On the green | Texas utility turns golf course into a stormwater detention facility and eco-friendly public park (Source: Municipal Sewer and Water)
By Giles Lambertson
When golfers lost interest in playing the greens and fairways of Clear Lake (Texas) Golf Course in the early 2000s, its owner looked to sell the Houston-area property for redevelopment. That would have been par for a course, but the Clear Lake City Water Authority had other plans.
After area residents appealed to the City Water Authority to somehow preserve the green space, a movement began to transform the old golf acreage into an eco-friendly public park. Seventeen years later, a facility dubbed “Exploration Green” is in the final stages of creation. What once was a duffer’s delight with a water hazard or two is now a nearly 180-acre stormwater detention facility featuring five ponds, islands of bird habitat, water-filtering wetlands, athletic fields and miles of walking/biking trails.
What Clear Lake residents don’t see as much these days is flooding. Exploration Green is doing its job.
