Buffalo Bayou

Buffalo Bayou is a main waterway flowing through Houston, in Harris County, Texas, USA. It begins on the west side of the county near Katy, Texas and flows approximately convert|53|mi|km east to the Houston Ship Channel and then into Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. Along the way the bayou receives several significant tributary bayous, such as White Oak Bayou, Greens Bayou, and Brays Bayou and passes by several major parks and numerous smaller neighborhood parks.

Route

Buffalo Bayou is impounded in the upper watershed by the Addicks and Barker Reservoirs which regulate the bayou's flood flows. In addition to controlling high water, the discharge from the dams can be used to keep the bayou at a controlled level during water-based festivals, such as the Buffalo Bayou Regatta. From the dams, the bayou flows east under State Highway 6. Also starting at Barker Dam is Terry Hershey Park which consists of the land on both sides of the bayou from Highway 6 to Beltway 8 (also known as the Sam Houston Tollway). Jogging, biking, and fishing are popular in this area, although most people consider the bayou unfit for swimming.

Between Beltway 8 and Loop 610, there is little public access to the bayou since the land along the bayou is privately owned. This stretch of the bayou passes through what are known as the Memorial Villages and passes by the Houston Country Club, and the Houstonian Hotel, Club & Spa.

On the east side of Loop 610, Buffalo Bayou passes along the south side of Memorial Park and is once again accessible to the public. Here it passes on the north side of the River Oaks Country Club and then through the Hogg Bird Sanctuary and the Ima Hogg estate Bayou Bend. A short distance thereafter is Buffalo Bayou Park which is bordered on the north by Memorial Drive and the south by Allen Parkway. From here the bayou flows through downtown Houston, past Allen's Landing, and then through the East End to the Port of Houston and the Houston Ship Channel.

History

The bayou has a significant place in Texas history, not only as the founding place of the City of Houston, but also because the final battle for Texas Independence was fought along its banks where it merges with the San Jacinto River at the communities of Lynchburg and Harrisburg, near present day Deer Park, Texas. [Kemp, L.W., & Kilman, E., "The Battle of San Jacinto (and the San Jacinto Campaign)" (1947) - "presented on line by" the Sons of DeWitt Colony Texas (McKeehan, W.L., 1997-2006). [http://www.tamu.edu/ccbn/dewitt/batsanjacinto.htm] ]

The original Port of Houston was located at the foot of Main Street at the confluence of Buffalo Bayou and White Oak Bayou in downtown Houston which was the most westerly location a small trading schooner could turn around. The old port waterfront area is called "Allen's Landing" after the Allen Brothers who founded the city. This site is now a public park. It is the birthplace of the City of Houston. [Kleiner, D.J., "Allen's Landing", The Handbook of Texas Online (Texas State Historical Association, February 3, 2005). [http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/AA/hvabg.html] ] Numerous historical sites, as well as ruins of old docks and facilities, can be seen along the banks of Buffalo Bayou.

Today, despite the urban environment, Buffalo Bayou and its parks remains the centerpiece for many festivals and gatherings in Houston throughout the year. It is also still very popular with canoe and kayak enthusiasts.

Role of the Watershed

The convert|103|sqmi|km2|sing=on Buffalo Bayou watershed is central to the drainage of Houston and Harris County. Lying over relatively impervious soils and very flat topography, the bayou has extensive natural floodplains, as do most Gulf coastal streams and rivers. The gradual urbanization of the watershed, starting with the founding of the city in 1836 and accelerating in the latter half of the twentieth century, placed thousands of people in the natural floodplains. At the same time, changes to the watershed due to urbanization increased the level and intensity of flood events.

Responding to disastrous flood damages due to floods in the 1930’s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in association with the Harris County Flood Control District, began numerous projects to reduce Houston’s flooding risks through an extensive program of reservoir construction, removal of stream-bank vegetation, straightening and deepening channels and lining them with concrete.

In the 1960s, Terry Hershey, working with local congressman George Herbert Walker Bush, prevented the federal government from the channelization of Buffalo Bayou below Beltway 8. In 1966, Hershey and a number of other homeowners in Houston’s Memorial Villages area formed the Buffalo Bayou Preservation Association, which later widened its mission and became the Bayou Preservation Association. While the quality of water has remained an issue, the bayou was one of the few in the Harris County flood district to retain its natural riparian ecosystem.

Restoring the Buffalo Bayou

Spurred by the 1972 Federal Clean Water Act, the State of Texas sued Houston in 1976 over pollution levels, toxic run-off, and untreated sewage that was being discharged into the bayous. This led to a $3 billion sewer upgrade in the metropolitan area which has significantly improved water quality in the region, although much effort still needs to be expended to reduce non-point source pollution from the urban watersheds.

In 1986, a mayor-appointed task force published the first Buffalo Bayou Master Plan, which outlined a vision for the bayou that took it from being an urban sewer to being a valuable natural resource and valuable park space and rich with urban waterfront opportunities. The Buffalo Bayou Partnership was created from this original task force in 1986 and in 2002 they published the Buffalo Bayou and Beyond Master Plan, an updated and comprehensive regional bayou restoration and economic development program expected to cost $5.6 billion and take 20 years to implement. The project goals include the creation of hundreds of acres of greenways and new parks by reclaiming industrial space along the bayou waterway, habitat restoration program, recreational opportunities for canoeing and kayaking, trails for hiking and biking, outdoor cultural events, watershed and flood control management, and mixed-use urban development.

The Buffalo Bayou Partnership has raised more than $45 million from private donors and foundations to implement specific projects along the bayou, including efforts to develop continuous trails along the bayou. The most recent segment of the Buffalo Bayou trail system to be completed is the $15 million Buffalo Bayou Promenade, which extends from the historic Sabine Street bridge just west of the Central Business District to Bagby Street in the heart of the Arts and Entertainment District. This new 23 acre recreation area, complete with convert|1.4|mi|km of hiking and biking trails, was opened in 2006 and was designed by the international landscape architecture firm, The SWA Group.

The Buffalo Bayou Promenade has become a popular location for live performances of music and video, for outdoor sculpture exhibits (The Buffalo Bayou Art Park), for canoeing and kayaking and for walking and jogging. The promenade has won local and national acclaim for the role it has played in helping to change how Houstonians think about their waterways in general and Buffalo Bayou in particular.

The Buffalo Bayou Promenade transformed what was an almost forgotten and neglected stretch of the bayou where it passed beneath and threaded between numerous freeway and street bridges and overpasses into an inviting, safe and attractive public space. The project included the placement of stone filled gabions along the water’s edge to provide an ecologically friendly way to control bank erosion, the removal of thousands of cubic yards of old rubble and fill, the construction of new and improved trails. One of the most important aspects of the project was the construction of highly visible staircases and ramps connecting almost all the adjacent streets to the bayou trails to give park users the comfort of knowing they are never disconnected from the city around them and to give city residents easy access to the trails below along the bayou.

The SWA Group-led design team is also credited with designing an innovative lighting plan for Buffalo Bayou, first unveiled at the Sabine-to-Bagby Promenade. This lighting system illuminates the bridge, trails, and waterfront in cobalt and white lights that shift from one color to another in coordination with the changing phases of the moon. Stephen Korns, an Amherst, MA-based artist, working with the New York lighting firm L’Observatoire, conceived of the color phase shifting which will ultimately include the entire Buffalo Bayou greenway. The plan incorporates three levels, or orders, of lighting, providing first, general trail lighting for public comfort and safety, second, environmental lighting to illuminate just the dark corners and hiding places amidst the undersides of all the infrastructure, and third, artistic lighting for public art and local events.

The project includes a convert|189|ft|m|sing=on steel and concrete pedestrian bridge that links acres of new landscaping with the downtown theater district and enables pedestrians and bikers to make a complete loop around the bayou without crossing up and over busy city streets.

New pathways in the Sabine-to-Bagby Promenade now link Houston’s popular Allen Parkway/Memorial Drive trails to Sesquicentennial Park in downtown Houston. Each of 12 public entrances to the new park are celebrated using a combination of public artwork (John Runnels), artistic lighting, and perennial gardens to create inviting and accessible entry points to the greenway.

A significant design challenge, specific to bayous, is to accommodate the ever present threat of flood. Water on Buffalo Bayou can rise rapidly from sea level to convert|35|ft|m deep, often within several hours. SWA met that challenge by designing all landscape plantings, trail markers, signage, benches, lights to withstand periodic submersion by muddy, debris filled flood waters. In the event of high water, small hydrants, spaced conveniently, wash off any deposited silt, returning it to the bayou before it dries.

In 2006, Kevin Shanley, president of SWA Group and leader of the design team, and Anne Olson, executive director, Buffalo Bayou Partnership, Houston, Texas, won [ [http://www.waterfrontcenter.org/Awards/2006_excellence_on_the_waterfron.htm 2006 Excellence on the Waterfront Awards ] ] The Waterfront Center’s Excellence on the Waterfront Award, Park and Recreation Category. The Waterfront Center, formed in 1981, has chronicled and supported the national movement to reclaim and restore abandoned, unused, and polluted urban waterfronts. The project also won a design award from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) in 2006 and an award of distinction from the Urban Land Institute (ULI) in 2007.

Notes

External links

*
* [http://www.hcfcd.org/L_buffalobayou.html Buffalo Bayou Watershed (Harris County Flood Control)]
* [http://www.buffalobayou.org/ Buffalo Bayou Partnership]
* [http://www.swagroup.com SWA Group]
* [http://www.waterfrontcenter.org Waterfront Center]