Two Men and the Bayou-Vac

Buffalo Bayou is one of Houston’s most recognizable natural landmarks—a ribbon of green cutting through the city where people jog, bike, paddle, and catch glimpses of wildlife that feel out of place in a major metro. But beneath that calm surface is a constant, largely unseen fight against trash moving downstream with every rainfall.

That fight was recently brought to life in a Houston Chronicle feature that followed the men responsible for one of the bayou’s most important cleanup tools. The story spent a morning on the water with David Rivers—better known as “Bayou Dave”—and his deckhand, Trey Dennis, as they operated the Bayou-Vac on Buffalo Bayou on behalf of the Buffalo Bayou Partnership.

Using a custom-built barge fitted with a massive vacuum hose, Rivers and Dennis remove trash directly from the water, one dumpster at a time. What they find, Rivers and Dennis told the Chronicle, is often astonishing.

“We find ceramic sinks, we found ceramic tubs, we find whole grease containers for restaurants, we found a dumpster,” Dennis said. “I don’t care what it is, the good Lord’s gonna move it with water, guaranteed.”

According to the Partnership, the Bayou-Vac removes roughly 2,000 cubic yards of trash each year—Styrofoam cups, plastic bottles, vape cartridges, beer cans, appliances, and even furniture. Rivers explained that the real challenge comes after rainstorms, when debris that has accumulated throughout Houston’s storm-drain system is flushed into the bayou for hours at a time.

The Chronicle described the Bayou-Vac as a “game changer” for waterway cleanup. Designed specifically for Buffalo Bayou, the vessel uses a hydraulic arm to maneuver its hose and a removable dumpster that allows it to operate without expensive shoreline infrastructure. Robby Robinson, the Partnership’s field operations manager, told the Chronicle the system could be replicated almost anywhere.

“You don’t have to have any infrastructure,” Robinson said. “You just gotta have a boat, a trailer, and a boat ramp, and this system will work.”

But the story also made clear that even the most innovative cleanup technology is a downstream solution. Robinson emphasized that most of the trash entering Buffalo Bayou doesn’t come from people tossing litter directly into the water. Instead, it originates across more than 200 square miles of streets and neighborhoods that drain into the bayou when it rains.

“Our job would be easier if the trash never made it into the bayou,” Robinson said.

That observation led the Chronicle to one of the article’s most important points: prevention matters more than cleanup alone. Robinson pointed to deposit recycling systems—often called bottle bills—as a proven way to keep plastic bottles and aluminum cans from ever reaching waterways.

“You put a nickel deposit on all these bottles, they go away,” Robinson told the Chronicle, noting that Oregon saw significant reductions in waterway trash after adopting a similar system.

For Texans for Clean Water, this moment in the story resonates deeply. Cleanup efforts like the Bayou-Vac are essential, heroic, and worthy of support—but they are expensive, labor-intensive, and never-ending if trash continues to flow unchecked from upstream sources. Deposit recycling systems work precisely because they change behavior before litter becomes pollution, giving bottles and cans value and keeping them out of storm drains, bayous, and rivers.

Despite the challenges, the Chronicle piece closed on a note of optimism. Rivers, who has piloted the Bayou-Vac for more than a decade, has watched wildlife return to Buffalo Bayou and still finds beauty in the waterway every day.

“You feel like you’re in another part of the world,” he said. “You don’t even feel like you’re in Houston.”

That sense of possibility is the real takeaway. With dedicated people, smart infrastructure, and market-based policies that stop litter at the source, Texas can protect its rivers—and make stories like this one less about what we pull out of the water, and more about what never ends up there at all.