Houston Chronicle by Emily Foxhall Nov. 13, 2020
Digging Buffalo Bayou deeper? Houstonians up in arms over Army Corps' 'old-fashioned' flood fixes.
The agency had eliminated a proposed tunnel to carry water to the Houston Ship Channel because of cost. It nixed an option to expand the capacity of the Addicks and Barker reservoirs as not effective enough.
Instead, the Corps proposed digging Buffalo Bayou wider and deeper, or channelizing it. Officials also suggested building a hulking third dam and reservoir — right on the painstakingly protected Katy Prairie, a once-sprawling habitat that slows, cleans and stores water.
The agency looked at projects with heft, analyzing cost versus benefit and how many lives each might save. The sweeping study area and sheer scale of rainfall lent itself to large proposals, project manager Andrew Weber said.
But the approach dismayed conservationists such as Bernhardt, who leads an association fighting to protect the natural forms of the area’s bayous. She and others found the search for a single engineering solution antiquated. They thought channelization or the third reservoir would harm valued natural space.
“What we saw in this report,†Bernhardt said, “was just very old-fashioned.â€
More:
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/environment/article/Army-Corps-proposals-to-fix-Buffalo-Bayou-flood-15725805.php
