The public comment period for the Army Corps of Engineers’ Interim Report for the Buffalo Bayou and Tributaries Resiliency Study has been extended until Friday November 20. It is important to participate because this is a huge project with profound implications for our city. For example, Alternative 6 “Buffalo Bayou Channel Improvements” would widen and deepen Buffalo Bayou from Highway 6 down to 1500 feet beyond Studemont Street (a distance of 23.9 river miles), with major impacts on both Memorial Park and Buffalo Bayou Park. You may submit written comments by email to BBTRS@usace.army.mil or by mail to: USACE, Galveston District, Attn: BBTRS, P.O. Box 1229, Galveston, TX 77553-1229.
A typical cross-section of the project would be 70 feet wide at the bottom and 230 feet wide at the top. [Compare this with the current width of Buffalo Bayou at Studemont Street (100 feet) and the distance from the north side hike and bike path to the south side hike and bike path (150 feet).] The channel would be lined with articulated concrete blocks.
To learn more about this issue quickly, view the videos of Steve Robinson’s (Houston Stronger) summary of the project and Mary Anne Piacentini’s (Katy Prairie Conservancy) review of alternatives. There is also an excellent
op-ed article in the October 31 issue of the Houston Chronicle. You can see that representatives of Houston’s business, legal, environmental, and academic communities are all expressing serious concern over this report.
The Interim Report states that decisions have been reached against the continuing consideration of alternatives such as tunneling or excavation within the Addicks and Barker Reservoirs to increase their storage capacity. Data and modeling results, which would be essential to allow outside experts to evaluate the basis for those decisions, have not yet been released to the public.
If you have ever paddled Buffalo Bayou or used the hike and bike trails that run along it, you might want to comment on the effects that the project would have on the recreational, scenic, and public health values of Buffalo Bayou. In preparing your comments, you are not limited to considering only the alternatives as they currently appear in the Interim Report. In particular, it would be appropriate to say that the alternatives that are presented are unacceptable and that previously discarded or completely new alternatives should be evaluated going forward.
Some matters of specific concern to paddlers are:
■ Because of fluctuating water levels, it is unlikely that vegetation would become established within the holes in the articulated concrete blocks.
■ Holes within the concrete blocks would present a potential for foot entrapment.
■ The concrete surfaces would not be favorable for launching or retrieving boats.
■ The relatively straight-line shape of the banks would not create any eddies along the shoreline: these features are very important to paddlers as locations for resting or for rescuing paddlers whose boats may have capsized.
■ The future of organized events such as the annual Buffalo Bayou Regatta (Texas’ largest canoe and kayak race) would be threatened.
More information about the Interim Report is available on the HCC Conservation Forum.