By Brandt Mannchen
In the Houston Area, our “Mother River” (River) calls. Our River is in danger. But can we hear her and help? I am not talking about the 710-mile long Trinity River, the 840-mile Brazos River, or the San Bernard, Neches, and Colorado Rivers. I am talking about the 5,600 square mile, 70-mile long, San Jacinto River. Our River has floodplains and tributaries like Spring, Cypress, Lake, Peach, and Caney Creeks, Luce and Tarkington Bayous, and the East and West Forks. Our River includes all or parts of Harris, Waller, Walker, Montgomery, Grimes, Fort Bend, Liberty, and San Jacinto Counties.
A Harris County Flood Control District, San Jacinto River Authority, Montgomery County, and City of Houston, $2.7 million “San Jacinto Regional Watershed Master Drainage Plan” (Plan) is underway. This Plan is funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and will: Identify flood hazards; develop enhanced public information and flood level assessment for flood events; evaluate flood mitigation strategies (like dredging, channelization, dam building, etc.), and provide a comprehensive flood mitigation plan for the four regional partners.
The goals of this Plan do not mention the ecological and biological importance of the River; fishing, hunting, boating, kayaking, canoeing, birding, nature study, and other recreational benefits; wildlife, habitat, and migration corridors for 100’s of plant and animals; water supply benefits; clean water instream flows; water for the Galveston Bay Estuary; the natural river’s scenic beauty; and the industrial importance of the River.
Instead of a narrow flood control plan, we need a plan which takes all areas and aspects of the River into account. We need a “San Jacinto River Watershed Management Master Plan”.
For too long we have chopped the River into pieces for flood control, water quality, water supply, industrial uses, and recreation without looking at its entire length, breadth, and all needs together, for the future. Unfortunately, we have gotten what we did plan for: narrow implementation; a disregard for or less than comprehensive focus on all uses; disrupted living space, Quality of Life, economic benefits, and recreational needs; and a patchwork of ugly, environmentally destructive, developments and partial, short-term solutions. That won’t do anymore!
In addition, climate change has seemingly on a weekly or monthly basis reminded us what is in store, not in the future, but right now. More frequent and more intense rainfalls, greater sea level rise and inundation of shorelines, rising temperatures, more significant droughts, and alterations of our living space via floods, storms, winds, and other natural phenomena all have occurred now and will increase in the future.
The River currently consists of at least three different parts. In the upper watershed, there are agriculture, forestry, other rural landscapes, and small communities. Sam Houston National Forest, at the end of the upper watershed, encircles the north part of Lake Conroe and contains the West Fork of the San Jacinto River, Little Lake Creek Wilderness Area, Caney Creek, remnant blackland prairies, and Boswell Creek in its west and central portions and the East Fork of the San Jacinto River, Winters Bayou and Big Creek Scenic Areas, and remnant Big Thicket and Longleaf Pine forests.
The middle watershed includes Lakes Conroe and Houston, shoreline development, Conroe and the Woodlands, and north Houston and Harris County.
The lower watershed, below Lake Houston Dam, consists of remnant bottomland hardwood forests and wetlands, cypress swamps, Sheldon Lake State Park, Deussen and Eisenhower Parks, San Jacinto River Waste Pits Superfund Site, other hazardous waste sites, San Jacinto Battleground State Park, petrochemical plants, Houston Ship Channel, Baytown, Exxon-Mobil oil refinery, and Galveston Bay.
As might be expected, these three parts of the River’s watershed are different and need to be managed differently. We have an opportunity to plan ahead, protect, manage, and implement a vision that enhances these differences but allows for acceptable human use, maintenance of wildlife habitat, and retains that wild, scenic, part of the River.
A "San Jacinto River Watershed Management Master Plan" can be prepared by the Houston-Galveston Area Council with funding and a management committee that consists of local cities, water authorities, natural resource agencies, industrial concerns, and the public. Let’s not settle for half-measures anymore. Let’s once and for all accept, protect, and plan for a San Jacinto River that benefits all, humans, wildlife, industry, and our kids’ futures.