{"id":8543,"date":"2020-05-07T18:03:58","date_gmt":"2020-05-07T23:03:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/?p=8543"},"modified":"2023-04-05T19:26:34","modified_gmt":"2023-04-06T00:26:34","slug":"cures-worse-than-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/?p=8543","title":{"rendered":"Cures Worse Than Problems"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Costly, Puzzling Repairs on Buffalo Bayou: How Will This End?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

May 7, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s talk these days about cures being worse than problems. We think about that when we watch with alarm what the Harris County Flood Control District has been doing to Buffalo Bayou in our lovely public park between Sabine and Shepherd bridges near downtown Houston.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gouging the banks with bulldozers. Heavy trucks on the bank. Dumping and pounding huge amounts of concrete riprap and dirt onto the slopes and into the channel. For those of us who value the bayou as a living stream, it\u2019s difficult to watch this costly abuse. The bayou will fight back. \u201cRepairs\u201d will continue, at great expense to taxpayers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what about the creatures, the giant alligator snapping turtles, the beavers that live on and in the banks, the bats that live under the Waugh Bridge? The Corps of Engineers dismissed any environmental impact in its 2019 approval of this 4,540-foot long project. (p. 1)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Long History of Abuse<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Flood Control District has been \u201cfixing\u201d these banks for over a decade now.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The current project, billed as fixing \u201cerosion and bank failure caused by Harvey,\u201d<\/a> is costing the taxpayers some $10 million, virtually  all of it going to the private engineering company Primoris<\/a>, with an unknown amount having been paid to Jones Carter<\/a> for the design plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Flood Control District was established in 1937<\/a>, in large part to assist the Corps of Engineers in stripping, straightening, and concreting our creeks and bayous, then the dominant method of managing flooding, now discredited<\/a>. (See also here<\/a>.) But the district\u2019s limited legal tools and authority have hardly changed. Within that narrow framework, its approach has modernized only slightly. With a capital improvement budget of $496 million in Fiscal Year 2019, (p. 2)<\/a> the district\u2019s main job, seemingly with little oversight, is handing out lucrative contracts to private engineering companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who is to say whether they are doing a good job? Whether this is the most scientific, proven, cost-effective approach? (p. 26<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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