Houston's Filthy Waterways

[cnote]

There has to be something that can be done about this...I mean, I really wouldn't want to swim in any waterway near a downtown (i.e. Townlake in Austin, the Riverwalk in San Antonio) but this is just sad. I mean, I wouldn't even want to CANOE on something like this.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5389411.html

One of the best things about Austin was the activity, jogging, biking, and rowing on Town Lake (I think now it is Lady Bird Lake). I always wished there was more of the same along Buffalo Bayou near downtown. Also, the lake in Austin really made the city look much better. Perhaps this report will spur some change (though there have been reports like this in the past). I always wished they would widen/clean the bayous here to create something similar, as they are quite narrow now. A damn and lake could perhaps also help with flood control downtown. Anyone have any thoughts???

[Daniepwils]

There is no excuse for this to even be happening. I think our water treatment facilities are unreliable and we need updated ones from the sounds of it. (that 850 or 805 million that is going to education could be spent on this, seeing as how people are wanting to reject the bond!)

[musicman]

A damn and lake could perhaps also help with flood control downtown. Anyone have any thoughts???

just where do you propose placing a dam and a lake?

[Daniepwils]

Galena Lake sounds nice.

[TheNiche]

just where do you propose placing a dam and a lake?

No, no, he was proposing a damn and a lake. A cursed lake.

[memebag]

No, no, he was proposing a damn and a lake. A cursed lake.

Now that sounds like a good idea. We already have poisoned bayous and bays. A cursed lake would fit our whole idiom.

Cabeza de Vaca's name for Galveston Island was "Malhado", or "Island of Doom".

[KimberlySayWhat]

It's always something!

[TheNiche]

There has to be something that can be done about this...I mean, I really wouldn't want to swim in any waterway near a downtown (i.e. Townlake in Austin, the Riverwalk in San Antonio) but this is just sad. I mean, I wouldn't even want to CANOE on something like this.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5389411.html

One of the best things about Austin was the activity, jogging, biking, and rowing on Town Lake (I think now it is Lady Bird Lake).

I went kayaking on Town Lake (and I'm never going to call it Lady Bird Lake) in September. Except up along the shady and overgrown south shore in a portion of Zilker Park where there was a fair bit of stagnant water and a lot of trash in the vegetation, and under the Congress bridge, where bits of bat guano fall at random into the lake, it was a nice experience. Although I do recommend breathing through your nose while paddling in places like that, my general advice is to enjoy yourself and take a shower when you get home. Skin washes.

I always wished there was more of the same along Buffalo Bayou near downtown. Also, the lake in Austin really made the city look much better. Perhaps this report will spur some change (though there have been reports like this in the past). I always wished they would widen/clean the bayous here to create something similar, as they are quite narrow now. A damn and lake could perhaps also help with flood control downtown. Anyone have any thoughts???

The bayou channel has been widened from Shepherd to Downtown; I believe it was done in the 50's. A dam could not be constructed that would be of sufficient height as to prevent downtown from flooding unless it were miles wide, cutting through several very desirable and historic neighborhoods, and even then, we're just talking about inflicting floodwaters upon Peter to protect Paul. Topography is the culprit, here. We just don't have as deep a river basin as Austin does to work with. So our flood control focus is on local and regional detention, and once the water is in a channel, the focus is on getting it into the Ship Channel as quickly as possible. The greater the volume per hour, the fewer neighborhoods get flooded.

Now, if you're asking whether it'd be possible to just engineer a dam that recessed during flood events and that existed solely to create a recreational lake, yes, that'd be possible. But doing so would likely incite the Park People to engage in a suicide bombing campaign against whomever was responsible for it. What makes Town Lake really exceptional is not just that it is a lake near a Central Business District, but that it is accessible and has such great parks. By impounding the Buffalo Bayou, you swamp some of the best parks in Houston, including portions of Memorial Park, and probably a few roadbeds.

[cnote]

HA! I guess you can tell which word I type more often...though I guess it is appropriate since this lake would be filled with fecal matter....

If you have ever seen Town Lake in Austin, it is really just a wide spot in the river, so it would be more of a widening, and yeah, it might not be plausable, but neither is a "riverwalk" which everyone seems to be so high on. The dam would have to be east of downtown somewhere before the ship-channel. Just trying to think of something to make Buffalo Bayou look less like a sewer pipe. Alternatively, you could build a series of retention ponds along Buffalo and White Oak to aid in flood control.

[musicman]

The dam would have to be east of downtown somewhere before the ship-channel.

a dam placed east of downtown would cause the flooding situation to worsen downtown.

[TheNiche]

HA! I guess you can tell which word I type more often...though I guess it is appropriate since this lake would be filled with fecal matter....

If you have ever seen Town Lake in Austin, it is really just a wide spot in the river, so it would be more of a widening, and yeah, it might not be plausable, but neither is a "riverwalk" which everyone seems to be so high on. The dam would have to be east of downtown somewhere before the ship-channel. Just trying to think of something to make Buffalo Bayou look less like a sewer pipe. Alternatively, you could build a series of retention ponds along Buffalo and White Oak to aid in flood control.

Neither dams or damns do any good at protecting anything from flooding except what's downstream.

And Town Lake is an impounded body of water just like Lake Austin, Lake Travis, Lake LBJ, or even Lake Houston. It is not just a wide spot in a river.

A riverwalk is an entirely different kind of idea, and it is entirely plausible that our local governments will spend gobs of cash trying to imitate San Antonio only to fail miserably by developing a place that few people really know about and that floods so regularly that no retailers will take up shop there.

Retention ponds are being developed in places along Buffalo Bayou and Brays Bayou, but their function is more for water filtration than for flood control. Retention ponds are most effective at flood control much further upstream.

[Mark F. Barnes]

You want to see a filthy body of water going through a major city, go visit Cleveland and take a gander at the Cuyahoga River, then you'll think Buffalo Bayou is a paradise.

[TheNiche]

You want to see a filthy body of water going through a major city, go visit Cleveland and take a gander at the Cuyahoga River, then you'll think Buffalo Bayou is a paradise.

I thought they'd done a lot to clean it up after it caught fire.

[Vertigo58]

It's always something!

This reminds of when Jay Leno commented about Garth Brooks tour a few years ago. He said:

You know Garth Brooks is coming to NYC when even the bodies floating down the East River are wearing cowboy boots.

[Mark F. Barnes]

I thought they'd done a lot to clean it up after it caught fire.

Oh they've done a lot alright, but go visit and make your own call. They did a lot of cove..... I mean cleaning up, hired some top flight PR people to play down they bad reputation, but it still is filthy. They may have dropped they flammability flash point to a safer level it's still got issues way beyond fire.

[Guest danax]

I noticed last week a funky smell coming from the Braes Bayou along Mason Park. I went down near the bank and saw lots of floating fish. It's probably unrelated to bacteria unless there was an unusually high levels but something got a lot of them. The article doesn't mention the Braes and I don't believe there are any sewage or industrial plants along it.

[TheNiche]

The article doesn't mention the Braes and I don't believe there are any sewage or industrial plants along it.

There are WWTPs all over the place.

[Guest danax]

There are WWTPs all over the place.

Actually now I remember the one way down off of Braeswood and Stella Link. And the Mason Park spot, being a protected wetlands, has a dense fish population, making them more vulnerable to massive bacterial levels. A case of the poopulation hurting the population, I suppose .

[webdude]

Maybe now we can be known as the place with the largest public restroom. When nature calls, just go where nature is.

[musicman]

I noticed last week a funky smell coming from the Braes Bayou along Mason Park. I went down near the bank and saw lots of floating fish. It's probably unrelated to bacteria unless there was an unusually high levels but something got a lot of them. The article doesn't mention the Braes and I don't believe there are any sewage or industrial plants along it.

i think there was an article (or tv report) that mentioned how during the building of the wetlands it was discovered that sewage was coming from the neighborhood behind it i.e. there is a leak in the sewage system that leaks into the street drainage system which drains into the wetland area.

[Ross]

It's been a long time since I've been in a City of Houston WWTP, but in the 80's, they were well run and put clean water in the outfall. The other entities that run WWTP's aren't nearly as good. The Memorial Villages were dumping raw sewage in Buffalo Bayou in the 80's (my thought was to tell them to close their sewers off until they built new plants, that would have made the rich folks over there get something done quickly). There's no reason the treatment plants can't be run to meet standards. The residents who have to pay more to keep their MUD plant running, but that's too bad.

[cnote]

Thanks for your informative post about the previous plans for Buffalo Bayou. I do realize any lake would cause a loss of some park space along the bayou, but if there was enough saved, maybe people would use them. I swear, everyone I know in Houston goes to a gym and runs on a treadmill, and occasionally goes to Memorial Park to run. Everyone I know in Austin goes to Townlake. I actually think the parks along Buffalo Bayou are beautiful, but wish people used them more. I am just trying to think of ways to make that happen. I guess with reports like this, you can see why they don't.

Also Niche, I know Townlake is an impounded reservoir, but the whole thing is under 500 acres with a max depth of around 18 ft., and a large portion of the acreage is east of 35, where the lake opens up. The portion adjacent to downtown Austin I would certainly call a wide spot in the river...

I realize Austin and Houston are so different in geography, demographics, and population that comparison is spotty at best, but I do think Austin is a great example of what well planned and well executed parks and recreation can do for a city. I mean, when I look at the parks along Buffalo Bayou from my office, I see tons of places where the homeless have set up shop, and I know people that are afraid to run along the trails there at night. Austin has tons of homeless, how do they keep them out of Zilker and along the Lake???

On a side note, has anyone SEEN anyone swim in Buffalo Bayou??? I just can't imagine....

[cnote]

Also musicman, not sure if the dam being East of Downtown would HAVE to mean more flooding Upstream. There could be other efforts taken to compensate for this, such as updated flood control infrastructure for White Oak and other tributaries and for the far upstream areas of Buffalo Bayou in the Addicks and Barker Reservoirs. I think like most things that people say are impossible, it comes down to money and vision. Now, even if this were possible, the water is still not going to be very pretty, so as long as people perceive it as filthy, maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe that is why most people don't give a $&*# about the Bayou being polluted in the first place, because as far as they are concerned, nature made it ugly to begin with.

[TheNiche]

Also musicman, not sure if the dam being East of Downtown would HAVE to mean more flooding Upstream. There could be other efforts taken to compensate for this, such as updated flood control infrastructure for White Oak and other tributaries and for the far upstream areas of Buffalo Bayou in the Addicks and Barker Reservoirs. I think like most things that people say are impossible, it comes down to money and vision. Now, even if this were possible, the water is still not going to be very pretty, so as long as people perceive it as filthy, maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe that is why most people don't give a $&*# about the Bayou being polluted in the first place, because as far as they are concerned, nature made it ugly to begin with.

The principles of hydrology make flood control in Houston a pretty straightforward thing. Detain water upstream and move it as quickly as possible downstream to the Ship Channel. Any sort of impoundment reduces the amount of water that can move downstream per minute, which would increase the frequency of flood events.

As I suggested before, it may be possible to pull off a retracting metal dam to create a linear lake, but environmentalists and parks advocates would go frickin nuts. And its hard to blame them; there are already places where the sidewalks come up to street level and traffic noise bothers joggers. If there were any sidewalks left on which to recreate near the lake, they'd be rather unpleasant. TxDOT and the City's Public Works Dept. would have to come to some agreements about reconstructing all or portions of Allen Parkway and Memorial Drive. Come to think of it, there may also be some influential River Oaks homeowners that'd get all pissy about changes to flood plains, which in and of itself could kill a project like this.

Besides all this, we're talking about a really expensive makeover of something that is already counted as one of Houston's jewels. I'd rather we just use those funds to create new jewels.

[musicman]

Come to think of it, there may also be some influential River Oaks homeowners that'd get all pissy about changes to flood plains, which in and of itself could kill a project like this.

Bingo. the river oaks contingent has been leery to "improvements" for buffalo bayou because of how it would affect them. this leads to further issues from the various villages upstream.

Also musicman, not sure if the dam being East of Downtown would HAVE to mean more flooding Upstream. There could be other efforts taken to compensate for this, such as updated flood control infrastructure for White Oak and other tributaries and for the far upstream areas of Buffalo Bayou in the Addicks and Barker Reservoirs.

having reservoirs along white oak/buffalo definitely would help but any hindrance downstream would have a negative affect on drainage in downtown.

increasing capacity along buffalo and white oak without affecting homeowners/businesses would definitely be a challenge.

[houstonmacbro]

There is no excuse for this to even be happening. I think our water treatment facilities are unreliable and we need updated ones from the sounds of it. (that 850 or 805 million that is going to education could be spent on this, seeing as how people are wanting to reject the bond!)

I am always amazed by what people will and will not vote for.

Not just in Houston, but around the country. I am not saying schools are not money well-spent, but so is our infrastructure.

[Vertigo58]

Maybe now we can be known as the place with the largest public restroom. When nature calls, just go where nature is.

I always heard that Buff Bayou always looks murky due to the ship channel waters that flow in and out from Galveston Bay?

Then again there have always been homeless people living on the edges which doesn't help the situation.

I could not imagine someone being insane enough to actually swim in that funkiness, especially if they had to open their eyes under water. I bet you would come out with a layer of shiny greasy, crud and worse of all contracting a serious case of hepatitis or cholera.

I read once that in some country there was a swim competition for olympic hopefulls. The race was to be in a river that (unknowing competitors) contained a highly contanimated bacteria. About 20 out of 30 of them developed serious hepatitis or hepatitis 2? causing bad liver damage, diahrea and some eventually died. What a fiasco. Warning: Do not swim in B bayou unless zonked out of your mind.

[TheNiche]

I always heard that Buff Bayou always looks murky due to the ship channel waters that flow in and out from Galveston Bay?

The murkiness is a result of the very fine particles that make up the Beaumont geologic formation, through which the bayou flows. They're easily eroded and suspended in water.

The tide line, which is the furthest upstream part of the bayou that experiences tide effects, is estimated to be between Waugh and Shepherd, however the rate of flow of the bayou is sufficient to prevent Ship Channel funk from ever going upstream.

Warning: Do not swim in B bayou unless zonked out of your mind.

Niche seeks one or two partners for all-day kayak tour of Buffalo Bayou, putting in at Highway 6 and taking out at Wayside--yes, right across and just slightly downstream of the largest sewage treatment plant in the region so that yes, you will most certainly come into contact with the effluent. Date of voyage to be determined. First come, first serve.

Any takers?

[Vertigo58]

The murkiness is a result of the very fine particles that make up the Beaumont geologic formation, through which the bayou flows. They're easily eroded and suspended in water.

The tide line, which is the furthest upstream part of the bayou that experiences tide effects, is estimated to be between Waugh and Shepherd, however the rate of flow of the bayou is sufficient to prevent Ship Channel funk from ever going upstream.

Niche seeks one or two partners for all-day kayak tour of Buffalo Bayou, putting in at Highway 6 and taking out at Wayside--yes, right across and just slightly downstream of the largest sewage treatment plant in the region so that yes, you will most certainly come into contact with the effluent. Date of voyage to be determined. First come, first serve.

Any takers?

Actually that would be a real adventure. I mean how often would anyone have this opportunity? I would need a spear to stab those nasty alligator gars, I hate those hideous things.

Wow, and what if you find a body or two? I would truly need a mask, serious. Conde Nast & National Geographic come to mind.

[TheNiche]

Actually that would be a real adventure. I mean how often would anyone have this opportunity? I would need a spear to stab those nasty alligator gars, I hate those hideous things.

I'd be more concerned about water moccasins than gar. That's pretty much the only reason I don't do slow-moving inland waterways alone.

Wow, and what if you find a body or two? I would truly need a mask, serious. Conde Nast & National Geographic come to mind.

Snap a couple cell phone photos, get lat/longs from GPS, and call it in to HPD. Let them handle it.

-------------------------

Btw, folks, I am serious about this. PM me if you're interested.