{"id":9963,"date":"2021-05-16T17:16:22","date_gmt":"2021-05-16T22:16:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/?p=9963"},"modified":"2021-05-18T14:16:00","modified_gmt":"2021-05-18T19:16:00","slug":"when-making-mistakes-is-profitable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/?p=9963","title":{"rendered":"When Making Mistakes is Profitable"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Museum, Park Conservancy Hire Firm That Gets Bank Collapse Wrong<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:18px\"><strong><em>Result: Costly Engineering, Bulldozing, Tree Cutting, Logs, Sheet Pile, Concrete Block and Damaged Buffalo Bayou<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>May 16, 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A decade ago a prominent engineering firm <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/?page_id=4020\" target=\"_blank\">misdiagnosed bank failure on Buffalo Bayou<\/a> for a controversial $12 million bank \u201crestoration\u201d project that was subsequently dropped. Now the same company has been rewarded with new bank repair contracts. &nbsp;And it appears to be making a similar error.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What could be the motive for repeating such basic mistakes? And why does it matter?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Inappropriate streambank projects can result in costly failure, of which there are too many examples littering Buffalo Bayou. Any alteration of the channel and banks can cause unforeseen problems, including environmental and property damage, increased flooding and erosion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Watch this slideshow of some of the many failed erosion control projects on Buffalo Bayou:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n<div id=\"metaslider-id-9932\" style=\"width: 100%; margin: 0 auto;\" class=\"ml-slider-3-93-0 metaslider metaslider-responsive metaslider-9932 ml-slider ms-theme-default\" role=\"region\" aria-roledescription=\"Slideshow\" aria-label=\"Failed Erosion Control May 2021\">\n    <div id=\"metaslider_container_9932\">\n        <ul id='metaslider_9932' class='rslides'>\n            <li aria-roledescription='slide' aria-labelledby='slide-0'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Failed-riprap-bags-2-so-bank-1.21.18-1000x900.jpg\" height=\"900\" width=\"1000\" alt=\"\" class=\"slider-9932 slide-9933\" title=\"Failed riprap bags 2 so bank 1.21.18\" \/><div class=\"caption-wrap\"><div class=\"caption\">Riprap, concrete bags, and concrete puzzle block all slid away.<\/div><\/div><\/li>\n            <li style='display: none;' aria-roledescription='slide' aria-labelledby='slide-1'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/43-dumping-failed-1000x900.jpg\" height=\"900\" width=\"1000\" alt=\"\" class=\"slider-9932 slide-9934\" title=\"43 dumping failed\" \/><div class=\"caption-wrap\"><div class=\"caption\">Dumped debris and failed concrete erosion wall on south bank.<\/div><\/div><\/li>\n            <li style='display: none;' aria-roledescription='slide' aria-labelledby='slide-2'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Failed-Morian-wall-2-1000x900.jpg\" height=\"900\" width=\"1000\" alt=\"\" class=\"slider-9932 slide-9935\" title=\"Failed Morian wall 2\" \/><div class=\"caption-wrap\"><div class=\"caption\">This bank hardening, installed in 2016, failed during Harvey. Photo January 2018.<\/div><\/div><\/li>\n            <li style='display: none;' aria-roledescription='slide' aria-labelledby='slide-3'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Slumped-wall-Tiel-Way-1000x900.jpg\" height=\"900\" width=\"1000\" alt=\"\" class=\"slider-9932 slide-9936\" title=\"Slumped wall Tiel Way\" \/><div class=\"caption-wrap\"><div class=\"caption\">Slumped backyard garden wall on Buffalo Bayou.<\/div><\/div><\/li>\n            <li style='display: none;' aria-roledescription='slide' aria-labelledby='slide-4'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/rocc-slumping-dds-riprap-1000x900.jpg\" height=\"900\" width=\"1000\" alt=\"\" class=\"slider-9932 slide-9937\" title=\"rocc slumping dds riprap\" \/><div class=\"caption-wrap\"><div class=\"caption\">Slumping of the denuded bank of the River Oaks Country Club golf course where riprap was installed in 2015. Bank face slid down anyway. Photo 10.28.17<\/div><\/div><\/li>\n        <\/ul>\n        \n    <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are two kinds of riverbank failure: banks that wash away with the horizontal flow of the stream and banks that collapse vertically from the top down. True, sometimes they do both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the slippery sand and clay <a href=\"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/?page_id=4661\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">banks of Buffalo Bayou primarily collapse vertically, usually when they get soaked from the top<\/a>. They quiver and slump, sliding across the ancient hard red clay layer at the base of the bank. There\u2019s not a whole lot to be done about that. However, common sense solutions include: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.casscountynd.gov\/our-county\/planning\/riverbank-slumping\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">stop doing what is causing the bank collapse<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But that doesn\u2019t generate high-dollar contracts for engineering companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What does cost a lot of money? Cutting trees, bulldozing, scraping, grading, filling, pounding sheet pile, concrete, and logs into the bank, none of which will necessarily provide a long-term solution to bank slumping and can even make it worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/4.-riprap-us-bank-better-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-9780\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/4.-riprap-us-bank-better-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/4.-riprap-us-bank-better-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/4.-riprap-us-bank-better.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><figcaption>Concrete rubble or riprap dumped on slumped bank below the Bayou Bend garden. Adding weight to slumping banks increases slumping. Photo April 6, 2021<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Background<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Around 2010 a long-established engineering company was hired by the Harris County Flood Control District to develop a plan for a \u201cnatural channel design\u201d project on Buffalo Bayou flowing between Memorial Park and the River Oaks Country Club in the center of Houston. The project, initiated by the Bayou Preservation Association (BPA) and supported by the Memorial Park Conservancy, was called the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/?page_id=1505\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Memorial Park Demonstration Project<\/a>. It would have stripped the trees and vegetation, scraped and graded the banks and channel and rerouted the stream for over a mile along one of the last publicly accessible forested stretches of the bayou in the city, a historic nature area. Though it would have destroyed the natural habitat and most aquatic life in the stream, the project was billed as \u201chastening recovery\u201d of the river.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The engineering company was KBR (Kellogg Brown and Root), but at the end of 2015 KBR was purchased by Stantec. KBR\u2019s manager for the demonstration project was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.stantec.com\/en\/people\/l\/leite-betty\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Betty Leite<\/a>, who also served on the advisory board of the nonprofit BPA at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now Stantec has been hired to develop plans for stabilizing the bank of the bayou below the historic <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mfah.org\/visit\/bayou-bend-collection-and-gardens\/\" target=\"_blank\">Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens<\/a> and in <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/?p=9744\" target=\"_blank\">Memorial Park<\/a>. The project manager is Betty Leite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/?page_id=9915\">Read the rest of this report.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Museum, Park Conservancy Hire Firm That Gets Bank Collapse Wrong Result: Costly Engineering, Bulldozing, Tree Cutting, Logs, Sheet Pile, Concrete Block and Damaged Buffalo Bayou May 16, 2021 A decade ago a prominent engineering firm misdiagnosed bank failure on Buffalo Bayou for a controversial $12 million bank \u201crestoration\u201d project that&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9963","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=9963"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9985,"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9963\/revisions\/9985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}