04:04 PM CDT on Monday, May 8, 2006

By Doug Miller / 11 News

Click to watch video

Houston owes its very existence to an historic waterway in the heart of downtown Houston, but that wateryway is no longer what it used to be.

Now county flood control officials plan to investigate what is blocking Buffalo Bayou.

Trainloads of people pass over it every day.  Pedestrians don’t give it a second thought.  But down on the bayou sits Houston’s Plymouth Rock.

“You know, Mississippi River type steamers landed right here,” said Mike Garver, Buffalo Bayou Partnership.  “This was the original turning basin.”

History buffs can show pictures of the bustle on Buffalo Bayou at a time when this was the port of Houston and the Main Street Bridge over the bayou was a modern marvel.

In 1988 the water was still deep enough for boats like this journey up the bayou.

But by 1994, Allen’s Landing had begun collapsing into the water and preservationists joined by city officials had launched a plan to save the birthplace of Houston.

“This is where they used to bring sailing ships into,” said Roy Edwards, retired sheriff’s deputy.

And that’s why one man’s story caught the attention of 11 News.

Roy Edwards is a retired deputy sheriff.  He used to take smoking breaks with his buddies at a particular spot overlooking the bayou.

“So we’re standing up there.  We’re not engineers.  We’re standing up there wondering why in the heck are they dropping concrete into the bayou,” he said.

Edwards was talking about concrete rocks called ‘rip rap.’

“These are 2x12 timbers,” he explained.

They used rip rap to shore up Allen’s Landing back in 1998.  But the former deputy said it didn’t stop there.

“What they would do is, they would extend this out, drop it in the bayou, when it got above water level, they would flick it with the bucket or brought it back with the bucket.  And you wound up with, like, a flat top pyramid,” Edwards explained.

In other words, somebody allegedly dumped a bunch of concrete into Buffalo Bayou and made Houston’s once-bustling port into a hazard.

Shallow bottom boats still get through, but other boats run into problems.

In a recreational regatta that recently docked at Allen’s Landing, at least one sailor claimed his boat actually scraped the bottom.

11 News reporter Doug Miller climbed into a canoe with Roy Edwards who took the oar and paddled in Buffalo Bayou to investigate, marking at one-foot intervals.

“One, two, three, four.  That’s four foot deep, right there,” said Edwards.

Miller: “Four feet deep.  How deep should it be?” 

Edwards: “Hear that rock?” 

Miller: “Yep, that’s rock down there.”

In an area where the water supposedly should be about 15 feet deep—“Actually, that’s three and a half feet, right there,” said Edwards.

As it turns out, the Buffalo Bayou Partnership actually removed some of the rip rap years ago.

“I do know the rip rap was placed in the bayou to protect the bulkhead and I tend to think that more rip rap than would fit in the available void was placed in the bayou,” Garver said.

On the other side of Buffalo Bayou, almost directly across from Allen’s Landing, there is a big sinkhole.  The ground there is literally caving in.

The problem is this sinkhole sits just a few feet away from the foundation of a Harris County jail building.

“Well, what we’re doing right now is looking at a land surveyor to do some acoustic imaging,” said Mike Talbott, Harris County Flood Control District.

Now the Harris County Flood Control District plans to investigate the shallow water around Allen’s Landing.

“That would sound unusual, as to what I would expect in this area,” said Talbott.  “This is an authorized barge canal, really, back from the early 1900s and it should have more depth than that.”

In fact, just hours after the interview, Flood Control District officials were spotted conducting a sort of site survey, planning another survey underwater.

“It seemed like common sense,” Edwards said.  “You don’t put concrete in the bayou and elevate the bottom of the bayou and restrict the water flow.”

But now it seems Houston’s Plymouth Rock is a lot rockier than anybody expected.