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Brays Bayou Master Plan


MontroseNeighborhoodCafe

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These people have the right idea. Since we are known to some as The Bayou City, our bayous should be shining examples of our creativity and love of beauty, to help counteract the ugly freeways and mish-mash retail. What do you say if someone comes here to visit and asks, "show me the bayous of The Bayou City"? Something like, "Uh, well, they're just cement drainage ditches you see from the freeway" perhaps.

Some of their ideas might have trouble getting funding. Gordon Quan said they'd looked at the dam/Riverwalk idea for Buffalo Bayou and it was too expensive.

Our waterways are currently raw but have enormous potential. Now that money is coming back into town, it's just a matter of time until they blossom.

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  • 4 months later...
Guest danax

I saw it again this morning.

Walking through Mason Park, along the bayou. I had seen it about a year ago and never came to a conclusion as to what it was. It's charcoal grey rounded form broke the smooth surface of the water then went right back under again. No head or tail, just a hump. Unlike fish there that jump in series of two or three jumps, this thing just surfaced once, same as the last time I saw it. The part that surfaced looked to be it's back and was maybe 2-3 feet long and maybe a foot across. I stood and waited for several minutes to see if I could see any other indications of it's presense.

No ripples. Nothing.

Do we have manatees occasionally, maybe seasonally? Its only a few miles to the ship channel. Perhaps the back of a humongous catfish? It is a protected wetlands there and the fish that I've seen are nice and big. It wasn't a gator, too smooth. Any ideas?

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I saw it again this morning.

Walking through Mason Park, along the bayou. I had seen it about a year ago and never came to a conclusion as to what it was. It's charcoal grey rounded form broke the smooth surface of the water then went right back under again. No head or tail, just a hump. Unlike fish there that jump in series of two or three jumps, this thing just surfaced once, same as the last time I saw it. The part that surfaced looked to be it's back and was maybe 2-3 feet long and maybe a foot across. I stood and waited for several minutes to see if I could see any other indications of it's presense.

No ripples. Nothing.

Do we have manatees occasionally, maybe seasonally? Its only a few miles to the ship channel. Perhaps the back of a humongous catfish? It is a protected wetlands there and the fish that I've seen are nice and big. It wasn't a gator, too smooth. Any ideas?

Big turtle? They get reeeely big ya know....

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Guest danax

I didn't know we had river otters around here but I don't think this was one as otters are pretty hyper and this thing barely broke the surface and I stood there for 5 minutes and never saw another ripple.

As for turtles, I've seen plenty around there and their heads give them away eventually.

Has anyones seen any gators in the bayous?

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  • 4 weeks later...
I add my wild speculation -- alligator gar.  Makes a catfish look like a beauty queen. . .

Those are amazing. When the Trinity River would flood, we would wade out into the flats and go bow fishing. I've seen some that are well over 100lb and would give you nightmares. (queue the theme from Jaws)

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  • 5 months later...

The greatest, most well-thought out plans to improve a big city will always be stained somehow by the lesser members of the population. Littering is a behavior that is hard to police and the damage seems temporary; give it a little time and it will be blown or washed away so no one feels its damage, and so it persists. The picture below is ironic because the litter ended up in a pond designed to purify runoff. All the pointy-heads who designed this project surely had to have accounted for this scenario? The good thing is that this won't go unnoticed and will likely be dealt with.

When I went to the park this weekend to take some shots of the Project Brays freshwater tidal basin work at Mason Park, I intended to post the progress here to show the non-East Enders something positive that is taking place in town. This project is a combination of flood control, habitat restoration, water purification and recreation. Really a textbook, inner-city, all around winner.

However, here is what one of the

water purification ponds looked like after the minor rain we had.ffd89i.jpg

This was disturbing to me. Prior to this rain, this pond in particular had started to have large water birds in them just about every time I've went. Now, I'm guessing they'll stay away.

Here are some other shots of the project;ffde8x.jpg

ffdf2r.jpg

Looking from the Forest Hill bridge, which will be replaced as the bayou is widened, northwest towards Downtown (skyline visible in the background)fjda1i.jpgfjdav6.jpg

The only way I can imagine this can be solved is by, perhaps, to tether a giant net off of the storm drainpipe upstream and empty it after each rain. If nothing is done, this wetland habitat will become the beginnings of a landfill in a matter of months. I think the mayor should see this and get HPD to crack down on litterers and, if they ever catch one, assign them to that pond with waders, gloves and a bag. Then, get one of the local channels to do a piece on it to help teach people to behave.

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These ponds have trails built right up to them for observation and will be meticulously replanted with native species so there's no way that litter collection is what that lowest pond was intended for, although I believe it is intended to pull in water from the bayou so, unless the engineers had never visited Mason Park after a rain, they had to have anticipated this. Normally, the massive load of trash that ends up in the bayou after a rain is gone within days, having floated out to the bay and beyond.

I'm not sure if the excavation/design portion has been completed yet and maybe those upper ponds will somehow connect to the lower one to push some of that litter back out, but no matter how they design it, the intended pristine habitat restoration seems to be doomed, thanks to the litterers.

This one pond is a potentially valuable teaching aid as there probably has never before in our city's history been such an example of the negative effects of the seemingly harmless act of tossing a piece of trash in the street.

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I'm not familiar with the design of this park, but HCFCD does use vegetation in some ponds to trap "floatables" (the trash you're seeing). It's part of their design for storm water quality. Other storm water quality benefits are provided by providing "sedimentation" basins to allow sands/silts/clays to drop out of the water. In addition, the wetlands vegetation that's planted helps remove nutrients and pollutants from the water.

Regular maintenance of the pond is anticipated by HCFCD, to remove trash and sediments. That being said, I don't think there's any way to estimate just how much trash is going to be caught, and obviously this pond is a sad reminder of our litter problem. I doubt HCFCD plans (or has funds) to maintain the pond as often as it is needed.

You've absolutely got the right idea with using offenders to clean up this pond as part of their "community service". After spending a few hours in that muck, I would think twice before throwing my Burger King wrapper out the car window...

Now , how do you make your idea a reality?

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You've absolutely got the right idea with using offenders to clean up this pond as part of their "community service". After spending a few hours in that muck, I would think twice before throwing my Burger King wrapper out the car window...

Now , how do you make your idea a reality?

Right, Timmy. Ideas are worthless by themselves. I just sent Carol Alvarado an email with the pic attached and the ideas. I will keep you all posted.

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Now , how do you make your idea a reality?

There are two places where litter citations end up. One is Houston (or any other city) Municipal Court. The other would be any of the Justice of the Peace Courts. I believe there are two per precinct, for a total of 16. A letter written to the judges of these courts, suggesting that community service in lieu of fines would help the community might sway some of them to consider it.

The other suggestion is to aggressively point out litterers to police. You must give them enough info to make a positive identification. You must also offer to appear at a trial, if needed. Otherwise, the citation will get thrown out.

It may also help to suggest to city council or commissioner's court that a letter be sent to those offenders who can't be prosecuted but are suspected litterers. For instance, a license plate number does not identify the litterer, but we know that this vehicle was used. A letter to the vehicle owner suggesting that someone may have littered from that vehicle, that also explains the costs and hazards of littering, would at least make some people think twice before doing it again.

As they say, "Every litter bit hurts". :rolleyes:

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I'm a big anti-litter guy, Danax, so your efforts are really appreciated. The level of litter in Houston is unacceptable, and I think the level is as high because we don't do a good job of collecting it and then discouraging such actions in the future. People are lazy to begin with so you can't expect the overall population to not litter without there being a certain amount of outside motivation.

Those pics are great, too. Keep us posted.

Edited by The Great Hizzy!
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I'm a big anti-litter guy, Danax, so your efforts are really appreciated. The level of litter in Houston is unacceptable, and I think the level is as high because we don't do a good job of collecting it and then discouraging such actions in the future. People are lazy to begin with so you can't expect the overall population to not litter without there being a certain amount of outside motivation.

Those pics are great, too. Keep us posted.

I'm a big anti-litter person too. I regularly report litterers to TxDot's website. At least weekly I spot some jackass throwing a cig butt out their car window onto the ground. So I keep pen and paper handy to write down license plate numbers.

TxDot can't fine them, but they send a letter stating someone saw them litter blah, blah, blah. It's not much but reporting jackasses gives me joy for some reason.

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