Updated June 7, 2015. See\u00a0 below.<\/strong><\/p>\n The Harris County Flood Control District is planning to create a 12-foot wide pathway for maintenance vehicles along the graded bank of Buffalo Bayou in Memorial Park.<\/p>\n The maintenance road parallel to the bayou is not included in the plans to \u201crestore\u201d the wild banks of the bayou submitted to the Army Corps of Engineers<\/a> by the flood control district.<\/p>\n The district revealed the plan for what it is calling a \u201cMonitoring Access Zone\u201d at an invitation-only meeting Tuesday, June 2, 2015. The meeting was one of a series to develop a planting plan for the $6 million \u201cerosion control,\u201d \u201cbank restoration,\u201d \u201cwater quality improvement,\u201d \u201cflood conveyance\u201d project known as the Memorial Park Demonstration Project<\/a>. Apparently the planting plan is not progressing well, as at the meeting the district proposed planting tall fescue, an invasive exotic almost impossible to control. Tall fescue has been the scourge of Texas prairies for several decades at least.<\/p>\n \u201cTall fescue forms a near-monoculture and is responsible for the loss of otherwise undisturbed prairie remnants throughout Texas and the Midwest,\u201d reports one of our landscape ecologists.<\/p>\n Well, so much for the district\u2019s native plant expertise and commitment to a native-only riparian forest.<\/p>\n This beautiful tributary extending deep into the center of Memorial Park is labelled a “gully” by the flood control district. It will be plugged. Photo by Jim Olive on March 25, 2015.<\/p><\/div>\n No trees, no “better than ever” riparian forest<\/strong><\/p>\n Little is known about the previously undisclosed but long-suspected \u201cMonitoring Access Zone.\u201d According to a source who was at the meeting, the 12-foot wide pathway will be planted with some sort of seed mix for several years until the district is certain the \u201crestored\u201d banks will hold. They won\u2019t hold, of course, so this grassy, flat \u201caccess zone\u201d is likely to be permanent.<\/p>\n Which means no trees, no \u201cbetter than ever\u201d riparian forest<\/a> and wildlife habitat, banks bulldozed and leveled even through the so-called \u201cno-work zones.\u201d<\/p>\n What is Federal Jurisdiction<\/strong><\/p>\n The district explained at the meeting that it was not required to reveal the \u201cmonitoring\u201d road to the Army Corps of Engineers because it does not impact federal waters, presumably because the road will be above the Ordinary High Mark, which is the lateral limit of federal jurisdiction.<\/p>\n But it will not be above the OHWM, which in a significant section of the park extends deep into the forest as part of the flood plain, a natural detention area, including swales and wetlands, all of which are under federal jurisdiction<\/a>. The road and the \u201cbankfull bench<\/a>\u201d upon which it will sit will also fill and block at least two tributaries, which also are under federal jurisdiction<\/a>, although on its plans<\/a> the district labels both tributaries \u201cgullies,\u201d thereby attempting to remove the tributaries from federal jurisdiction. (See sheets 16 and 18.) Gullies are classified as an \u201cerosional feature\u201d by federal law.<\/a> An actual gully leading from the South Picnic Loop parking lot is oddly labeled a \u201ctributary.\u201d (See sheet 16.)<\/p>\n So far we don\u2019t know the length of \u201cMonitoring Access Zone,\u201d whether it extends along the entire north bank of the project area, including private property, or whether a \u201cMonitoring Access Zone\u201d will also be built on the south bank of the project, land which belongs to the River Oaks Country Club.<\/p>\n Guess we\u2019ll have to ask the flood control district. And object to the Corps<\/a>.<\/p>\n What else is the flood control district not telling us?<\/p>\n![\"This](\"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Spring-tributary-copy.jpg\")
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