With Sand Cleanup Almost Finished, Buffalo Bayou Partnership Thinks Ahead To Next Big Storm

The cleanup of Buffalo Bayou Park after Hurricane Harvey is taking a big step forward.

Crews are almost finished removing most of the sand that floodwaters washed up onto the park's trails. Meanwhile, the park's stewards are busy thinking about the next big storm.

Anne Olson, president of Buffalo Bayou Partnership, told News 88-7 her group should be finished with its part in the sand removal within the next few weeks. Separately, a decision has been made to remove the large dog pool from the Johnny Steele dog park. It was just flooding too much, Olson said.

The partnership is now looking ahead to its development plans for the bayou in the East End. Luckily, Olson said, that part didn't flood during Harvey.

"As you move east, the bayou gets a lot wider, the banks are a lot steeper," she said. "But what we did have a lot of problems with was erosion and scouring of banks that were really steep, and so we lost some trails."

Hydrologists are studying how the "master plan" for building greenspaces on the bayou's eastern stretch might need to change. Olson said there is one obvious lesson: new trails will need to be built farther away from the bayou, possibly as far back as 100 feet, to avoid erosion with future storms.

Buffalo Bayou Partnership is planning two community meetings on the project in the 5^th Ward in early February.