Aisthesis Volume 14, 2023113 !e Not-So Livable Forest: An Environmental Autobiography by Ainsley Gill !e "rst time it #ooded, I was twelve, excited to spend the day at my grandparents’ house to avoid the inconvenience of rising waters. !e second time it #ooded, my friends got stuck at their middle school—a chaotic a$ernoon while parents waited for the roads to clear. !e morning of the third #ood, I was supposed to start high school but instead sat in my completely dry cul-de-sac, knowing the water was coming. I came back home three days later to "ve- foot-high watermarks and the sound of hammers hitting damp plaster as friends, family, and complete strangers cleared out the damage. With #oodwaters over "ve feet high in many of the homes and schools across my community and exceeding seven feet high in the center of town, #ooding quickly became the new normal, but we rebuilt together. !e fourth time it #ooded, we barely #inched, and nobody reached for hammers. Flooding was our new normal. !e "$h time it #ooded, we didn’t blink. Flooding was routine. For many in the greater Houston area, #ooding quickly became common. !ere was no rhyme or reason to it, no cause beyond the heavens, and nothing to question about it, even as #ood patterns changed to disproportionately a%ect certain groups and neighborhoods. No, #ooding was something that just happened, whether because of a hurricane, tropical storm, or even an especially bad thunderstorm. However, it was not always this way. As I grew up, my community developed and changed around me. New buildings went up, new homes were built, concrete was poured, and old wooded areas were cleared out. As the area settled into a pattern of #ooding, the rising waters and #ooded homes became unsurprising and almost inevitable. !is pattern of rising development and the recurrence of relatively milder #oods since Hurricane Harvey has normalized a moderate degree of #ooding and masked the rise of slow violence within Kingwood’s Elm Grove neighborhood. Witnessing this change has instilled in me a strong belief in our shared communal responsibility to protect each other from environmental hazards and help one another heal, rebuild, and construct our communities to prevent future harm. Relationship to the Environment in Early Childhood Growing up, every time my parents’ car drove o% the highway and turned into our suburb, we passed big signs on either side of the road proclaiming the suburbs’ self-assigned nickname: the Livable Forest. Filled with parks, greenbelts, man-made ponds, and designed to maximize tree coverage, the Kingwood of my childhood lived up to its name—carefully and intentionally designed to appeal to young couples, o$en those employed by the oil industry in downtown Houston. When I was younger, I thought that every suburban neighborhood looked like mine, with trees taller than power lines and deer running through the front yards. As I got older, I felt lucky and privileged to grow up in a place that seemed to value nature so highly. I’ve always felt a personal responsibility to the environment around me. !is was instilled in me in part by the extensive time spent in nature through Girl Scouts and the values that curriculum taught me, partly by the bike rides I enjoyed through Kingwood’s greenbelts, and partly by the yearly family vacations taken to national parks across America. !is sense of personal responsibility manifested itself in well- meaning, if not always productive ways. For example, my second-grade crusade to save the squirrels by leading my classmates in helping them hide acorns for winter probably didn’t do much, as they had long been surviving Houston’s hot and humid winters without our help. My yearlong protest against hand dryers (because they still used energy) was likely similarly ine%ective. At this time, I viewed the environment as something passive, reciprocal, and straightforward in its relationship. People could either harm the !e Not-So Livable Forest: An Environmental Autobiography Aisthesis Volume 14, 2023114 environment by polluting, littering, or wasting water or they could or they could protect the environment by championing recycling, cleaning up a$er themselves, and turning o% the lights a$er they le$ the room. As I understood it then, your actions directly re#ected your experience of the environment: your park could be pristine or covered in trash and your electric bill could be low or high to penalize you for unsustainable use of resources. In short, your experience of the environment was dependent primarily on the individual choices you made. However, the events I began to witness as I entered high school made it unfortunately clear that the irresponsible decisions of just a few people could easily have widespread and disparate impacts as others were le$ to reckon with the environmental consequences of others’ choices. Kingwood’s Development As I grew up, the landscape of my community changed around me. Previously undeveloped areas of land were clear cut and concrete was poured to make room for new homes and businesses. In 2015, an area with tree cover and greenspace in the heart of town that had previously housed an apartment complex, was clear cut and demolished to make room for a major commercial development project anchored by a new HEB grocery store. Previously forested areas along the main roads were cleared to facilitate the construction of new subdivisions, retail pads, and a disproportionate number of storage unit facilities. !is trend was playing out not just in my community but across the greater Houston area. From 2001-2011, Houston experienced the highest levels of urban growth nationally, with the resulting surge in asphalt and concrete rapidly increasing the runo% ratio. !is rising urbanization ampli"ed the impact of extreme precipitation, as the percentage of impervious surfaces rose. Flood mitigation methods that historically functioned in the community now failed due to the inhibition concrete imposes on natural drainage systems and water cycle function (Zhang et al., 2018). Floodwaters Rise I soon saw the reality of the theoretical impacts of urbanization play out in my community with increasing severity. While I was in middle school, two major high precipitation events brought signi"cant and unexpected #ooding far beyond the impact of a typical thunderstorm. In 2015, heavy rains on Memorial Day necessitated the rescue of hundreds of residents from the rising waters and resulted in over $460 million dollars in damage. Less than a year later, in April of 2016, over 24 inches of rain fell within a 24-hour period, #ooding almost 10,000 homes (“Rained out,” 2018). However, the city was truly forced to come to terms with the consequences of its rapid urbanization in August 2017, when Hurricane Harvey hit. Harvey dumped over 33 trillion gallons of rain and set a record for the continental US in rainfall at nearly 52 inches (Schultz & Galea, 2017). Ultimately, over 4.5 million people were impacted, over 140,000 homes and businesses #ooded, and the total damage amounted to over $125 billion, making it the second most devastating storm in US history (Harris County Flood Control District, 2018; Mooney, 2018). In Kingwood, over 4,800 homes, including mine, were #ooded in addition to countless businesses, restaurants, and my public high school (Rehak, 2018). !ough this was a city used to weathering storms, Harvey was the "rst major hurricane to hit since 1999 and its extreme rainfall exposed the weaknesses urbanization created in the city’s drainage system (Houston/Galveston, TX Weather Forecast O&ce, n.d.). !e greater development occurring across the city increased the impact of #ood waters and precipitation, increasing the city’s #ood risk twenty times over (Zheng et al., 2018). !ose who su%ered the most damage were o$en the most vulnerable, as over 80% of those a%ected by #ooding lacked #ood insurance due to the high premiums, additional "nancial expense, and the fact that many of the a%ected homes were not predicted to #ood, per the federal 100-year #oodplain (Adriano, 2018). In the a$ermath, the community came together, united by shared tragedy and Houston Strong campaigns. Strangers came together to muck out #ooded houses, deliver meals, and wash clothes. Yet, despite the e%orts of community support networks, there was substantial inequity in terms of both who #ooded and who was able to rebuild, o$en due to systemic patterns of development and the placement of drainage infrastructure. In Harvey, as the impacts of development, urbanization, and extreme precipitation combined to result in substantial #ooding beyond FEMA’s predicted #oodplains, !e Not-So Livable Forest: An Environmental Autobiography Aisthesis Volume 14, 2023115 over 50% of the #ooding that occurred beyond the predicted area a%ected land parcels inhabited by Latinx residents, despite the fact that they represent no more than 38% of the population (Greater Houston Partnership, 2022). Not only does #oodplain location a%ect residents’ awareness of personal risk and, in some cases, mandate that they have #ood insurance, but it also determines the resources available to them as they recover. Even beyond #ood insurance, homes outside the #oodplain have less access to funds as they rebuild and have been found to be at a distinct disadvantage in the recovery process. As such, the Latinx community in Houston was disproportionately impacted by #ooding, both in its onset and its a$ermath. However, while Harvey might have been the largest #ood event, it would be far from the last one. Since Harvey, #ooding has continued, even under far less extreme weather conditions. Tropical storms and even heavy thunderstorms have been capable of #ooding Kingwood, though their impacts have been concentrated in certain areas. One neighborhood in particular continues to be impacted again and again—Elm Grove. One of Kingwood’s oldest neighborhoods, home to over 1,500 single family homes, as well as apartments and townhomes, Elm Grove is also one of the most diverse. In contrast to the largely White a'uent neighborhoods of Kingwood, Elm Grove is in the 65th percentile for racial diversity, with about 76-80% of residents considered low income, depending on the exact subsection of the neighborhood (Environmental Protection Agency, n.d.). While, on paper, Elm Grove is not within the 100- year #oodplain and is reported to have relatively low #ood risk compared with other parts of Kingwood, recent history tells a di%erent story. In May of 2019, a storm brought 16 inches of rain within only 24 hours, #ooding nearly 200 homes (Rice, 2019; Rehak, 2019). Just a few short months later, in September, Tropical Storm Imelda produced 30 inches of precipitation and #ooded over 600 homes, largely in Elm Grove (Mehrtens, 2019; Rehak, 2022). Notably, Elm Grove did not previously #ood during Hurricane Harvey, but has been the primary area of Kingwood a%ected by #ooding since then. !is pattern of #ooding is no coincidence, but rather, like much of the #ooding in Kingwood, is primarily the result of irresponsible, pro"t-driven development. In this case, the development of a new neighborhood subdivision to the northwest of Elm Grove has been identi"ed as the source for the shi$ in drainage patterns that exacerbated the #ooding. Drainage patterns, channels that collect surface raino% and are less resistant to erosion, are an e%ective indicator of #ood risk and can easily be disrupted by development and the introduction of impervious surfaces (Nelson, 2015). Before development began, the area was “heavily wooded” and part of runo% ’s natural path into a nearby culvert and drainage stream (King, 2019). Since then, the 260-acre plot has been clear cut by the developer Perry Homes as they develop the Woodridge Village neighborhood, resulting in the disruption of these natural drainage systems and the creation of new blockages that divert water #ow down towards Elm Grove as shown in the "gure below (Rice, 2019; King, 2019). Figure 1: Drainage Patterns Before and A$er Clear Cutting for Woodridge Village !ough these instances of #ooding represented a signi"cant break from major #ooding events in the past, in the mind of the public, they were simply the !e Not-So Livable Forest: An Environmental Autobiography Aisthesis Volume 14, 2023116 latest instance of the pattern of extraordinary and unpredicted #ooding that had become normalized in Harvey. Environmental Justice Applications !ough this pattern has developed within the past decade, a relatively smaller time frame than is typical for the theory, considering it within Rice’s criteria for slow violence o%ers insight into the new development’s unjust rami"cations. !is phenomenon of slow violence describes harm being imposed on a community slowly over a period of time. !e essential characteristics of slow violence include a gap between initial exposure and adverse consequences, the normalization of this slow change, and a lack of salience that make change and action more di&cult to achieve. !ese characteristics were all present, albeit within a compressed time frame, in the case of Elm Gove. First, development occurred slowly, almost unnoticed, causing drainage conditions to gradually get worse. Eventually, the development of the more a'uent Woodridge Village neighborhood a%ected the existing drainage system so signi"cantly that it no longer adequately manages water #ow. Due to the mass #ooding during Harvey, this change was normalized. !e event established that nearly everyone in Kingwood was vulnerable to random devastating #ooding, making it easier to dismiss the pattern of repeated #ooding in concentrated areas since then. Second, Harvey’s extreme nature made it harder and harder to determine whether severe rain or unsustainable development is to blame for #ooding, especially because the answer is o$en both as unsustainable development ampli"es the impact of rainfall. As a result, #ooding events are increasingly subject to di%erent causal interpretations, including designating it as “an act of God” or understanding it as solely the result of intense precipitation, making it more di&cult to pinpoint blame and hold irresponsible actors accountable. Furthermore, this development occurred gradually, thereby obscuring responsibility and making it harder to gain consensus around holding a particular actor, like the a'uent neighborhood’s development company, accountable for the harm. Finally, this #ooding has also been made invisible through normalization. Since Harvey set the standard that anyone in the community could #ood, it stopped becoming unusual when a smaller group continued to #ood later on, despite the fact that they weren’t originally a%ected. Flooding became accepted as something that happens now as a matter of course, instead of a problem with a root cause to be examined and questioned. As a result, I believe what I’ve seen in Elm Grove can be understood, in part, as an issue of slow violence. Further complicating the process of achieving environmental justice in Elm Grove is the fact that both it and the new Woodridge Village development sit on the boundary of Harris and Montgomery County (Contreras, 2019). As such, the di&culty of merging data across counties further distorts and obscures the impacts and causes of #ooding, a&rming Pellow’s (2018) emphasis on the importance of a multiscalar approach in understanding and addressing issues of environmental justice. Furthermore, the resulting jurisdictional ambiguity makes it increasingly di&cult to leverage legal mechanisms and authority for justice. Two other pillars of Pellow’s Critical Environmental Justice framework, which include an intention of intersectionality and the belief that all are indispensable in the creation of a just future, are present as well. First, applying intersectionality provides an important dimension to understanding this injustice considering the concentration of diversity that’s otherwise rare in a neighborhood in this community. Furthermore, this pillar also calls for a focus beyond human stakeholders, valuing sustainability in the built environment—an issue that was heavily neglected in the lead-up to Harvey and the #ooding a%ecting Elm Grove. Second, Elm Grove’s resilience and continued commitment to rebuild is evidence of a strong belief in their own indispensability. Additionally, though the e%ort is not as far reaching nor as intensive as that following Harvey, a small subset of the Kingwood community has demonstrated their own belief in Elm Grove’s indispensability as they continue to show up to help muck out #ooded homes and began the rebuilding process once again. While Pellow broadly discourages turning to the state as a mechanism for justice, it has proved e%ective in the case of Elm Grove. A$er the two instances of #ooding less than six months apart in 2019, a group of over 200 Elm Grove residents "led a lawsuit against the developers of Woodridge Village on the grounds that they were responsible for the !e Not-So Livable Forest: An Environmental Autobiography Aisthesis Volume 14, 2023117 #ooding, pointing out the damage these developers had done to the upstream drainage system, virtually “ridding Elm Grove of proper drainage” (Contreras, 2019). Two years later, in 2021, a settlement was reached denying the developers’ “act of God” defense and awarding the victims via settlement o%ers that “resolved [the issue] to our satisfaction” per lead attorney Jason Webster (Rehak, 2021). However, at the end of the day, it was simply a payo% that, while it may have made a great di%erence in those individuals’ lives, does little to protect them, their community, and similar communities from future #ooding. !e settlement’s failure to mandate the restoration of natural drainage systems or impose limits on current and future developers’ activities further supports Pellow’s point that the state is rarely the best or most e%ective actor in achieving environmental justice. Looking to the Future As I look towards the future, I am not optimistic about Kingwood’s prospects. While some reforms have taken place and some justice has occurred with the settlement of the Elm Grove lawsuit, it seems that, for the most part, the lessons of Harvey, Imelda, and Elm Grove have not changed my community’s behavior. Some protections have been put in place, including individuals purchasing #ood insurance when "nancially feasible and the installation of a new #ood gate system at my public high school, designed to mitigate future damage and prevent the costly 8 feet of water that #ooded my school during Harvey. However, the behaviors that have historically exacerbated #ooding and its disparate impact in my community have largely gone unchanged. Despite the disastrous impacts of Hurricane Harvey on community homes, businesses, schools and the 2015 HEB commercial development project, it seems that developers failed to learn from their mistakes. Less than one year a$er Harvey, over 50 acres of land along one of the main roads that connects my suburb to the highway was cut and cleared for another major commercial development project termed Kingwood Place, which includes retail sites and an HEB grocery store over 100,00 square feet in size (Feuk, 2018). Eerily, this development mirrors the same one that similarly destroyed greenspace and laid concrete in the center of town, also anchored by an HEB, though this new project is even larger. As the e%ects of climate change create stronger and stronger hurricanes while development continues, rising #oodwaters never seem too far away, especially for areas like Elm Grove. Ultimately, experiencing Harvey, Imelda and the handful of smaller #oods impacting Kingwood drastically radicalized my relationship to the environment from a naive, juvenile understanding of just reciprocity and isolated individual interaction to one of community solidarity and responsibility. In Harvey, I witnessed how tragedy and devastation brought Kingwood together to rebuild, forging a community that saw recovery as a journey we were all on together. However, I also saw "rsthand the limits of that community to take responsibility beyond the hurricane for the ways in which we allowed the Harvey #ooding to happen in the "rst place through unsustainable development and the ways in which we remain complicit in that ongoing development and how it continues to a%ect members of our community. As such, I now strongly believe not only in considering how my environmental choices impact my own life, but also the lives of others. While much of the agency in irresponsible environmental choice rests with developers, companies, and local governments, we owe it to each other to consider how the neighborhood we choose to live in, the businesses we choose to support, and the candidates we elect a%ect the environmental outcomes for our community. Whether our community is and remains a “livable forest” is up to all of us, together. References Adriano, L. (2018, January 2). Majority of Harvey victims did not have "ood insurance: Experts. Insurance Business America. https://www. i n s u r a n c e b u s i n e s s m a g . c o m / u s / n e w s / catastrophe/majority-of-harvey-victims-did- not-have-#ood-insurance-experts-88416.aspx Blackburn, J. (2021). Houston "ooded 3.5 years a#er Harvey. Baker Institute for Public Policy. https:// doi.org/10.25613/JP1R-AB27 Chakraborty, J., Collins, T., & Grineski, S. (2019). Exploring the environmental justice implications of Hurricane Harvey #ooding in Greater Houston, Texas. American Journal of Public Health. https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/ full/10.2105/AJPH.2018.304846 !e Not-So Livable Forest: An Environmental Autobiography Aisthesis Volume 14, 2023118 Contreras, K. (2019, July 13). Kingwood residents "le suit a$er hundreds of homes damaged during May #oods. Houston Chronicle. https:// www.chron.com/neighborhood/kingwood/ news/article/Kingwood-residents-"le-suit-a$er- hundreds-of-14092667.php Environmental Protection Agency (n.d.). EJScreen [interactive map]. Retrieved December 2, 2022, from https://ejscreen.epa.gov/mapper/ Feuk, M. (2018, October 1). Land being cleared in Kingwood for new HEB-anchored development. Houston Chronicle. https://www.chron.com/ neighborhood/kingwood/business/article/ L and-b e ing-c le are d- in-King wo o d- for- new-13266831.php French, C. E., Waite, T. D., Armstrong, B., Rubin, G. J., English National Study of Flooding and Health Study Group, Beck, C. R., & Oliver, I. (2019). Impact of repeat #ooding on mental health and health-related quality of life: A cross-sectional analysis of the English National Study of Flooding and Health, 9(11). https://doi.org/10.1136/ bmjopen-2019-031562 Greater Houston Partnership (2020, July). Houston facts 2022. https://www.houston.org/sites/ default/files/2022-09/houston%20facts%20 2022_Digital_0.pdf Harris County Flood Control District (2018). Unprecedented: Federal brie"ng. https:// r e d u c e f l o o d i n g . c o m / w p - c o n t e n t / uploads/2018/08/hcfcdfederalbrie"ng2018.pdf Houston/Galveston, TX Weather Forecast O&ce (n.d.). Hurricane Harvey & its impacts on southeast Texas. National Weather Service. https://www.weather.gov/hgx/hurricaneharvey King, B. (2019). Why Houston "oods: Case study no. 2 Elm Grove & North Kingwood Forest. https://billkingblog.com/why-houston-floods- case-study-no-2-elm-grove-north-kingwood- forest/ Mehrtens, S. (2019, September 19). Tropical Storm Imela #oods hundreds of homes in Kingwood, Humble areas. !e Kingwood Observer. https:// www.chron.com/neighborhood/kingwood/ news/article/Tropical-Depression-Imelda- #oods-hundreds-of-14454109.php Mooney, C. (2018, January 8). Hurricane Harvey was year’s costliest U.S. disaster at $125 billion in damages. !e Texas Tribune. https://www. texastribune.org/2018/01/08/hurricane-harvey- was-years-costliest-us-disaster-125-billion- damages/ Nelson, S. (2015). Streams and drainage systems. Tulane University. http://www2.tulane. edu/~sanelson/eens1110/streams.pdf Pellow, D. N. (2018). What is critical environmental justice? Polity Press. Planning & Development Department (2021). Super neighborhood resource assessment: Kingwood area. City of Houston. https://www.houstontx.gov/ planning/Demographics/2019%20Council%20 District%20Pro"les/Kingwood_Area_Final.pdf Rained out: Looking back at holidays that ended with "ooding in Houston (2018, December 7). ABC 13. https://abc13.com/houston-#ooding- tax-day-#oods-in-memorial-labor/4136696/ Rehak, B. (2018, June 11). Damage map: Neighborhoods in Lake Houston area hardest hit by Harvey. Reduce Flooding. https:// reduce#ooding.com/2018/06/10/damage-map- neighborhoods-in-lake-houston-area-hardest- hit-by-harvey/ Rehak, B. (2019, September 20). Elm Grove has 2-3x more damage than a#er May 7, much of it foreseeable and preventable. Reduce Flooding. https://reduceflooding.com/2019/09/20/elm- grove-has-2-3x-more-damage-than-a$er-may- 7th-much-of-it-foreseeable-and-preventable/ Rehak, B. (2020a, August 9). More delays, denials, and victim-blaming in Elm Grove lawsuit. Reduce Flooding. https://reduce#ooding. com/2020/08/09/more-delays-denials-and- victim-blaming-in-elm-grove-lawsuit/ !e Not-So Livable Forest: An Environmental Autobiography Aisthesis Volume 14, 2023 Rehak, B. (2020b, May 7). One year ago today, streets of Elm Grove turned into rivers for $rst time. Reduce Flooding. https://reduce#ooding. com/2020/05/07/one-year-ago-today-streets-of- elm-grove-turned-into-rivers-for-"rst-time/ Rehak, B. (2021, September 10). Elm Grove lawsuits settled! Reduce Flooding. https://reduce#ooding. com/tag/elm-grove/ Rehak, B. (2022, September 19). Imelda’s third anniversary brings clearcutting into focus. Reduce Flooding. https://reduce#ooding.com/tag/elm- grove/ Rice, J. (2016). Slow violence and the challenges of environmental inequality. Environmental Justice 9(6). https://doi.org/10.1089/env.2016.0019 Rice, J. (2019). ‘We’re going to "ood again’: !is Houston neighborhood got hit twice in 2019. Houston Public Media. https://www. houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/in- depth/2019/12/17/354493/were-going-to-#ood- again-this-houston-neighborhood-got-hit- twice-in-2019/ Shultz, J. & Galea, S. (2017). Mitigating the mental and physical health consequences of Hurricane Harvey. JAMA 318(5), 1437-1438. https:// jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article- abstract/2654052 Zhang, W., Villarini, G., Vecchi, G., & Smith, J. (2018). Urbanization exacerbated the rainfall and #ooding caused by Hurricane Harvey in Houston. Nature 563, 384-388. https://www. nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0676-z 119