Take Me to the River
September 30th, 2007 at 9:08 am
The Sierra Club has a new report out called America’s Wild Legacy. The report highlights 52 exceptional wild places, one in each state plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, where people are fighting for land that’s threatened.
For Texas it lists the Neches River. The 235-mile river flows between Lake Palestine and Ba-Steinhagen Lake and is the longest in Texas. It also is one of the few that features wild areas that are largely unchanged since the time before settlers descended on Texas, according to the report. But the Neches is threatened by a proposal to build a dam. Despite a fierce fight during the session, the Lege gave approval to start moving forward on the Fastrill Dam. But conservationists are not through yet. “Sierra Club is working with the Texas Committee on Natural Resources to designate the Neches River as a National Wildlife Refuge Area and National Scenic River, which would help protect it from destructive dam building,” the report reads.
It seems to be that every year there is another report from some conservation group about an imperiled Texas river. I asked a friend at the Sierra Club about that and got a late-night response from Ken Kramer, who heads the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club.
Ken noted that the group American Rivers has, since 1986, released an annual report on the ten most endangered rivers. During the past ten years, five Texas rivers have landed on the list:
Neches (2007) - Through litigation against the U. S. Department of the Interior, filed early this year, the City of Dallas and Texas Water Development Board tried to stymie the creation of the Neches River National Wildlife Refuge so that the area is available for the construction of the proposed Fastrill Reservoir.
San Jacinto (2006) – The threat is unregulated mining of sand and gravel from the river. The problem was recognized to some extent this past spring by the Texas Legislature’s passage of legislation representing some initial steps to address the problem.
Rio Grande (2003 and 2000) – During at least two periods of time in the last several years the Rio Grande has stopped flowing to the Gulf of Mexico for a variety of reasons.
Trinity (2003) – The threat was the U.S. Corps of Engineers Dallas Floodway Extension, which would destroy 34,000 trees in the Trinity floodplain, damage instream habitat through realignment of the river channel, further degrade the river through increased erosion and siltation caused by water exiting the floodway at high velocities, and turn a remarkable urban open space into a congested and polluted transportation artery.
Guadalupe (2002) - The threat was the proposed Lower Guadalupe Water Transfer Project that would have diverted large amounts of water from the river near its mouth, affecting freshwater inflows to San Antonio Bay and thus possibly affecting the blue crab population (a basic food for the endangered Whooping Crane).
“No Texas river was on the list for 2005, 2004, 2001, 1999, 1998, or 1997,” Ken wrote. “The Rio Grande appeared on a couple of previous annual lists of the ten most endangered, and the San Jacinto and Trinity appeared previously on some American Rivers lists of “threatened” (contrasted to “endangered”) rivers.
“If it appears that there’s yet another Texas river on the most endangered list every year – which, in fact, is not exactly the case, yet – it’s because there is increasing pressure on Texas rivers from growing municipal water use demands, land development projects, reservoir proposals, and the failure of so many public officials to understand the value of naturally flowing rivers for fish and wildlife habitat, water quality, and other purposes.
“At least the Texas Legislature in 2007 recognized the value of environmental flows through the passage of HB 3 and Article 1 of SB 3 (although the latter legislation unfortunately included the reservoir site designation provisions, which means that there are likely to be more Texas rivers showing up on endangered lists if those reservoir projects are actually pursued).”
