The Past, Present, and Future of Engineering in the Trinity Watershed

Part 1: Research Process
            Throughout my life I have been an outdoors person. My dad has taken me hunting and fishing since I was 3 years old and it has grown into a big part of my life. Since this project is about watersheds, I will be focusing more on the fishing aspect of my life. My experiences have mainly been in Texas but I have been fishing in Florida, Canada, and the Bahamas as well. Since I have been to these places, I have contrasting view points from many places, compared to if I only had experiences in this area. These different view points include how local governments and protection agencies regulate the local watersheds in respects to pollution and keeping out invasive species of plants and animals: that destroy the environment and endanger the health of native wildlife.

            I am also currently enrolled as a Mechanical Engineering major at the University of Houston. I chose this major because I enjoy looking at how things are built and managed overtime. In these watersheds there are many structures that have been built that provide many helpful services to the area, including dams that regulate the water levels, power plants that use hydroelectricity to provide power to local citizens, as well as drinking water for lots of people. However, some structures have a negative impact on the environment, such as oil rigs in Trinity and Galveston Bay, and while they do provide us with oil, they are also known to have accidents and spill oil into the local watersheds. Another structure that has a negative impact on the area are chemical plants. This can be seen in the most recent accident at the ITC storage plant in Deer Park, where cancer causing chemicals were released into the air and into the local bayou, which shut down the city and even the Houston Ship Channel.

            My research focuses mainly on the Trinity watershed, and its engineering structures, which range from Dallas, Texas all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. Since good fishing spots are usually near man made structures, where the fish gather and shelter, it makes these a good spot to catch lots of fish, I have been near many of these including oil rigs in the Trinity Bay and water locks along the Trinity River. Because of this, I have a good deal of starter knowledge on these structures and have the capacity to learn new facts about all of the different things to learn about that pertains to my research.

            I chose this topic because of my prior knowledge and also my different lifestyle that many of my peers do not share. It seems that most of my classmates and the majority of the University of Houston Students have had city life upbringings but mine is different, so it makes it an interesting learning experience for everybody.

            I started my research when this essay was assigned, and I am learning new things about watersheds and engineering every time I sit down to do my research. I started with newspaper articles about the various structures I had mentioned before, but this was not really was I was looking for. I began to search the UH Library databases and I found more scholarly articles that fit my need. Then, on our class visit to the Special Collections area of UH Library I found that I had access to a lot more sources that cannot be found on the internet. However, I found that most of the information that they provide is not very helpful. In the end, I have decided on six sources that have helped me most in my research and I will use those to help my write my essay.

Part 2: Annotated Bibliography

Chakraborty, Jayajit, et al. “Exploring the Environmental Justice Implications of Hurricane Harvey Flooding in Greater Houston, Texas.” American Journal of Public Health, vol. 109, no. 2, Feb. 2019, pp. 244–250. EBSCOhost, DOI:10.2105/AJPH.2018.304846.
            This academic journal provides insight on the way that the flooding of Hurricane Harvey effected residents of the Greater Houston area.  The authors compiled data on the types of people in flooded area by “race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, after controlling for relevant explanatory factors” (Chakraborty 1). The authors concluded that all 3 categories that were used had an effect on the flooding of the area. Due to this conclusion, the authors propose that there needs to be a discussion raised on “Why this was allowed to happen” and “How to fix it.” The article provides a chart of the summary of statistics researched and then it explains what each statistic means. This is useful to my research because it not only shows how the land was affect, but how the people of the areas were affected by flooding; this can be used in my essay as a way to urge the reader to take action in my area, to prevent Trinity Watershed residents from being affected like the residents of Houston after Hurricane Harvey.

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Gard, Wayne. “TRINITY RIVER NAVIGATION PROJECTS.” The Handbook of Texas Online| Texas State Historical Association (TSHA), 15 June 2010, tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/ett01.
            In this article, “Trinity River Navigation Projects”, the author, Wayne Gard, talks about how the Trinity River was once traveled by boat carrying goods from the Gulf of Mexico all the way to Dallas. The idea is that barges and large tanker ships would one day be able to make the trip, but that would take lots of time and money. Small ships made the trips up and down the river starting in 1836, where the trips would take 2-3 months to complete. With the idea to make the river more accessible, the federal government surveyed the entire river from 1872 to 1900. After the surveys were completed, Congress granted $400,000 to clean up the path of the river to make it easier to travel, over the next 20 years they spent over $2,000,000 building structures in the water to be able to control the water level of certain sections of the river. When World War 1 happened, the project was abandoned due to money needing to be reallocated for the war. The structures built in the river are still standing today and are prime fishing locations for outdoors men, which I visit frequently to fish at. This makes you wonder how different Texas would be if Dallas was a port city with access to the rest of the world vie the Trinity River. I am using this source to use the information given about the locks and dams of the Trinity River.

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Leslie A. Muñoz, Francisco Olivera, Matthew Giglio & Philip Berke (2018) The impact of urbanization on the streamflows and the 100-year floodplain extent of the Sims Bayou in Houston, Texas, International Journal of River Basin Management, 16:1, 61-69, DOI: 10.1080/15715124.2017.1372447.           
           This academic journal focuses on reviewing the 100-year flood plan proposed for the Sim’s Bayou area. Some data that it mentions is how over 3500 houses have been built in flooding areas since the 1980’s. This article was meant to be read by other scholars, this can be seen with all of the precise technical measurements that the paper provides. Some examples of this is the longitude and latitude of Sim’s Bayou, another would be the formula provided to calculate the “footprint area” of a parcel of land. This article is relevant to my research because it addresses the technical side of flood control of Sim’s Bayou, which is not my bayou but this information can be compared to my own bayou that I am researching. There are also graphics shown of where the population has grown in certain areas around sim’s Bayou, as well as how they negatively impact runoff and flooding. This is all good information because it can be used as a reference to my area, the Trinity Watershed.

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“The Trinity River Authority of Texas (TRA).” Trinity River Authority of Texas, www.trinityra.org/default.asp?contentID=114.
            This article gives information about Lake Livingston, which provides water to 5 cities. The lake also has the 2.5-mile-long Lake Livingston Dam which started providing hydroelectricity to “approximately 12,000 households. The hydroelectric plant will annually offset approximately 64,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel power-generating plants” (how do I cite this?). This lake is also a place that I have fished before, so I have seen the dam in action, but the power plant is still yet to be finished. I am using this article to provide information about the Lake Livingston Dam and the benefits it provides to the surrounding area and its attempts to reduce pollution.

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Tomkins-Walsh, Teresa. “Houston’s Environmental Legacy: Terry Hershey, Community, and Action.” Houston’s Environmental Legacy: Terry Hershey, Community, and Action, 26 July 2013, pp. 2–7.
            The author provides information about Houston its effort to preserve Buffalo Bayou. When reading this article, I found that there was a lot of information that can be used as an example to show what can be done in the area that I have chosen to do my research on. Some of the strategies used by Terry Hershey will be addressed in my paper and what should be done. When analyzing the paper, I found that a significant finding was that conservation of the Houston watersheds is not a new idea, “Throughout, Houston activists fashioned a legacy of conservation, preservation, and environmental action in Houston that continues today” (1). Although, it disappoints me to see that even though the conservation and preservation has been an idea that has stayed around, there is still lots of pollution and lack of caring from the public, who disregard the importance of keeping the area nice and clean. Next, when the author is describing the legacy left by activists, they mention “That legacy lives through the work of hundreds of activists” (7). This further reinforces my disappointment. This article was published in 2013, when the population of Houston was near 2.2 million people, with a metropolitan (people living in and around Houston) population of over 6 million; yet, there are ONLY hundreds of activists. In my opinion, that number is too low. Everybody should care about their environment and want it to be a better place.

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 “Trinity River: A Project to Assess PCBs in Fish.” Texas Commission of Environment Quality, Nov. 2009, www.tceq.texas.gov/waterquality/tmdl/77-trinity_pcbs.html.
            This article shines a light on the issue of pollution found in fish in the Trinity River. It focuses mainly on the upper section of the river, near Dallas, but it is still in the watershed and river that I am researching. This is a great source for this subject because it provides a 150-page final report on all of its findings of pollution in fish. AS a fisherman, this is exactly what I was looking for. This is the subject that I mainly wanted to base my research on, due to having been affected by polluted water and sickly fish. The final report has multiple charts and graphs and explanations of the conclusion of its data. This is also a very reputable source, since the research was conducted and reported by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, a part of the Texas government.

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“Water Quality Program Successes.” Texas Commission of Environment Quality, www.tceq.texas.gov/waterquality/watersuccess/waterqualitysuccess.
            This is an important source for my research, it is a compilations of success stories from organizations and government agencies attempting to improve the water quality of rivers, lakes, and bays in Texas. This includes the strategies used and the data collected from many areas around the state, but more importantly, it provides information from the West Fork of the Trinity River and the areas mission in improving conditions for the aquatic life in the river. This source, combined with Teresa Tomkins-Walsh’s magazine article, will be the basis of my strategies to reduce pollution and improve water quality in my essay.

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Water Resources Data for Texas, Vol. 1 – Arkansas River Basin, Red River Basin, Sabine River Basin, Neches River Basin, Trinity River Basin, and Intervening Coastal Basins by U.S. Department of the Interior, Geological Survey, 1976. Bayou Preservation Association Records, University of Houston Libraries Special Collections. https://findingaids.lib.uh.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/312314 Accessed April 01, 2019.
            This is my Special Collections source, it provided me with way too much information to be reasonable with. However, some information towards the back of the 700-page book I found interesting. There are tables with information of every type of chemical found in the water, this ranges from common chemicals used in pesticides to natural minerals to chemicals I have never heard of. My plan with this information is to compare the levels of these chemicals from 1976 to today’s levels, or as close as I can get to the current date. The purpose of this is to see the effectiveness of environmental laws and regulations that have been passed over the years, to see if they have provided any noticeable differences in the quality of water in the Trinity River.

Part 3: Reflection

            I began my research with two questions, “What engineering structures are built along the southern end of the Trinity River?” and “How does the Lake Livingston dam affect the river?” As I continued my research I realized that these were very narrow questions that could easily be answered with a quick Google search. When I originally proposed those questions, I wasn’t quite sure of my purpose for researching and I had not invested enough time to truly understand what this essay was even about. After finding my six sources and annotating them, I realized that I had focused a lot on pollution and little on the engineering aspect. I am honestly still not committed to one central idea, but one that interests me is “How to use engineering to combat pollution in the Trinity River.” I think this idea will tie together my research. However, I have now decided to look into data from the Army Corps of Engineers, because they have useful data that I may be able to use in my essay.

Letter to my Readers of “Why You Should Learn to Hunt and Fish”

Dear Reader,

              The purpose of my draft was to bring awareness to the hunting and fishing community. I want to spread this awareness because I believe that it is the most effective way of wildlife conservation; in addition to that, hunting and fishing also has many benefits for the person and the family of the people who partake in harvesting animals. The benefits are described in my paper.

              At the beginning of this paper, I did not understand the concept of what I was supposed to be doing. As we worked and talked in class I began to understand the idea and I began my paper. My original, rough, draft was very short and thrown together in pieces that did not flow well together, but I just wanted to get my ideas down before I forgot all of them, as I would have time to revise later. My full draft was beginning to come together but I knew it was not the final product, there were still revisions to be made. Between my full draft and my final paper, I reviewed over comments left by my professor, she was very helpful in pointing out simple mistakes I had left, which after fixing those, the paper began to flow very well, and the ideas were connected. I personally did not have any peer feedback on my full draft, as it seems that they were too busy to submit their comments; the help would have been appreciated but it was not required. The main differences in my full draft and final paper are more prevalent transitions between paragraphs, and my thesis statement.

              This type of paper seems like something I will have to write again in the future at my job. I am planning on becoming a mechanical engineer. When engineering I may have to research my ideas and present them in this essay format in order to pitch my idea to the project manager or the person contracting the work. The library was a wonderful resource for collecting my sources, the scholarly source that I used, in my opinion, carried the most weight in supporting my argument for my ideas. The library will something I use more often in to future for my research.

              Sincerely,

              Jacob Maze

“Why You Should Learn to Fish and Hunt”

The hunting and fishing community is often mischaracterized and looked down upon by society; it is sometimes seen as senseless and inhumane. After understanding the benefits of hunting, these presumptions can hopefully be dismissed. The reader will understand why hunting is necessary for the well being of the animals and people alike. In this paper, I will discuss educating society on hunting and fishing to suggest a way of more people seeing the benefits of harvesting animals as a natural source of food, to control the populations of wild animals and to protect areas inhabited by humans from wildlife. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service should raise awareness of wildlife conservation benefits, through hunting and fishing, in order to bring more members into the community which makes conservation efforts more effective.

In the scholarly article from 2017, “Identifying Wildlife Species Believed to be Deserving of Protection From Hunting by U.S. Residents” by Elizabeth S. Byrd et al.; use only statistics to share their research, no opinions. The main idea of the article is to show results of surveys that look at different groups of people and determine how likely they are to support the protection of certain species of animals. The article consists of two tables that display data based off of age, gender and income; while also comparing its findings with other surveys from previous years, where it finds similar results. It also shared its methods of collecting data, the authors’ conclusion and what the data implied. All of these factors play a role in justifying the accuracy of the article; which I use to reinforce the idea that people who are knowledgeable about hunting, are less opposed to using hunting as a conservation method.

The next article in the Houston Chronicle then looks at regulations proposed to protect local species of animals; it is title “State considers proposing changes to speckled trout, gar, bass and deer rules.” Shannon Tompkins provides facts on the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission about proposed changes on hunting and fishing regulations. The author then shares his opinion on how these proposed changes would potentially affect the populations of the species of animals mentioned in the title of the article; speckled trout, gar, largemouth bass and white-tailed deer, all of which are native Texas wildlife. This is effective because he is not sharing his opinions on the matter, just making connections between the proposed regulations and previous instances where more liberal harvest limits have caused species’ population numbers to decline into alarming numbers.

This USA Today news article, which provides a current issue of animal overpopulation, titled “Fate of 22 grizzly bears up to judge’s decision. Should trophy hunters be allowed to kill?” by reporter Trevor Hughes combines anecdotes from local residents and statistical data of bears to inform the reader of the growing issue of grizzly bears in Wyoming. This is effective in informing the reader because it is an investigative article, where the author does not give his opinions, but merely collects the evidence.

In my personal experience, the food obtained from personally harvesting animals is free of chemicals put in by food companies. This is good for people looking for a way to eat without buying everything from the grocery store. However, one downside to this, is that is the animal does have chemicals in it, they may go unnoticed without obvious signs of the animal being sick. This can include high mercury levels in fish found near highly polluted water, usually near chemical plants, where harmful chemicals have drained into the water, whether it be on purpose or by accident.

Around the world I have seen conservationists protect endangered species and prevent overpopulation by using methods such as hunting and fishing. Regulations can be made to reduce the amount of a specific species to be harvested to maintain a healthy population. For example, in the Houston Chronical article, the author reports that, “Under the preliminary proposal Kurzawski presented at the briefing, rod-and-reel anglers and bowfishers targeting alligator gar … would be prohibited from retaining or killing alligator gar measuring 5 feet in length or longer. The move is aimed at protecting the river’s population of large, trophy-size alligator gar, which can grow to more than 7 feet and weigh as much as 300 pounds,” which basically says that the fish are typically harvested before it is fully grown so these regulations hope to prevent the harvesting of too many juvenile fish (Tompkins par. 11).

In addition, hunting is also used as a way for researchers and the government to use the public to prevent overpopulation of species. Overpopulation can lead to a food shortage which may cause a severe decline in population or extinction; therefore, setting the entire food web in the area off balance and affecting other species’ populations. Overpopulation can currently be seen in northeastern Texas, where antlerless (female) deer population is unproportional to the male population:

With the Post Oak Savannah’s deer population growing and holding an abundance of antlerless deer, TPWD is looking to expand opportunities for hunters in the region. Under a proposal TPWD is considering, rules in the 20 Post Oak Savannah counties that now allow the taking of antlerless deer only during four consecutive “doe days” that begin Thanksgiving Day would be greatly liberalized. In those counties, hunters would be allowed to take as many as two antlerless deer and tag them with an antlerless-deer tag from their general hunting license during the first 16 days of the general deer season. (Tompkins par. 20)

The purpose of these regulations is to balance the ratio of male and female whitetail deer in the area to create a healthier balance. In addition to more, or less, regulations: invasive, or non-native, species, such as feral hogs and some sheep, can also take up the food supply from native species, which is why all invasive species can be hunted year-round and there is no limit to the amount that can be harvested. The purpose of this is to protect the native wildlife and purge out the unwanted species.

One consequence of new developing areas is that they may intrude on preexisting land which was previously occupied by many animals. Hunting can help keep the wildlife at bay and prevent the animals from invading and hurting the human area. This can be seen in the Everglades in Florida, where snakes and alligators can regularly be seen in populated human areas. This can also be seen in Wyoming, where the grizzly bear population was once protected and thus growing in size; however, it is now grown to be too many to be supported in the area and the bears are venturing dangerously close to human populated areas. In the USA Today article quotes hunting guide Sy Gilliland, who is promoting the hunting of these grizzle bears, in saying, “’It’s not being bloodthirsty. The fact of the matter is that we need to do something for the benefit of the bear … We can’t turn the clock back and remove the people from Wyoming. The bear is overflowing. He just needs to have his number trimmed back for the benefit of the species overall’” (Hughes par. 5).

Education of these benefits would help the hunting and fishing communities’ numbers grow. It can be seen in the scholarly article, when the authors state “Respondents who were female, members of animal welfare organizations, and did not know someone who hunts more frequently thought species should be protected from hunting,” this shows that non-hunters who had knowledge of hunting by being associated to a hunter were less opposed to hunting various types of animals, because they understand the benefits that hunting can bring (Byrd, et al. 9).

If society was more educated on these facts, there would be more people interested in contributing their time and effort to controlling the population of animals. Meanwhile, their contributions would be rewarded with natural food and less wildlife invading their personal space. This would also mean that research and government organizations who study and protect this wildlife would garner more money and be able to further help these species thrive.

Works Cited

Byrd, Elizabeth S. “Identifying Wildlife Species Believed to Be Deserving of Protection From Hunting by U.S. Residents.” Human Dimensions of Wildlife, vol. 22, no. 4, July 2017, pp. 374–381.

Hughes, Trevor. “Fate of 22 Grizzly Bears up to Judge’s Decision. Should Trophy Hunters Be Allowed to Kill?” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 29 Aug. 2018, http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/08/28/grizzly-hunt-pits-tourists-against-sportsmen-wyoming/1065854002/.

Tompkins, Shannon. “State Considers Proposing Changes to Speckled Trout, Gar, Bass and Deer Rules.” HoustonChronicle.com, Houston Chronicle, 10 Nov. 2018, http://www.houstonchronicle.com/sports/outdoors/article/State-considers-proposing-changes-to-speckled-13380157.php.