MASON PARK PROJECT EARNS NATIONAL ACCLAIM

By Ella Tyler

A man-made freshwater/tidal marsh beside Braes Bayou at Mason Park, on Houston’s east side, is featured in Building Better II, a Sierra Club report concerning ten outstanding examples of innovative and environmentally sensitive methods of managing stormwater. This 3.5-acre project also netted a Gulf Guardian Award for the Coastal Watershed Program, a part of the Galveston Bay Estuary Program. The latter award is given by the Gulf of Mexico Program Partnership. Both awards were announced just before Thanksgiving.

Stormwater is a major cause of water pollution because it picks up toxic chemicals from streets and other paved areas and carries them into waterways. Also, sewer overflows associated with poor stormwater management carry untreated sewage into streams and bayous. Wetlands buffer storm runoff, slowing down floodwater so it does not collect downstream. As water flows through them, wetlands also filter out pollutants.

The Mason Park project features both a stormwater treatment wetland and a tidally influenced wetland. A variety of plants have been introduced to help remove pollutants from water. Marissa Sipocz, a coastal restoration specialist with the Texas Cooperative Extension/Texas Sea Grant program, said that the plants were chosen to tolerate some salinity, to be able to recover from destruction by nutria and carp, and for their attractiveness. “I chose some plants with showy flowers or seeds, like irises, swamp and spider lilies, and bull rushes. Something is interesting in every season.”

Other plantings included cord grass, saw grass, Thalia, and arrowhead. Cattails were not planted because they are aggressive and will take over a habitat, she explained.

Sipocz said the plants were gathered from wetlands within 50 miles of the site. “It is important to use field collected plants to maintain genetic integrity,” Sipocz said. Plant collection involved working with a variety of agencies and groups such as the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the EPA, and the Army Corps of Engineers.

High school students from Chavez and Austin High Schools were major participants in the project. Working with Texas Master Naturalists and the Park People, the students helped collect wetland plants, took care of them until the area was ready, and then, sometimes working in waist-deep water, helped plant them.

Sipocz said that the area was planted in stages from October of 2005 through this past September. As expected, many of the first plants were eaten, but, “like we planned, the plants came back from stubs,” she said. “We have already measured improvements in water quality.” Sipocz said that if the cash value of the donated services is added in the project cost at least two million dollars.

The wetland is also expected to attract such birds as ibises, white pelicans, ospreys, herons, and egrets.

Eric Olson, the Sierra Club staffer who selected the projects featured in the report, said that the Houston project was noteworthy for several reasons. “We liked it because it returned nature to an urban area, because it involved so many community groups, and because it is a model that can be replicated elsewhere.” The Sierra Club report also mentions other projects from the flood control district that begin to reverse years of environmental damage to area waterways.

The project began in 2001 when the Harris County Flood Control District was planning to widen Braes Bayou at Mason Park and the Texas Coastal Watershed Program received a grant from the Galveston Bay Estuary Program to develop a stormwater demonstration project. HCFC agreed to create an area for a wetland as it widened the bayou. The first step was for the Coastal Watershed Program to facilitate a partnership between more than 15 agencies and organizations, including Harris County Flood Control District, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, and the City of Houston Parks and Recreation Department. The Coastal Watershed Program’s John Jacob said, “Some of the impact of the project has also been in bringing all these different parties together. The path has been laid for future collaborative work.”

Earlier this year, Harris County Flood Control District, Texas Cooperative Extension/Texas Sea Grant, and the City of Houston Parks and Recreation Department won The Park People’s Partnership Award for their efforts on this project.