History
The Baytown Nature Center was, in the 1940s and 1950s, a highly desirable residential neighborhood known as Brownwood with nearly 400 substantial homes on a 500-acre (2.0 km2) peninsula.
In 1961, Hurricane Carla devastated the Texas Gulf Coast, flooding Brownwood and ending any new development in the area. Afterwards, subsidence became a serious problem as industrial and municipal water users along the Houston Ship Channel and in the general Houston area pumped out groundwater faster than natural forces could replenish the aquifer(s). Thus, during the 1970s and 1980s, much of the Texan Gulf Coast (including Brownwood) sank a total of 10 to 15 feet (4.6 m). Brownwood, which had previously been high and dry, was repeatedly inundated by high tides and storms.
In 1983, extensive damage from Hurricane Alicia finally led to Brownwood’s abandonment. The City of Baytown started buying out neighborhood residents. In 1984, the City prepared its first master plan to transform Brownwood into a public park and wildlife sanctuary.
By 1990, the steadily encroaching waters had submerged many Brownwood streets. In 1991, Baytown’s voters approved $300,000 in bonds for the Brownwood Marsh Restoration Project. Although the bonds were sold in 1994, the $300,000 was hardly enough to meet the master plan’s $1.4 million budget.
The short-fall was made up by the French Limited Task Group, a Superfund consortium of 200 companies, headed by ARCO Chemical Company. A United States District Court had ordered the Task Group to carry out a marsh restoration project to replace natural resources that were damaged or destroyed by members’ illegal dumping activities.
The City of Baytown carried out the phased restoration project. Crouch Environmental Services, a Houston-based environmental consulting firm which specializes in wetlands design and construction, was the prime consultant and contractor. The Houston office of The SWA Group—an international land planning, landscape architecture, and urban design firm based in Sausalito, California—provided land planning and landscape architectural services.
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