For over 55 years, we’ve been Houston's longest-running and most trusted environmental conservation nonprofit. Our mission is to celebrate, protect and restore the natural richness of all our bayous and streams
At Bayou Preservation Association, our vision is a network of healthy bayous, streams and watersheds. Through a science-based approach to policies and actions, community collaboration, and a commitment to safe and clean water, we're working to transform our city into a region acknowledged nationally for its high quality of life.
Our Mission: Celebrate, Protect, Restore
Covering over 2,500 miles, Houston's bayous are not just beautiful but also provide essential flood protection and public health benefits. We embrace a collaborative approach, uniting community partners, policymakers, and local governments to enhance the health of our bayous and our Lower Galveston Bay watershed.
Balancing Growth & Preservation
In a rapidly growing urban environment like Houston, addressing environmental issues is urgent. We advocate for nature-based solutions to harmonize growth and preservation while ensuring equitable access for all within the Lower Galveston Bay watershed. Through implementation of the Coastal Public Lands Management Act, the Galveston Bay Estuary Plan, and The City of Houston Climate Action Plan, we create programs that celebrate, protect, and restore the richness of our waterways.
Promoting Resilience Through Nature
Our work extends to advocating for urban development that seamlessly integrates nature-based solutions. This approach promotes regional resilience, monitors water quality in collaboration with local authorities, and develops educational resources for communities and stewards. We unite scientists, engineers, educators, advocates, and resident stewards to Celebrate, Protect, and Restore (CPR) Houston’s bayous.
The Bayou Appreciation program recognizes that the people who live in these watersheds are as dynamic and essential as their waterways. They represent many different communities – different cultures, races, religions, colors, abilities, genders, sexual orientations, socioeconomic statuses, and priorities. The purpose of the Bayou Appreciation program is to help introduce all Houstonians to nature in their backyards. Program activities include creating and supporting engaging outdoor educational activities for all populations.
The primary goal of the Bayou Citizen Science Program is to improve bayou water quality by training citizens to provide quantitative and qualitative information to inform the public and to support actions by the authorities who have jurisdiction to improve water quality.
Stream Corridor Restoration Program
Stream corridors are dynamic and complex. The watersheds and their stream corridors in our region have been significantly altered by human activity, stressing their capacity to achieve a generally stable condition, even though not static. The Stream Corridor Restoration Program works to restore riparian buffer zones, through the removal of invasive species and the planting of native species.
Litter is an aesthetic and an economic issue, but it is also a water quality, wildlife, and health issue. Litter harms physical habitats, transports chemical pollutants, threatens aquatic life, and interferes with human enjoyment and uses of our bayous. The Clean Bayous Program works to reduce litter in Houston waterways, through bayou clean-ups, and through the development and implementation of prevention strategies and projects to prevent nonpoint source pollution in our bayous.
In addition to our four focus areas, Bayou Preservation also maintains cross-cutting projects and initiatives that address the goals of more than one program such as our annual Symposium, public policy review and response, and communications tools.
| (713) 837-8399 | |
| msager@bayoupreservation.org | |
| Morton Sager | |
| Project Manager | |
| http://www.bayoupreservation.org |
