Trinity River an Environmental Study Term Paper

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"From the junction of the East and West Forks the Trinity River continues southeast, forming all or part of the county lines between Kaufman and Ellis, Ellis and Henderson, Henderson and Navarro, Freestone and Anderson, Anderson and Leon, Leon and Houston, and Houston and Madison counties. It then cuts across northern Walker County to form a portion of the county line between Walker and Trinity counties and continues as the county line between Trinity and San Jacinto and Polk counties. At the northern line of Liberty County the Trinity turns almost directly south, cutting across Liberty and Chambers counties, to drain into Trinity Bay just west of Anahuac (at 29°45' N, 94°42' W)."

So it is easy to see how complicated any undertaking at revitalization of the river would be. The pollution that plagues the Trinity are not so unlike other rivers across the country that have been successfully revitalized; herbicides, industrial and human waste, and pollutants resulting from land runoff have been ignored during the past century. A 250-mile stretch of the river that stands as the most impacted by the neglect and pollution is a 250-mile stretch running between Dallas and Fortworth to the headwaters of Lake Livingston. By the early 1960s the river below Dallas for 100 miles was so polluted that the United States Public Health Service described it as "septic."

Beginning in the 1960s, various plans have come before the city of Dallas to clean up the river and to revitalize the area. Having learned from other major urban renewal success stories, Dallas is determined to revitalize the river and to see Dallas become a river community and major tourist attraction. They claim the plan is outdated, and that the flood control - because Dallas has a flooding problem - has been proven to be flawed. Opponents want natural solutions to flood control, over the proposed levee system. They charge that answers concerning water quality and drainage have not been fully addressed.

At present the river can be described as a "big ditch," where murder victims are sometimes dumped, as well as crime weapons.

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The river does not facility the flow of waters during heavy or torrential downpours, and has actually contributed to the flooding problem of flooding in the city of Dallas. Attempting to address the problem, which was apparently much worse in 1908 when floodwaters wiped out a section of downtown Dallas; in 1920 the city invested in a levee system that opened up the floodplain to development by diverting two forks of the river water to a dyke channel system.

The current plans calls for cooperation and help from the Army Corp of Engineers, who would the levee system, which would create a series of marshlands. The plans, that call for motorized travel ways would involve protecting the water system from runoff by creating a series of lakes on either side of the river, the marshlands and the series of lakes would bring back wildlife that has disappeared from the water system because of the industrial and human pollutants.

Opponents to the plan want to buy out the floodplain residents - lower income residents - and reclaim the land as a natural floodplain. They oppose manmade or designed intervention. The city and even the Army Corp of engineers disagree with the plan. Although proponents claim that buying out residents would allow those residents to move to better areas, thus creating a more natural water environment and open spaces; also fails to be a fix for the families whose low incomes would fail to sustain them in a move to better areas. There are examples - Chicago being one - where low income residents were moved to more affluent middle class areas to make room for urban development and the result was disastrous for the outlying suburbs.

Aynesworth, H., 1998, 'Dallas Set to Vote on Massive Revitalization,' the Washington Times, May 2, p. 2.

Ingrassia, R., 2000, 'Dallas Aims to Transform the Trinity River,' Planning, Vo. 66, p. 20.

Handbook of Texas Online, s.v.," http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/TT/rnt2.html (Accessed May 8, 2007).

Ingrassia, 2000, p. 20.….....

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