{"id":2303,"date":"2015-12-18T19:17:41","date_gmt":"2015-12-19T01:17:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/?p=2303"},"modified":"2015-12-18T19:33:17","modified_gmt":"2015-12-19T01:33:17","slug":"the-waters-of-our-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/?p=2303","title":{"rendered":"The Waters of Our Lives"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"headline\">The fight for Texas&#8217; prairie wetlands<\/h3>\n<h4 class=\"subhead\">They&#8217;re crucial to our water quality and flood control. But we&#8217;re losing them fast.<\/h4>\n<p class=\"byline\">By John S. Jacob and Jen Powis, Gray Matters, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.houstonchronicle.com\/local\/gray-matters\/article\/wetlands-6704939.php\" target=\"_blank\"><em>The Houston Chronicle<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"byline\"> <span class=\"published\">December 18, 2015<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>\u00a0<strong>Save Buffalo Bayou Note:<\/strong> Riparian areas, the trees and plants and soil along our bayous and streams, serve the same function as wetlands.<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"article-text\">\n<div class=\"asset_gallery\" data-config-asset-position=\"1\">\n<div class=\"hst-resgallery-container \">\n<div class=\"hst-resgallery-wedge\">\n<ul class=\"hst-resgallery\">\n<li class=\"hst-resgalleryitem\">\n<div class=\"img-wrap landscape\">\n<div style=\"width: 930px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"landscape\" src=\"http:\/\/ww1.hdnux.com\/photos\/14\/75\/64\/3398944\/5\/920x920.jpg\" alt=\"A flock of blue-winged teal flies over a Texas coastal wetland. (For more photos of coastal wetlands, scroll through the gallery.) Photo: Picasa\" width=\"920\" height=\"527\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A flock of blue-winged teal flies over a Texas coastal wetland.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>To Texas developers, a coastal prairie wetland looks like profit waiting to be made: The expanses of grassland are easily bulldozed, easily platted and paved. So it&#8217;s no wonder that they&#8217;re disappearing quickly: According to a report from Texas A&amp;M University, of the Texas coastal prairie wetlands that existed in Harris County in 1992, more than 30 percent have been lost.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve lived in the Houston area awhile, you know what that means: The more we develop, the more we flood. Our wetlands serve as natural detention basins, absorbing and holding stormwater that would otherwise rush through our houses and streets.<\/p>\n<p>And that&#8217;s not all that those wetlands do. While wetland plants and soil retain that water, they also filter it, cleaning it before releasing it. They keep Galveston Bay healthy and fishable, and provide major habitat for the migratory birds that crisscross our area. The more scientists study Texas&#8217; coastal wetlands, the more important we realize they are.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.houstonchronicle.com\/local\/gray-matters\/article\/wetlands-6704939.php\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Read the rest of this article in The Houston Chronicle.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>John Jacob<\/strong> is board chair of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.galvestonbaykeeper.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Galveston Baykeeper<\/a>. <strong>Jen Powis<\/strong> is a Galveston Baykeeper board member and an environmental attorney.<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The fight for Texas&#8217; prairie wetlands They&#8217;re crucial to our water quality and flood control. But we&#8217;re losing them fast. By John S. Jacob and Jen Powis, Gray Matters, The Houston Chronicle December 18, 2015\u00a0 \u00a0Save Buffalo Bayou Note: Riparian areas, the trees and plants and soil along our bayous&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[130,27,202,296,260,153,224,262,60,168,244,274,299,298,185,297,294,107,128,225,35,149,286,1,258,295],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-army-corps-of-engineers","category-chronicle","category-clean-water-act","category-coastal","category-corps","category-developers","category-environmental-protection-agency","category-epa","category-federal","category-flood-control","category-flooding","category-floodplain","category-galveston-bay","category-galveston-baykeeper","category-houston-chronicle","category-jen-powis","category-john-jacob","category-laws","category-legal","category-nature","category-permit","category-prairie","category-storm-water","category-uncategorized","category-wetland","category-wetlands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2303","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=2303"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2310,"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2303\/revisions\/2310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}