Posted in Bay-friendly, Green Stormwater Infrastructure, native plants, stormwater wetlands, tagged Exploration Green, native plants, parks, stormwater wetlands, volunteers, wildlife habitats on November 1, 2017| Leave a Comment »
The Habitat Island at Exploration Green is ready to plant! Native trees and wetlands on the island, situated in Exploration Green’s first lake, will create a refuge for migratory birds and waterbirds. Exploration Green Conservancy and project partners, including TCWP, are redeveloping the former Clear Lake City golf course into a state of the art stormwater detention and recreation area.
Posted in Bay-friendly, flooding, Galveston Bay, Green Stormwater Infrastructure, Harvey, Hurricane, planning, Resilience, urban, Walkability, WaterSmart Landscapes on September 13, 2017| Leave a Comment »
The author’s son Daniel holds the line level with the first floor of our house in Eastwood.
Staying out of the floodplain is the number one measure that Houston needs to take to reduce impacts from flooding. Overbank flooding from the creeks and bayous is the deepest and most serious kind of flooding. But anywhere in Houston is subject to street or sheet flooding, the kind that occurs when the amount of rain exceeds the capacity of the storm drains. If an Allison lands in your neighborhood–40 inches in ONE day, not 4 like Harvey –and you are not elevated above the level of street flooding, you will get water in your house even if you are far from a bayou or a floodplain. A storm well short of Allison could do the same. (more…)
Posted in Bay-friendly, children in nature, Galveston Bay, native plants, science, stormwater, stormwater wetlands, tagged children in nature, Clear Creek ISD, Dickinson Bayou, floating wetlands, native plants, schools, stormwater wetlands, students, volunteers on November 5, 2014| 1 Comment »
Two of the many stormwater wetland program events in September and October involved our partners at Clear Creek ISD and the University of Houston Clear Lake’s EIH. I can tell you a little about each one, but photos say it best! Check them out at the Flickr links below.
Replanting the Floating Wetlands
To make up for the damage caused by the nutria invasion last year, we replanted the floating wetlands as an experiment to see which species nutria would avoid. We also planted test plots of these species along the shore, including some species we know they do eat, as experimental controls. Sixty nine students and community members came out to work on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon, October 12.
See all the photos and upload your own to the Flickr photo pool.
Habitat Garden Day at Ed White Elementary
Much pruning, planting and raking was done to spruce up the garden after a long summer, and best of all for the stormwater wetland program, plants were collected from the overgrown ponds. The plants are being propagated in the wetland nursery at Exploration Green, and can be reused on school and community wetland projects.
See all the photos and upload your own to the Flickr photo pool.
Thanks to all who showed up to help and made these events fun!
Posted in Bay-friendly, Galveston Bay, native plants, stormwater wetlands, tagged Exploration Green, native plants, plant nurseries, stormwater wetlands, wetlands on July 28, 2014| 1 Comment »
The stormwater wetland at Exploration Green in Clear Lake City will require about 30,000 native plants for the park’s first phase. Fortunately, we can grow our own! For that, we need a nursery. Here are some views of the wetland plant nursery as it is being built.
Framing out the tanks. There are ten total, and each tank will have three compartments.
A bed of sand in each tank keeps the bottoms level.
The heavy duty pond liners are going in today.
Although excavation for the lake in Phase 1 hasn’t started yet, the planning has been in full swing for months. We’ll be collecting and growing plants in the nursery so that all the plants have been propagated and grown by the time we need them.
Watch for an invitation to the Open House when the wetland nursery is complete in August!
For more on Exploration Green park, check out the website.
Posted in Bay-friendly, children in nature, Galveston Bay, native plants, runoff pollution, stormwater, stormwater wetlands, tagged children in nature, Dickinson Bayou, floating wetlands, native plants, runoff, stormwater wetlands, texas master naturalist, video, volunteers, water quality, wetlands on April 11, 2014| 1 Comment »
We’ve got a second video on the floating wetlands project, just released by the Communications Department at Texas A&M AgriLife Extension.
All our projects should get such great media coverage! Enjoy.
John Jacob
Steven Mikulencak
Charriss York
Watershed Texas 