August 25, 2023 • 30 mins
Chris Brown is a member of the board of directors for the Bayou Preservation Association. They work to celebrate, protect, and restore our bayous and waterways. They’re running a water quality testing program including training. Anyone living near one of our 40+ bayous can learn how to test the water and help identify problems. They also celebrate this awesome natural resource which could be a lot more helpful in managing our flooding problems. Human interference (like lining bayou with concrete walls) is slowly being turned around for the better and on Sept 20-21, the Bayou Preservation Association is holding its annual symposium. It’s virtual and therefore open to all. Go to www.bayoupreservation.org to register.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:06):
Welcome to Houston, PA, Houston'spublic affairs show, an iHeartMedia broadcast.
Our disclaimer says that the opinions expressedon this show do not necessarily reflect those
hell by this radio station, it'smanagement staff, or any of its advertisers.
My name is Laurent I am theTexan from France, and I'm a
big fan of the flora and faunaof this area. I like to describe
(00:29):
living in Houston as akin to livingin the suburbs, except that you're in
a big city. And the reasonI sort of still feel that way,
even though it changes a lot everyyear in this big town, it's the
trees. You know, you're you'rejust constantly driving down these tree lined avenues,
and for this French boy, it'sjust it's it's incredibly lush and beautiful.
(00:52):
Because I live next to the Bayou, I've been privy to the amenities
that have been built around it.When I first moved in to Houston,
the Bayou was still aligned with concretewalls, which was a dramatic mistake.
It was thought to be a goodidea to put concrete walls, you know,
we'll control the flow of water.And actually the complete opposite happened because
those concrete walls actually like a slide, and whereas bayous are generally slow at
(01:15):
moving water, and now the wateris just careening down the bayou aisles,
and when the wall ends, thewater crashes into the banks, and of
course it weighs millions of tons.You're talking about energy that is practically unimaginable
to a human being. And thenthey just gore out wherever the wall stops
and caused a bunch of problems downstreamfrom where these amenities were built. And
(01:38):
because Houstonians are waking up and listeningto organizations like the Bayou Preservation Association,
organizations that go out and look atwhat citizens can affect on a day to
day basis. As far as theenvironment is concerned, We're not talking about
nebulous theories here. We're talking aboutfacts and the things that we can do
as simple as not trashing the place, or maybe lobbying for those concrete walls
(02:01):
to be destroyed along our bayous likethey did along the Buffalo Bayou, returning
those areas to their natural state orclose to it, and allowing nature to
take its course and actually take careof us. Maybe that's part of the
misunderstanding we are hubrist compels us tothink that we need to take care of
the environment, but really is theother way around. We just need to
(02:21):
make sure that we don't destroy theenvironment. My guest today is Chris Brown.
He is a member of the boardof directors for the Bayou Preservation Association.
You can follow along with their programsonline at Bayou Preservation dot org Byou
Preservation dot org. On September twentiethand twenty first, they're doing their annual
symposiing and their themes this year arebalancing growth, preservation and restoration, so
(02:47):
kind of fitting for an area likeHouston, which is exploding, the population
is exploding. We're building easement toeasement. We're tearing down all the trees
on every property we buy because dumb, isn't it. And so we'll talk
about some of the things that theytried to impart upon our society. You
might have heard me mentioned that byyour preservation association because they have ties to
(03:10):
the Katie Prairie Conservancy, and Chris, I hear you were with them or
you were talking about them just recently. But you have very similar missions.
Right, You're looking at your environment, our environment, and you're you're not
thinking in nebulous theories as I mentioned, but rather hey, wait a minute,
what's this happening, Why is ithappening, and how can we stop
it from happening? For instance,flooding, which is a bit of a
(03:31):
problem in our area. Right.Yes, we definitely at the buy Preservation
Association, we have you know,our charge is to we call it a
CPR for the buyers. Yeah,celebrate, protect and restore our buyus.
And so you know our group wasfounded on that, on that principle you
were just mentioning about not concreting thebuyus. You know, Terry Hershey was
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the founder of our organization. Ifyou've been out to Terry Hershey Park out
on the West Side, it's namedafter her. She was alarmed of some
construction that was about to occur.A bunch of digging was occurring near her
home on Buffalo Bayou. And thiswas back in nineteen sixty six, and
(04:14):
she got a bunch of re neighborstogether and said, what's going on.
They learned that the US Army Corpsof Engineers was going to concrete Buffalo Bayou.
And they approached their brand new congressmana guy by the name of George
hw Bush. Yeah, I heardof him, and so they together managed
to stop the corp of engineers andso Buffalo Bayou in its natural state in
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you know the western reach there,you know, the area closer to Houston
obviously has that that park like componentwhere we've done a lot of investment.
The Buffalo BYU partnership has done thatwork and created a real amenity for downtown.
But when you go farther west,the Bayou takes on this more natural
quality. Well that's because of Terry. And so all these years later,
over fifty years later, our groupis still advocating for the richness of of
(05:00):
the natural state of our bayous andseeing what we can do to educate those
that will listen, like flood controlhere's kind of flood control and others,
and look at projects and what theirimpact is going to be to the natural
state of these bayous and their abilityto move water out of our developed areas,
(05:21):
which is, you know, froma natural thing, this area is
flat right and swampy. Yeah,and so when it rains, that water
was supposed to go slowly into thebayous. Well, development does the opposite
thing. Development concrete rooftops and suchmoves water off really quickly, and the
bayous can't handle that. So weneed to figure out how we can live
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better, you know, integrate ourselves, our development as the future goes,
so that we don't impact these bayouseven more negatively than we already have.
And what can we do to restorethe ability of those bayous to allow us
to in essence not flood because theirjob is to carry the water to Galveston
Bay. Millions of years for natureto find a path for these water,
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a natural path out to the oceanthe way it is, and we come
in and we dig and we coverup, and then we're like, hey,
what's going on? Well, whycan't recontrol this? Well, the
powers are just so much stronger.You mentioned the richestness of water in Houston.
People just don't realize how many bayousthere are. We think of Buffalo
Bayou because it goes downtown. It'spretty big. It used to be a
port, you used to They usedto bring ships up right into downtown and
(06:27):
it's of course it's been dug out. But there's over forty waterways in this
area right and the main bayous inHouston number in twenty two. So yeah,
there's it's insane. It depends onhow you count, right, Yeah,
there are there are major bayous andthen they're all the tributaries. But
those bayous all form watersheds. Andso if you know where you are in
the city, you know the highpoint is going to be the water's gonna
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be there, go left or right? Yeah, well which bay is it
going to? And so that wouldbe the watershed line, and all of
the area that is then under thathigh point goes to those bayous. And
that, I mean, that's howour natural topography works, That's how nature
set it up. So yeah,the by Preservation Association is an advocate for
all of those bayous, you know, each of them, most of them
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throughout the area have their own kindof group that looks after them. Yeah,
caretakers of certain pieces of bayous orentire stretchers or what have you.
So how does that work? Yougive them a kit. Is it a
lot like testing water in a pool, for instance? Yeah, very very
similar. Yes, it's just takenexample, drop some drops in it,
see would call our turns. Yes, And and the consistent monitoring of our
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waterways allows us to know you know, where we've been able to identify where
pollutants are entering the bayous and thenreport that. For instance, inside the
city of Houston, you can dothe three one one thing and then they'll
send out crews and find out wherethat pollutant is coming from and take steps
to either correct or or in youknow, some cases, find people who
(07:55):
are illegally doing things they should.Ultimately, the health of the bayous is
the same as the health of GalvestonBay and then further into Gulf of Mexico.
I mean, look, Galston Bayis a is a fishery. Okay,
if you like your seafood, thenyou need to treat the bayou is
better. Because anything that hits theground and goes down a storm drain is
going to end up in a bayouand then into Galveston Bay. I don't
(08:16):
I don't think that people have Wedon't think of ourselves as a port city.
For instance, It's definitely not onthe tip of our tongue, despite
the fact that we're the fourth largestport in the US, although maybe the
third, because I understand Seattle countstheir ships going in and then they count
them again going out. A supportof Houston joke. I'm kidding. Most
(08:39):
of the coffee comes into this countrycomes in through Houston. We just don't
think about that. Yeah, wekind of treated our bayous for quite a
while as, oh, that's justhow the water gets out. And since
they are that kind of they're ubiquitous, they're they're throughout our entire area,
and we treated them as ditches,right, and so oh the water just
(09:00):
goes away magically. No, wegotta pay a lot more attention to it
than that. And you know,any kind of pollutant or any kind of
flooding is probably a result of us. It's like, what did we do
to mess up what nature had alreadycreated? So we got to find a
way to coexist. Because look,Houston, we acknowledge Houston is going to
(09:20):
continue to grow. There's and floodThe metric is like, what, fourteen
hundred people a day are moving toTexas and then whatever percentage where the largest
city. So we're getting the Yeoman'spercentage of those people that are moving to
this state in this area. Andgreat, come on, but let's make
sure that we are growing responsibly withthese natural systems. You are listening to
(09:43):
Houston, PA. Houston's public Affairsshow. My name is Laurent and my
guest is Chris Brown. He isa member of the board of directors of
the Bayou Preservation Association. They're onlineat Bayou Preservation dot org. As mentioned,
they're doing a symposium on the Septembertwentieth and twenty first. It's virtual,
this idea that the symposium is somethingthat just anybody can connect to.
(10:07):
Right, You're literally going to havea link on your website. You click
on it, you can just watchand listen. Right, Yeah, the
link at registration link is there onour website. The symposiumself. This is
our twentieth annual wow. We picka different topic each year and then recruit
speakers to speak on any variety oftopics regarding anything we had. We had
(10:30):
one year we talked about dirty andhow dirt the quality of dirt or the
consistency of dirt, if you will, how that affects the way that water
flows. We've done one specifically onpollutants and trash and we had a big,
you know, speaker come in fromout of town from Living Lands and
Waters. It was a guy thathad been on the news recently cleaning up
(10:52):
the Ohio River or was it theMississippi I think was Mississippi River. They
both need it. And he wasa dynamic he was an amazing speakers.
So but but that was bringing someonein and having you know, our room
filled and you know, okay,so fine, we got two hundred people
in the room and we brought someonein, but we had to pay for
that. And we've had great eventsnow having to pivot due to the COVID,
(11:13):
we've found that, oh, ouraudience is still coming and now we
can get speakers from other cities andwe don't have to pay for the travel.
And so like you know, forinstance, this year, uh,
you know, bringing in folks fromWestern states who have already been in jurisdictions
where they have put in law,put laws in place where turf grass needs
(11:35):
to be dealt with a little moreappropriately because it is such a water intensive
grass. And you know Western statesthat are sucking water out of the Colorado
River and everything you hear about thelow water levels and lake meat and a
lot kind of thing. Well,how do those cities deal with their growth?
And you've got these green lawns thatare only green you're in a desert,
but they're green because you've been wateringso much? Okay, what is
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a more responsible way to handle that? What can then we learn in Houston
about those cities and how they havetreated the public use of water, which
is a you know, hey,we need it to drink first, let's
drink it, right, not necessarilywater these giant hunks of green that all
right? It looks pretty. Andyou know the only reason we have lawns
(12:20):
is because I'm going to blame theFrench. Well you can, because we
have beautiful lawns. Beautiful lawns,right man, Well, what what should
maybe we do different? What if? What if the lawns here in the
Houston area we did it's more ofa prairie style, right, we had
taller flowers. We are which iswhat the which is what our neagtive area
really is, and that is muchless water intensive and survives in droughts and
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survives in floods and survives in coldbecause it's natural stuff. It was millions
of years of evolution to design thisparticular grass for this particular plot of land.
Yeah, and we're like, I'llbring something in from Japan. Cool,
but you're gonna have to babysit itover and over again, and I
don't you know, it's a matterof opinion, but I just don't think
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it's all that prettier. It's youdescribe what's happening in Colorado, it's the
same thing in the hill country herein Austin. Outside of Austin, super
green lawns in the middle of adrought. And if you drive by these
stupid McMansions, most of them,by the way, are you know,
global warming type of people, andtheir sprinkler systems are spraying at four PM,
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where three quarters of that water simplyevaporates before it hits the ground.
The colossal waste is colossal. It'sjust it's unbelievable to me. And another
thing that bothers me for talking aboutpreservation is that when people try to build
one of these McMansions or just atown home downtown, the first thing they
do if they buy a green plot, is they take two tractors, a
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giant chain between the two tractors,and they destroy every single tree on the
lot, even where the house won'tbe Like they're gonna build a house in
one corner of the lot, let'ssay, gonna shrew all the trees and
then they're gonna bring in some palmtrees that don't naturally grow in the area,
and it's like why, why isthe first thing that they do to
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destroy You take down one hundred andfifty year old oak tree whose roots system
goes so far down the ground thatground will never move because the other thing
that trees are kind of like pinthey're like tacks. They just kind of
nail the ground into place. Theirtheir roots system is exponentially greater than their
canopy. We don't realize they're kindof like icebergs. Really, we know
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that the tip of the iceberg isis merely just a It's the same thing
with prairie grass. Yeah, thetwo feet that a prairie grass is above
ground, it's probably six or morefeet below ground with those roots, and
that's what allows the water to infiltrate, which then soaks into the soil instead
of just running off. So wejust need to learn better. Okay,
it's a complete transformation. I recognizethat, you know, everybody's lawns in
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what we have gotten used to looka certain way. Yeah, but maybe
there's a our way and we needto think about that. Because of the
value of water, and you know, I'm not sure that we totally recognize
what that value is, both fromhow do we deal with it? But
how much does it cost actually getwater right? And those are things in
the future that we really need tounderstand better. So the other thing about
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the education part is knowing that,Okay, I want to do this to
my lawn. Check and make surethat your HLA isn't going to find you
for growing a field in the middleof their subdivision we have. That's what
we have to fight as well.It's like it's not so easy sometimes because
we've made it so easy to bemode grass within one inch of its life
at all times, because that's whatwe expect of a lawn when reality is
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probably it could be very attractive withnative flowers and native grasses and native trees
providing shade and providing habitat for butterfliesand birds and the things that want to
be here. Well, Fortunately,we've got people that are already looking at
lawns that way, and we've gotpeople that are looking at our parks that
way that we don't need to mowour parks either. You can have your
(16:03):
recreational field that is so you canplay baseball, so you can play soccer
or your golf frisbee. Yeah,and then there's other areas in the park
that can be maintained as natural,which is healthier for the trees and healthier
for the overall ecosystem. So itis it's necessary to teach, it's necessary
to get these words out and say, look, there is a more responsible
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way to treat all of this.And when there's more of that out there
that people can touch it, feelit, smell it, than perhaps that
will grow rather than the norm.You mentioned the habitat, And it's something
else that we don't consider. Asidefrom the fact that there's over forty bayous
in the Houston area, over twentyof them being major. We are an
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airport of sorts for literally millions andmillions and millions of migratory birds and butterflies.
And it's this is one of themost wonderful areas. The Mattagorda Peninsula
is literally just covered in millions ofbirds twice a year as they move north
and back to south. The butterflies, the monarch butterflies, they come from
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South America. It's a little butterflythat that rides the wind. It's it's
absolutely extraordinary. And of course thefirst thing you do is if you plant
all these non native grasses, youdestroy the food that those butterflies were going
to land on and eat and usedto reproduce. And that's another It's it's
almost an unseen silver lining that peopledon't realize. If you return the area
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to its native state as much aspossible, suddenly your garden becomes alive with
birds and squirrels. And that's allbecause the bugs are back, because the
bugs are dependent on the grass.So how when you talk about that,
I feel like there's a there's aswell of of goodwill towards these ideas.
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I feel like we're a generation andwe're Gen X, the ones that come
after us. We like these subjects. I'm very optimistic. I feel like
we can actually see some change happeningalmost every year, Like somebody's building a
house and you find out that theydon't pull down all the oaks, only
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the trees they need to clear tobuild their house or use. Optimistic Yet
I am, because you're in it, right, I think so? Yeah?
And I definitely you know you mentionedthe birds and such. I didn't
even know that until I joined theby Preservation associations over ten years ago.
I wasn't a burder, I meannot a burder. But now I understand
that there is this flight pattern thatis a worldwide thing. Yeah, and
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then there's yeah, the butterflies andsuch. Well, we can co exist
in that, you know, mankindcan coexist. We for instance, when
I whenever I fly and I comeback into Houston, and you look at
Houston from above, just look onGoogle Earth right, look at a map
and look how green our city is. Yes, and yet when you're down
here on street level, everything looksgray and see is concrete and then there's
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the tree in the middle of themedian. Okay, that's not quite the
coexistence that's going to give us thelongevity that we need for a healthy system.
We need to do a little bitbetter than that, you know.
So uh, you know, Iwould urge people look up what low impact
development is and how we could adjust. You like, in the parking lot
of your local grocery store, thelittle tree, well, the four by
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four, a little box that youstick the tree in that's in a raised
curb. How is that tree gettingwatered because the water is hitting the pavement
and water can't jump the curb.Right, maybe the tree should be in
a well, maybe there should bemore than just that tree. Maybe we
can have a few more trees,Maybe we can have a few more shrubs,
because look, trees don't like livingalone. Okay, have you ever
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seen a forest trees like other trees. So there are systems, there are
ways of handlings. There's ways wecan design, both from a from an
architectural standpoint, from an engineering standpointto make healthier systems. And this is
how our cities really should grow andhow our suburbs should grow, because because
we're growing, let's figure out howwe can live much more ecologically. Yeah,
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and so yes, I do believethat there are age groups that are
looking at that more than others.And that's a good thing, right,
And that if we had great examplesof these things, that we could repeat
those examples. But we do wedo. I feel like it's all over
the place. And again when wewhen you impart the information to people,
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especially if they're building something, andyou just you just touch them with that
knowledge, don't don't you want tokeep the birds Obviously we didn't mention this,
but the birds and the butterflies ofpollinators, the plants depend on those
organisms to take the seeds away andand well defecate them out. That's how
it happens that they're pre fertilized whenthey hit the ground by the birds.
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It's really the whole thing is almostkind of magical, and it's there's a
raculous, all inspiring force at playhere. And I think that when we
leave live on concrete, to putit that way, we forget about it.
Well, I think we've The otherthing that's occurred is and I have
to give credit here the HARRISKINNY FloodControl District when they put the rules in
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place for to prevent flooding of homes. You know, it didn't exist prior
to the eighties, and so whena thing like Harvey comes and dumps three
feet of water out of the sky, you know, that's a major difficulty
for any system to try and prevent. But the newer subdivisions that use the
Harriskinny flood control rules worked. Thosehomes didn't flood. It was releases from
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the dams that caused flooding, youknow. And then you had the Buyus
that were the subdivisions that were builton Buyus before the flood control regulations were
in place those flooded, so wedo know how to engineer systems that can
work with what nature is doing tous. And now we've got rules in
place where we have to actually designinto the five hundred year floodplane. From
an elevation standpoint, you got toput your slab of whatever you're building,
(22:04):
your home, your business that hasto be a foot above the five hundred
year flood event because of what Harveydid to us. So we're trying to
protect more and more and more soso many places that we're designed before the
new regulations went into effect. Thoseareas are still vulnerable. So what can
we do to protect those areas?And that's where the bayous come in.
That's where what can we do toenhance the bayous return them to a natural
(22:26):
state. Add additional regional detention facilitiesnearby. We got great examples of regional
detention. You know, there's there'sone out on a Beltway eight by my
office. Park. Well, soyou go, you go out to the
park there on on Beltway eight.Is it is George Bush Park, isn't
(22:47):
it? So that's the that's theU one of the two major reservoir parks.
Okay, I'm speaking. There's athere's a Harris County Flood Control Park,
and there's several examples these around town. But you'll be driving down the
freeway and you're like, oh,look there's a lake right there. No,
that's a detention facility. Oh andthere's a parking lot and it's full
of cars. Oh, that's becausethere's a jogging track that goes around the
lake, and everybody loves because it'sregional, it's near where people live,
(23:11):
it's near where people work. Soyou just created an amenity out of a
necessity. We need more of that. We need more examples of that.
I wish I could remember them.Yeah. Again, we have examples of
how flood control adjacent to Bayous canintercept that fast moving water coming off of
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our freeways, off of our roads, off of our rooftops, hold that
water until the Bayous system can handleit. We don't want to choke the
Buyous. We want to give itthe water nice and slow, the way
that nature did when this was aprairie. We have to return that condition,
and we can do that with thesedetention systems. Well, we got
to do it to older neighborhoods.And so you look at a project like
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what's recently occurred on Sims Bayou onthe south side of town, and the
improvements that were made down there,those those are improvements really did protect during
Harvey and it and before Simms wasa oh, it's gonna rank, that's
gonna flood, right, know thatnot anymore, not with the improvements that
remains. So it takes government doingtheir thing. It takes people understanding,
(24:12):
Yeah, that's the key, becausewe are the ones who compere. We
are the government, We compel it. The government is really just following hopefully,
well not always, but in thiscase, it's following the motivation given
to them by their constituents. Andthe more people that know about these,
the more pressure we can put toget additional systems in place to protect our
(24:34):
neighborhoods. Now, what are someof the improvements that they did on Sim's
value, like, for example,what are some of the things that you
can do to alleviate some of thesefloating problems? So, like I say,
most of the improvements have to dowith the tension because that are adjacent
to the streams. Right, there'sjust no trick. You just can't you
know, buy you is not abuy you if you widen it to six
(24:55):
hundred feet. Why now it's ariver, Okay, So a bayou is
low and slow and narrow, andthat is the that's the system that needs
to remain because you just if youwiden it, you're just going to create
another choke point downstream somewhere else.So we need to build these facilities.
And so a lot of homes thatwere previously flooded, that have repeatedly flooded,
(25:17):
are now being purchased. Those residentsgiven opportunities to live, purchase and
live somewhere safe. And then theproperties that continually flooded are taken back and
turned into parks and then some ofthose areas dug out so that you can
detain more water when we do happento have rain, unlike what we're living
through right now. But but thesystems work for all of these things.
(25:38):
Look, the buyers are green rightnow because because there's water in them.
Because the little bit of water thatis running off and there's another waste right
there right run off from from lawns. Right how many gallons hits the sidewalk
and goes down the drain that isn'tgoing into the lawn right. Well,
that is is somebody who knows andand if you're an owner of a property
(26:00):
and you've got an irrigation system,know whether your system's working right. Also
run it at night, running atnight a spring, right, running at
three in the morning before before youwake up at six to take a shower.
Don't have it competing with your shower, right, but have it,
but have it tuned so that thewater is going where it needs to go
and not onto the sidewalks, notinto the street in the driveways, because
that water is just going right downthe drain. Well, thank you the
(26:22):
bayou. Thanks you, because it'sgoing into the bayou and we need that.
But on the other hand, you'rewasting water that's been cleaned by the
city, right, you're paying forthat water and you're setting it down the
drain. It's the simplest thing too. You just look at the nozzle.
Is it pointed in the right directionwhen it's on, You take a look
at where it's spraying and the timer. You said it when it's dark,
that's all you need. In fact, the later it is, the better
(26:45):
it is, because even if it'sdark is it's still very warm. Right,
It's just the simple ideas that wecan bring about. Also, don't
throw trash out your car window.It ends up in the bayou, which
is another it's a man made chokepoint at that. That's a big one
for me. The draining, Ourdraining dishes are clogged up with garbage and
then we float and we're like,oh no, we flooded again. Well,
(27:07):
dude, you're you're throwing your cigarette, but out the window. You're
not helping, right, And wesee this all the time, we do,
and it's so you know, truckswere Texas, it's ubiquitous. You
put something in the back of yourtruck. Well, one of the odds
that it's actually going to stay thereby the time you get to your destination.
Right. But the other thing is, you know, look at look
at I have. I have atrashman that I drive by every every morning
(27:30):
to work at a shopping center,and the drain is right next to the
trash bin. Well, when thetrash bin overflows, everything that was not
picked up by that that garbage serviceis going right down the drain, which
is a block and a half frombrase Bite where I live and that,
so there are there are plenty ofopportunities to for everyone on a daily based
(27:52):
on a daily basis, just modifyingyour behavior so that you're not contributing to
the problem. Like you can havea a little rice box under underneath the
seat. It serves as a garbagecan. They won't roll around because it's
square, and you can use itto spit your gum out into when you're
driving around. It's just it's thesimplest little things. And it's such a
different when when I've traveled around theworld and i haven't been to Japan yet,
(28:17):
but I've heard from people who haveand they say how clean Japanese cities
are and that there's actually no trashbins on the streets. And my mother
was actually traveling there last year orthe year before, and somebody was yelling
like, yeah, if you ifyou you know, trying, well,
what are you supposed to do withit? And they're all like, well,
you take it with you and youthrow it away when you get home.
Well, so that's a totally differentattitude than than the way that we
(28:38):
treat ourselves here. And those arethe kind of conversations that if we can
start anything like that that's on thatone level, that's on that that personal
level. Yeah, and then withwhat I do as a volunteer for buyer
preservation, we're talking about much biggerpicture, but they're related, aren't they
Right, It goes hand in hand, and you're compelling people to consider issues
(28:59):
that are literally in their backyard.So and again, we're talking about things
that everybody can can do. We'rewe're stepping away from the theoretical discussions that
usually are filling our airwaves related toclimate and the environment, and instead you're
we're looking at what actually is goingon. We're looking at the past too,
because it should inform the future.We changed it and then stuff started
(29:22):
going wrong. So maybe it wasus, And I'm I'm really hopeful,
but I think that the danger isthat we tend to be distracted and the
bigger, the big picture, tendsto flood us and drown us with information
and then we feel kind of hopeless. It's like, no, no,
no. What you want to dois you want a backyard full of birds
(29:44):
and butterflies. It really boils downto that. And if you don't have
a backyard because you live in anapartment, well, you care about your
Park and the trees that are liningthe streets. Anyway, they have a
symposium going on. The Bayou PreservationAssociation is very active this way. Their
symposium is Virtue which music. Youcan participate just by going to their website
and registering BYU preservation dot org.BYU preservation dot org. The symposium is
(30:08):
happening September twentieth and twenty first andlisten. If you're interested in meeting like
minded people, they have activities andall those things are available to you at
BUYU preservation dot org. Also,if you have any questions related to Houston,
PA, you can just send mean email. Texan from France at
gmail dot com. I want tothank you for listening and caring about the
(30:30):
issues I put on this show.My name is Lawrence. I am the
Texan from France and this has beenHouston PA, Houston's public affairs show, Houston Strong
Welcome to Houston, PA, Houston'spublic affairs show, an iHeartMedia broadcast.
Our disclaimer says that the opinions expressedon this show do not necessarily reflect those
hell by this radio station, it'smanagement staff, or any of its advertisers.
My name is Laurent I am theTexan from France, and I'm a
big fan of the flora and faunaof this area. I like to describe
(00:29):
living in Houston as akin to livingin the suburbs, except that you're in
a big city. And the reasonI sort of still feel that way,
even though it changes a lot everyyear in this big town, it's the
trees. You know, you're you'rejust constantly driving down these tree lined avenues,
and for this French boy, it'sjust it's it's incredibly lush and beautiful.
(00:52):
Because I live next to the Bayou, I've been privy to the amenities
that have been built around it.When I first moved in to Houston,
the Bayou was still aligned with concretewalls, which was a dramatic mistake.
It was thought to be a goodidea to put concrete walls, you know,
we'll control the flow of water.And actually the complete opposite happened because
those concrete walls actually like a slide, and whereas bayous are generally slow at
(01:15):
moving water, and now the wateris just careening down the bayou aisles,
and when the wall ends, thewater crashes into the banks, and of
course it weighs millions of tons.You're talking about energy that is practically unimaginable
to a human being. And thenthey just gore out wherever the wall stops
and caused a bunch of problems downstreamfrom where these amenities were built. And
(01:38):
because Houstonians are waking up and listeningto organizations like the Bayou Preservation Association,
organizations that go out and look atwhat citizens can affect on a day to
day basis. As far as theenvironment is concerned, We're not talking about
nebulous theories here. We're talking aboutfacts and the things that we can do
as simple as not trashing the place, or maybe lobbying for those concrete walls
(02:01):
to be destroyed along our bayous likethey did along the Buffalo Bayou, returning
those areas to their natural state orclose to it, and allowing nature to
take its course and actually take careof us. Maybe that's part of the
misunderstanding we are hubrist compels us tothink that we need to take care of
the environment, but really is theother way around. We just need to
(02:21):
make sure that we don't destroy theenvironment. My guest today is Chris Brown.
He is a member of the boardof directors for the Bayou Preservation Association.
You can follow along with their programsonline at Bayou Preservation dot org Byou
Preservation dot org. On September twentiethand twenty first, they're doing their annual
symposiing and their themes this year arebalancing growth, preservation and restoration, so
(02:47):
kind of fitting for an area likeHouston, which is exploding, the population
is exploding. We're building easement toeasement. We're tearing down all the trees
on every property we buy because dumb, isn't it. And so we'll talk
about some of the things that theytried to impart upon our society. You
might have heard me mentioned that byyour preservation association because they have ties to
(03:10):
the Katie Prairie Conservancy, and Chris, I hear you were with them or
you were talking about them just recently. But you have very similar missions.
Right, You're looking at your environment, our environment, and you're you're not
thinking in nebulous theories as I mentioned, but rather hey, wait a minute,
what's this happening, Why is ithappening, and how can we stop
it from happening? For instance,flooding, which is a bit of a
(03:31):
problem in our area. Right.Yes, we definitely at the buy Preservation
Association, we have you know,our charge is to we call it a
CPR for the buyers. Yeah,celebrate, protect and restore our buyus.
And so you know our group wasfounded on that, on that principle you
were just mentioning about not concreting thebuyus. You know, Terry Hershey was
(03:53):
the founder of our organization. Ifyou've been out to Terry Hershey Park out
on the West Side, it's namedafter her. She was alarmed of some
construction that was about to occur.A bunch of digging was occurring near her
home on Buffalo Bayou. And thiswas back in nineteen sixty six, and
(04:14):
she got a bunch of re neighborstogether and said, what's going on.
They learned that the US Army Corpsof Engineers was going to concrete Buffalo Bayou.
And they approached their brand new congressmana guy by the name of George
hw Bush. Yeah, I heardof him, and so they together managed
to stop the corp of engineers andso Buffalo Bayou in its natural state in
(04:35):
you know the western reach there,you know, the area closer to Houston
obviously has that that park like componentwhere we've done a lot of investment.
The Buffalo BYU partnership has done thatwork and created a real amenity for downtown.
But when you go farther west,the Bayou takes on this more natural
quality. Well that's because of Terry. And so all these years later,
over fifty years later, our groupis still advocating for the richness of of
(05:00):
the natural state of our bayous andseeing what we can do to educate those
that will listen, like flood controlhere's kind of flood control and others,
and look at projects and what theirimpact is going to be to the natural
state of these bayous and their abilityto move water out of our developed areas,
(05:21):
which is, you know, froma natural thing, this area is
flat right and swampy. Yeah,and so when it rains, that water
was supposed to go slowly into thebayous. Well, development does the opposite
thing. Development concrete rooftops and suchmoves water off really quickly, and the
bayous can't handle that. So weneed to figure out how we can live
(05:42):
better, you know, integrate ourselves, our development as the future goes,
so that we don't impact these bayouseven more negatively than we already have.
And what can we do to restorethe ability of those bayous to allow us
to in essence not flood because theirjob is to carry the water to Galveston
Bay. Millions of years for natureto find a path for these water,
(06:02):
a natural path out to the oceanthe way it is, and we come
in and we dig and we coverup, and then we're like, hey,
what's going on? Well, whycan't recontrol this? Well, the
powers are just so much stronger.You mentioned the richestness of water in Houston.
People just don't realize how many bayousthere are. We think of Buffalo
Bayou because it goes downtown. It'spretty big. It used to be a
port, you used to They usedto bring ships up right into downtown and
(06:27):
it's of course it's been dug out. But there's over forty waterways in this
area right and the main bayous inHouston number in twenty two. So yeah,
there's it's insane. It depends onhow you count, right, Yeah,
there are there are major bayous andthen they're all the tributaries. But
those bayous all form watersheds. Andso if you know where you are in
the city, you know the highpoint is going to be the water's gonna
(06:49):
be there, go left or right? Yeah, well which bay is it
going to? And so that wouldbe the watershed line, and all of
the area that is then under thathigh point goes to those bayous. And
that, I mean, that's howour natural topography works, That's how nature
set it up. So yeah,the by Preservation Association is an advocate for
all of those bayous, you know, each of them, most of them
(07:11):
throughout the area have their own kindof group that looks after them. Yeah,
caretakers of certain pieces of bayous orentire stretchers or what have you.
So how does that work? Yougive them a kit. Is it a
lot like testing water in a pool, for instance? Yeah, very very
similar. Yes, it's just takenexample, drop some drops in it,
see would call our turns. Yes, And and the consistent monitoring of our
(07:34):
waterways allows us to know you know, where we've been able to identify where
pollutants are entering the bayous and thenreport that. For instance, inside the
city of Houston, you can dothe three one one thing and then they'll
send out crews and find out wherethat pollutant is coming from and take steps
to either correct or or in youknow, some cases, find people who
(07:55):
are illegally doing things they should.Ultimately, the health of the bayous is
the same as the health of GalvestonBay and then further into Gulf of Mexico.
I mean, look, Galston Bayis a is a fishery. Okay,
if you like your seafood, thenyou need to treat the bayou is
better. Because anything that hits theground and goes down a storm drain is
going to end up in a bayouand then into Galveston Bay. I don't
(08:16):
I don't think that people have Wedon't think of ourselves as a port city.
For instance, It's definitely not onthe tip of our tongue, despite
the fact that we're the fourth largestport in the US, although maybe the
third, because I understand Seattle countstheir ships going in and then they count
them again going out. A supportof Houston joke. I'm kidding. Most
(08:39):
of the coffee comes into this countrycomes in through Houston. We just don't
think about that. Yeah, wekind of treated our bayous for quite a
while as, oh, that's justhow the water gets out. And since
they are that kind of they're ubiquitous, they're they're throughout our entire area,
and we treated them as ditches,right, and so oh the water just
(09:00):
goes away magically. No, wegotta pay a lot more attention to it
than that. And you know,any kind of pollutant or any kind of
flooding is probably a result of us. It's like, what did we do
to mess up what nature had alreadycreated? So we got to find a
way to coexist. Because look,Houston, we acknowledge Houston is going to
(09:20):
continue to grow. There's and floodThe metric is like, what, fourteen
hundred people a day are moving toTexas and then whatever percentage where the largest
city. So we're getting the Yeoman'spercentage of those people that are moving to
this state in this area. Andgreat, come on, but let's make
sure that we are growing responsibly withthese natural systems. You are listening to
(09:43):
Houston, PA. Houston's public Affairsshow. My name is Laurent and my
guest is Chris Brown. He isa member of the board of directors of
the Bayou Preservation Association. They're onlineat Bayou Preservation dot org. As mentioned,
they're doing a symposium on the Septembertwentieth and twenty first. It's virtual,
this idea that the symposium is somethingthat just anybody can connect to.
(10:07):
Right, You're literally going to havea link on your website. You click
on it, you can just watchand listen. Right, Yeah, the
link at registration link is there onour website. The symposiumself. This is
our twentieth annual wow. We picka different topic each year and then recruit
speakers to speak on any variety oftopics regarding anything we had. We had
(10:30):
one year we talked about dirty andhow dirt the quality of dirt or the
consistency of dirt, if you will, how that affects the way that water
flows. We've done one specifically onpollutants and trash and we had a big,
you know, speaker come in fromout of town from Living Lands and
Waters. It was a guy thathad been on the news recently cleaning up
(10:52):
the Ohio River or was it theMississippi I think was Mississippi River. They
both need it. And he wasa dynamic he was an amazing speakers.
So but but that was bringing someonein and having you know, our room
filled and you know, okay,so fine, we got two hundred people
in the room and we brought someonein, but we had to pay for
that. And we've had great eventsnow having to pivot due to the COVID,
(11:13):
we've found that, oh, ouraudience is still coming and now we
can get speakers from other cities andwe don't have to pay for the travel.
And so like you know, forinstance, this year, uh,
you know, bringing in folks fromWestern states who have already been in jurisdictions
where they have put in law,put laws in place where turf grass needs
(11:35):
to be dealt with a little moreappropriately because it is such a water intensive
grass. And you know Western statesthat are sucking water out of the Colorado
River and everything you hear about thelow water levels and lake meat and a
lot kind of thing. Well,how do those cities deal with their growth?
And you've got these green lawns thatare only green you're in a desert,
but they're green because you've been wateringso much? Okay, what is
(11:58):
a more responsible way to handle that? What can then we learn in Houston
about those cities and how they havetreated the public use of water, which
is a you know, hey,we need it to drink first, let's
drink it, right, not necessarilywater these giant hunks of green that all
right? It looks pretty. Andyou know the only reason we have lawns
(12:20):
is because I'm going to blame theFrench. Well you can, because we
have beautiful lawns. Beautiful lawns,right man, Well, what what should
maybe we do different? What if? What if the lawns here in the
Houston area we did it's more ofa prairie style, right, we had
taller flowers. We are which iswhat the which is what our neagtive area
really is, and that is muchless water intensive and survives in droughts and
(12:45):
survives in floods and survives in coldbecause it's natural stuff. It was millions
of years of evolution to design thisparticular grass for this particular plot of land.
Yeah, and we're like, I'llbring something in from Japan. Cool,
but you're gonna have to babysit itover and over again, and I
don't you know, it's a matterof opinion, but I just don't think
(13:05):
it's all that prettier. It's youdescribe what's happening in Colorado, it's the
same thing in the hill country herein Austin. Outside of Austin, super
green lawns in the middle of adrought. And if you drive by these
stupid McMansions, most of them,by the way, are you know,
global warming type of people, andtheir sprinkler systems are spraying at four PM,
(13:26):
where three quarters of that water simplyevaporates before it hits the ground.
The colossal waste is colossal. It'sjust it's unbelievable to me. And another
thing that bothers me for talking aboutpreservation is that when people try to build
one of these McMansions or just atown home downtown, the first thing they
do if they buy a green plot, is they take two tractors, a
(13:46):
giant chain between the two tractors,and they destroy every single tree on the
lot, even where the house won'tbe Like they're gonna build a house in
one corner of the lot, let'ssay, gonna shrew all the trees and
then they're gonna bring in some palmtrees that don't naturally grow in the area,
and it's like why, why isthe first thing that they do to
(14:09):
destroy You take down one hundred andfifty year old oak tree whose roots system
goes so far down the ground thatground will never move because the other thing
that trees are kind of like pinthey're like tacks. They just kind of
nail the ground into place. Theirtheir roots system is exponentially greater than their
canopy. We don't realize they're kindof like icebergs. Really, we know
(14:31):
that the tip of the iceberg isis merely just a It's the same thing
with prairie grass. Yeah, thetwo feet that a prairie grass is above
ground, it's probably six or morefeet below ground with those roots, and
that's what allows the water to infiltrate, which then soaks into the soil instead
of just running off. So wejust need to learn better. Okay,
it's a complete transformation. I recognizethat, you know, everybody's lawns in
(14:56):
what we have gotten used to looka certain way. Yeah, but maybe
there's a our way and we needto think about that. Because of the
value of water, and you know, I'm not sure that we totally recognize
what that value is, both fromhow do we deal with it? But
how much does it cost actually getwater right? And those are things in
the future that we really need tounderstand better. So the other thing about
(15:18):
the education part is knowing that,Okay, I want to do this to
my lawn. Check and make surethat your HLA isn't going to find you
for growing a field in the middleof their subdivision we have. That's what
we have to fight as well.It's like it's not so easy sometimes because
we've made it so easy to bemode grass within one inch of its life
at all times, because that's whatwe expect of a lawn when reality is
(15:41):
probably it could be very attractive withnative flowers and native grasses and native trees
providing shade and providing habitat for butterfliesand birds and the things that want to
be here. Well, Fortunately,we've got people that are already looking at
lawns that way, and we've gotpeople that are looking at our parks that
way that we don't need to mowour parks either. You can have your
(16:03):
recreational field that is so you canplay baseball, so you can play soccer
or your golf frisbee. Yeah,and then there's other areas in the park
that can be maintained as natural,which is healthier for the trees and healthier
for the overall ecosystem. So itis it's necessary to teach, it's necessary
to get these words out and say, look, there is a more responsible
(16:26):
way to treat all of this.And when there's more of that out there
that people can touch it, feelit, smell it, than perhaps that
will grow rather than the norm.You mentioned the habitat, And it's something
else that we don't consider. Asidefrom the fact that there's over forty bayous
in the Houston area, over twentyof them being major. We are an
(16:48):
airport of sorts for literally millions andmillions and millions of migratory birds and butterflies.
And it's this is one of themost wonderful areas. The Mattagorda Peninsula
is literally just covered in millions ofbirds twice a year as they move north
and back to south. The butterflies, the monarch butterflies, they come from
(17:11):
South America. It's a little butterflythat that rides the wind. It's it's
absolutely extraordinary. And of course thefirst thing you do is if you plant
all these non native grasses, youdestroy the food that those butterflies were going
to land on and eat and usedto reproduce. And that's another It's it's
almost an unseen silver lining that peopledon't realize. If you return the area
(17:34):
to its native state as much aspossible, suddenly your garden becomes alive with
birds and squirrels. And that's allbecause the bugs are back, because the
bugs are dependent on the grass.So how when you talk about that,
I feel like there's a there's aswell of of goodwill towards these ideas.
(17:57):
I feel like we're a generation andwe're Gen X, the ones that come
after us. We like these subjects. I'm very optimistic. I feel like
we can actually see some change happeningalmost every year, Like somebody's building a
house and you find out that theydon't pull down all the oaks, only
(18:18):
the trees they need to clear tobuild their house or use. Optimistic Yet
I am, because you're in it, right, I think so? Yeah?
And I definitely you know you mentionedthe birds and such. I didn't
even know that until I joined theby Preservation associations over ten years ago.
I wasn't a burder, I meannot a burder. But now I understand
that there is this flight pattern thatis a worldwide thing. Yeah, and
(18:40):
then there's yeah, the butterflies andsuch. Well, we can co exist
in that, you know, mankindcan coexist. We for instance, when
I whenever I fly and I comeback into Houston, and you look at
Houston from above, just look onGoogle Earth right, look at a map
and look how green our city is. Yes, and yet when you're down
here on street level, everything looksgray and see is concrete and then there's
(19:03):
the tree in the middle of themedian. Okay, that's not quite the
coexistence that's going to give us thelongevity that we need for a healthy system.
We need to do a little bitbetter than that, you know.
So uh, you know, Iwould urge people look up what low impact
development is and how we could adjust. You like, in the parking lot
of your local grocery store, thelittle tree, well, the four by
(19:26):
four, a little box that youstick the tree in that's in a raised
curb. How is that tree gettingwatered because the water is hitting the pavement
and water can't jump the curb.Right, maybe the tree should be in
a well, maybe there should bemore than just that tree. Maybe we
can have a few more trees,Maybe we can have a few more shrubs,
because look, trees don't like livingalone. Okay, have you ever
(19:48):
seen a forest trees like other trees. So there are systems, there are
ways of handlings. There's ways wecan design, both from a from an
architectural standpoint, from an engineering standpointto make healthier systems. And this is
how our cities really should grow andhow our suburbs should grow, because because
we're growing, let's figure out howwe can live much more ecologically. Yeah,
(20:10):
and so yes, I do believethat there are age groups that are
looking at that more than others.And that's a good thing, right,
And that if we had great examplesof these things, that we could repeat
those examples. But we do wedo. I feel like it's all over
the place. And again when wewhen you impart the information to people,
(20:32):
especially if they're building something, andyou just you just touch them with that
knowledge, don't don't you want tokeep the birds Obviously we didn't mention this,
but the birds and the butterflies ofpollinators, the plants depend on those
organisms to take the seeds away andand well defecate them out. That's how
it happens that they're pre fertilized whenthey hit the ground by the birds.
(20:55):
It's really the whole thing is almostkind of magical, and it's there's a
raculous, all inspiring force at playhere. And I think that when we
leave live on concrete, to putit that way, we forget about it.
Well, I think we've The otherthing that's occurred is and I have
to give credit here the HARRISKINNY FloodControl District when they put the rules in
(21:18):
place for to prevent flooding of homes. You know, it didn't exist prior
to the eighties, and so whena thing like Harvey comes and dumps three
feet of water out of the sky, you know, that's a major difficulty
for any system to try and prevent. But the newer subdivisions that use the
Harriskinny flood control rules worked. Thosehomes didn't flood. It was releases from
(21:41):
the dams that caused flooding, youknow. And then you had the Buyus
that were the subdivisions that were builton Buyus before the flood control regulations were
in place those flooded, so wedo know how to engineer systems that can
work with what nature is doing tous. And now we've got rules in
place where we have to actually designinto the five hundred year floodplane. From
an elevation standpoint, you got toput your slab of whatever you're building,
(22:04):
your home, your business that hasto be a foot above the five hundred
year flood event because of what Harveydid to us. So we're trying to
protect more and more and more soso many places that we're designed before the
new regulations went into effect. Thoseareas are still vulnerable. So what can
we do to protect those areas?And that's where the bayous come in.
That's where what can we do toenhance the bayous return them to a natural
(22:26):
state. Add additional regional detention facilitiesnearby. We got great examples of regional
detention. You know, there's there'sone out on a Beltway eight by my
office. Park. Well, soyou go, you go out to the
park there on on Beltway eight.Is it is George Bush Park, isn't
(22:47):
it? So that's the that's theU one of the two major reservoir parks.
Okay, I'm speaking. There's athere's a Harris County Flood Control Park,
and there's several examples these around town. But you'll be driving down the
freeway and you're like, oh,look there's a lake right there. No,
that's a detention facility. Oh andthere's a parking lot and it's full
of cars. Oh, that's becausethere's a jogging track that goes around the
lake, and everybody loves because it'sregional, it's near where people live,
(23:11):
it's near where people work. Soyou just created an amenity out of a
necessity. We need more of that. We need more examples of that.
I wish I could remember them.Yeah. Again, we have examples of
how flood control adjacent to Bayous canintercept that fast moving water coming off of
(23:32):
our freeways, off of our roads, off of our rooftops, hold that
water until the Bayous system can handleit. We don't want to choke the
Buyous. We want to give itthe water nice and slow, the way
that nature did when this was aprairie. We have to return that condition,
and we can do that with thesedetention systems. Well, we got
to do it to older neighborhoods.And so you look at a project like
(23:52):
what's recently occurred on Sims Bayou onthe south side of town, and the
improvements that were made down there,those those are improvements really did protect during
Harvey and it and before Simms wasa oh, it's gonna rank, that's
gonna flood, right, know thatnot anymore, not with the improvements that
remains. So it takes government doingtheir thing. It takes people understanding,
(24:12):
Yeah, that's the key, becausewe are the ones who compere. We
are the government, We compel it. The government is really just following hopefully,
well not always, but in thiscase, it's following the motivation given
to them by their constituents. Andthe more people that know about these,
the more pressure we can put toget additional systems in place to protect our
(24:34):
neighborhoods. Now, what are someof the improvements that they did on Sim's
value, like, for example,what are some of the things that you
can do to alleviate some of thesefloating problems? So, like I say,
most of the improvements have to dowith the tension because that are adjacent
to the streams. Right, there'sjust no trick. You just can't you
know, buy you is not abuy you if you widen it to six
(24:55):
hundred feet. Why now it's ariver, Okay, So a bayou is
low and slow and narrow, andthat is the that's the system that needs
to remain because you just if youwiden it, you're just going to create
another choke point downstream somewhere else.So we need to build these facilities.
And so a lot of homes thatwere previously flooded, that have repeatedly flooded,
(25:17):
are now being purchased. Those residentsgiven opportunities to live, purchase and
live somewhere safe. And then theproperties that continually flooded are taken back and
turned into parks and then some ofthose areas dug out so that you can
detain more water when we do happento have rain, unlike what we're living
through right now. But but thesystems work for all of these things.
(25:38):
Look, the buyers are green rightnow because because there's water in them.
Because the little bit of water thatis running off and there's another waste right
there right run off from from lawns. Right how many gallons hits the sidewalk
and goes down the drain that isn'tgoing into the lawn right. Well,
that is is somebody who knows andand if you're an owner of a property
(26:00):
and you've got an irrigation system,know whether your system's working right. Also
run it at night, running atnight a spring, right, running at
three in the morning before before youwake up at six to take a shower.
Don't have it competing with your shower, right, but have it,
but have it tuned so that thewater is going where it needs to go
and not onto the sidewalks, notinto the street in the driveways, because
that water is just going right downthe drain. Well, thank you the
(26:22):
bayou. Thanks you, because it'sgoing into the bayou and we need that.
But on the other hand, you'rewasting water that's been cleaned by the
city, right, you're paying forthat water and you're setting it down the
drain. It's the simplest thing too. You just look at the nozzle.
Is it pointed in the right directionwhen it's on, You take a look
at where it's spraying and the timer. You said it when it's dark,
that's all you need. In fact, the later it is, the better
(26:45):
it is, because even if it'sdark is it's still very warm. Right,
It's just the simple ideas that wecan bring about. Also, don't
throw trash out your car window.It ends up in the bayou, which
is another it's a man made chokepoint at that. That's a big one
for me. The draining, Ourdraining dishes are clogged up with garbage and
then we float and we're like,oh no, we flooded again. Well,
(27:07):
dude, you're you're throwing your cigarette, but out the window. You're
not helping, right, And wesee this all the time, we do,
and it's so you know, truckswere Texas, it's ubiquitous. You
put something in the back of yourtruck. Well, one of the odds
that it's actually going to stay thereby the time you get to your destination.
Right. But the other thing is, you know, look at look
at I have. I have atrashman that I drive by every every morning
(27:30):
to work at a shopping center,and the drain is right next to the
trash bin. Well, when thetrash bin overflows, everything that was not
picked up by that that garbage serviceis going right down the drain, which
is a block and a half frombrase Bite where I live and that,
so there are there are plenty ofopportunities to for everyone on a daily based
(27:52):
on a daily basis, just modifyingyour behavior so that you're not contributing to
the problem. Like you can havea a little rice box under underneath the
seat. It serves as a garbagecan. They won't roll around because it's
square, and you can use itto spit your gum out into when you're
driving around. It's just it's thesimplest little things. And it's such a
different when when I've traveled around theworld and i haven't been to Japan yet,
(28:17):
but I've heard from people who haveand they say how clean Japanese cities
are and that there's actually no trashbins on the streets. And my mother
was actually traveling there last year orthe year before, and somebody was yelling
like, yeah, if you ifyou you know, trying, well,
what are you supposed to do withit? And they're all like, well,
you take it with you and youthrow it away when you get home.
Well, so that's a totally differentattitude than than the way that we
(28:38):
treat ourselves here. And those arethe kind of conversations that if we can
start anything like that that's on thatone level, that's on that that personal
level. Yeah, and then withwhat I do as a volunteer for buyer
preservation, we're talking about much biggerpicture, but they're related, aren't they
Right, It goes hand in hand, and you're compelling people to consider issues
(28:59):
that are literally in their backyard.So and again, we're talking about things
that everybody can can do. We'rewe're stepping away from the theoretical discussions that
usually are filling our airwaves related toclimate and the environment, and instead you're
we're looking at what actually is goingon. We're looking at the past too,
because it should inform the future.We changed it and then stuff started
(29:22):
going wrong. So maybe it wasus, And I'm I'm really hopeful,
but I think that the danger isthat we tend to be distracted and the
bigger, the big picture, tendsto flood us and drown us with information
and then we feel kind of hopeless. It's like, no, no,
no. What you want to dois you want a backyard full of birds
(29:44):
and butterflies. It really boils downto that. And if you don't have
a backyard because you live in anapartment, well, you care about your
Park and the trees that are liningthe streets. Anyway, they have a
symposium going on. The Bayou PreservationAssociation is very active this way. Their
symposium is Virtue which music. Youcan participate just by going to their website
and registering BYU preservation dot org.BYU preservation dot org. The symposium is
(30:08):
happening September twentieth and twenty first andlisten. If you're interested in meeting like
minded people, they have activities andall those things are available to you at
BUYU preservation dot org. Also,if you have any questions related to Houston,
PA, you can just send mean email. Texan from France at
gmail dot com. I want tothank you for listening and caring about the
(30:30):
issues I put on this show.My name is Lawrence. I am the
Texan from France and this has beenHouston PA, Houston's public affairs show, Houston Strong
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