Houston, widest freeway in the world and major conduit of stormwater into Buffalo Bayou. Engineers voting for bulldozing Buffalo Bayou work on Interstate 10 and other highway and paving projects as well as public drainage systems.<\/p><\/div>\n

Thought not.<\/p>\n

Try looking on the Internet for any mention of this 31-member semi-secret committee and you\u2019ll find almost nothing except for an occasional reference in someone\u2019s bio and a brief note on the website of the Bayou Preservation Association. Founded in the 1970s to create \u201ca community collaboration of engineers, developers, and interested citizens,\u201d according to the BPA, the task force is now mostly a collaboration of engineers and developers, as is the BPA.<\/p>\n

County Judge Bill Elliot is reported to have said at the time<\/a>: \u201cHow can Harris County government adequately protect homes and businesses from the hazards of flooding and facilitate economic development, while at the same time preserving the God-given resources we have that are still in their natural state for the present and future enjoyment of our citizens?\u201d<\/p>\n

Last Tuesday, Oct. 15, a county task force committee looking into that question voted 5-1 in favor of spending $6 million to wreck the last natural stretch of Buffalo Bayou in Houston, a perfectly healthy 1.5 miles of wild bayou flowing in and around our Memorial Park. The project would destroy riparian forest <\/a>crucial to the health of our water, to erosion and flood control. Riparian zones<\/a> are increasingly being recognized as wetlands that should be federally protected for our own health and survival.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Oct. 27, 2014, at a public meeting in the Harris County Flood Control District headquarters, 9900 Northwest Freeway, the full flood control task force will be voting on whether to go ahead with the controversial project. Update: The chairman of the task force, Ranney McDonough, said in phone call late Thursday afternoon to Save Buffalo Bayou that the doors of the meeting will be closed and the public will be turned away. But we are going anyway.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The flood control district declined to provide us with the names of the current members of the full task force, suggesting we contact the\u00a0Harris County Commissioners\u2019 Court since the commissioners’ court created and appoints the task force. No response to those emails by press time. Update: Courtesy of one of the members,\u00a0 we now have a reasonably current list of the members of the task force<\/a>.<\/strong> And generally we know that of the 31 positions approved by the commissioners, about nine seats go to engineers and architects, another eight go to developers and builders, another two go to business groups, three or four go to government agencies, and another seven go to environmental or civic groups or individuals. Several positions are empty.<\/p>\n

We will do our best to provide their contact information. These task force members need to be contacted and informed. Please let them know of your opposition and why. In addition, please note that Harris County Precinct 4 Commissioner Jack Cagle,<\/a> who represents Memorial Park, is up for election on Nov. 4.<\/p>\n

Not In. In a Meeting. On the Other Line.<\/strong><\/p>\n

As of this writing, it is unknown how many of the five task force committee members who voted in favor of the bulldozing project have seen this part of the bayou. We\u2019ve made fruitless calls and left messages and talked to one engineer on the committee who voted in favor of bulldozing and channelizing the last wild bayou. He\u2019d never seen the area to be destroyed; he thought there was no vegetation there<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Read the rest of this story.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Developers Eager to Pave More Streets and Parking Lots Oct. 21, 2014 Raise your hand if you ever heard of the Harris County Flood Control Task Force. Thought not. Try looking on the Internet for any mention of this 31-member semi-secret committee and you\u2019ll find almost nothing except for an…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[150,66,65,17,134,160,153,155,154,159,168,157,44,151,145,135,148,149,169,146,75,156,158,140,144,1,54,152,147],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aquifer","category-bayou-preservation-association","category-bpa","category-bulldoze-2","category-channelize","category-demonstration","category-developers","category-energy-corridor","category-engineers","category-evelyn-merz","category-flood-control","category-grand-parkway","category-hcfcd","category-highway","category-holmes","category-jack-cagle","category-katy","category-prairie","category-ranney-mcdonough","category-rick-rice","category-river-oaks-country-club","category-robert-rayburn","category-sierra-club","category-steve-hupp","category-task-force","category-uncategorized","category-vegetation","category-vote","category-west-houston"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1055"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4275,"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1055\/revisions\/4275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}