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If you’re looking for some green space in the Houston area, don’t turn to Uncle Sam for help. 

It seems a program that was supposed to use oil and gas taxes to pay for parks hasn’t lived up to its promise.

Saturday softball games have echoed through Herman Brown Park  -- the last big park the federal government helped Houston purchase – since 1979.

“They do need to make more parks, you know.  Houston is growing,” Ruben Gonzales said.

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Herman Brown was built with $5 million from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund.  When Congress established the fund in 1964, it was supposed to spend $450 million a year on parks nationwide.  Except last year, it spent just $30 million.

“We’re losing potential for all kinds of green space, just not the large parks. We use it for all the small parks,” City of Houston Parks Director Joe Turner said.

Turner is trying to get Congress to restore the parks fund.

“We need a lot more neighborhood parks,” he said.

After a flurry of federal spending on parks in the 70s and 80s, things completely stopped in the 90s.  And with a few notable exceptions, federal spending on parks in the Houston area has never picked back up.

“They need to find the money to build things for families.  We don’t have enough of that,” Melissa Gonzales said.

In February, Fort Bend County got $500,000 to build a regional trail system – the first grant since 1986.

In Galveston County, League City got money in 2002, but the last time Montgomery County saw any was 1987. 

In 2001, President Bush proposed fully funding the parks program, but it never happened.  And then last year he recommended it be cut completely.

“Oh, I have lots of dreams,” Turner said.

But for now park planners are left only to fantasize about the parks they would build if only the money would come their way.