September 2011 - Parks & Recreation - 20

Who, What, Where & how Around the Parks

in combined f lood control measures.
" There is still risk, " Bryan says. " You will
always have some risk whenever you allow flood waters to pass through areas
that people are using. But we have found
there are ways to make a place for the
water and to allow it to move naturally
among people. "
In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, associate
park superintendent Ted Jack also tells a
story of multiple approaches for controlling water by accommodating it into park
landscapes. Parks not only provide the
land mass necessary to absorb water, he
says, but for the most part, they are not
needed for recreational use in inclement weather anyway. " It's not like people
are going to play soccer in a monsoon, "
Jack says. " And when we just allow water to absorb naturally in flood plain areas it does two things: It helps with flood
control and it recharges aquifers. " While
Baton Rouge does have a system for piping out water from its parks during severe
flood conditions, the pipes are small and
the drainage process is designed to be
slow, Jack adds.
In Baton Rouge, Jack says, the park
administrators not only strive for natural methods of water management-they
also try to educate the public about best
management practices (BMPs) at nature
centers, such as Bluebonnet Swamp. The
parking lot at the site serves as a combined water management demo and natural history lesson: A brochure for visitors
diagrams the surfacing materials, detention-pond design, and surrounding plants
that mimic the absorption and filtration
processes that occurred naturally hundreds of years ago when the site was part
of an upland forest.

Through the Lens of Disaster Risk
Reduction
Whereas park professionals must weigh
the flood-control value of parks against
the preservation of recreational facilities, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) applies a single-minded

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Parks & Recreation

SEPTEMBER 2011

perspective to flood-prone public lands.
The USACE, which is charged with public engineering and disaster risk reduction, views floodable parks as a means
of preserving infrastructure and mitigating permanent damage from floods.
It's not an issue of whether there will be
damage, says Doug Cox, Fort Worth regional program manager for the USACE.
It's a matter of how much and how lasting
that damage will be. After all, the water
has to go somewhere. " If you allow driving on flooded roads, you risk damaging
them irretrievably-substrate more than
asphalt, " Cox explains. Similarly, other
elements of the built environment incur
much greater damage from floods than
parks do.
Allowing sufficient floodplain land to
be left in its natural state protects property and lives in more developed areas.
Parks can be designed for minimal flood
damage, advises Cox, with high-value
facilities built above the five-year floodplain. Or, sometimes, even above the 25year floodplain. " Frequency determines
everything, " he says.

Looking ahead: the priority of land
acquisition
Both Bryan and Jack describe the process
of making their park infrastructure " water-friendly " as a balancing act between
nature and engineering, park programming goals and regional flood control,
recreational use and planned times of
disuse. It is a balancing act that works,
because the people who live in Missouri

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and Baton Rouge understand the give and
take that is necessary for managing water
in their flood-prone regions. Soccer fields
must sometimes be designated floodwater zones, and campgrounds must sometimes channel fast-moving temporary
rivers.
While Missouri and Baton Rouge are
most concerned with figuring out ways
to safely make existing parks floodable,
both Bryan and Jack see the acquisition
of flood-plain lands as a public planning
priority. Bryan describes the many maps,
tables, and statistics available through the
United States Geological Survey for conducting the strategic planning necessary
for acquiring lands for water management purposes. (See companion article
on USGS.gov)
Jacks agrees that such strategic land
acquisition is the best way to guarantee that a region will have enough drainage canals, spongy wetlands, and well
fed aquifers in the future. Homeowners
may have some fears about living near
such public land set-asides, Jack cautions. " People just don't have experience
with this sort of thing, and they worry it
will negatively impact their quality of
life. " Parks can help educate the public,
and they can lead in water management
planning, he says. " Ultimately, wherever
floods are a risk, you've got to have a plan
to work with water. "
The Dutch would certainly agree.
Maureen Hannan is Senior Editor of

Parks & Recreation.
September 2011 - Parks & Recreation

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