I used to fish this stretch of river regularly and it held a lot of crappie, white bass and hybrids back in the day. I am going to venture up there soon and film it all as well as put the video out. I don't have a big following by any means but maybe I can get the right peoples attentions from it. It is a shame that is has come to this but I agree with the above post that the only help we will get is from Mother Nature. It is going to take a monsoon to flood that area enough for it to go over the road or threaten to wash it out. It most certainly will happen its just a matter of when... All that water can't flow down fast enough and will only go up.

Then various government departments (local and federal) got drunk on misinformation, power, and bribes... just saying.

JJ4MEL - Yeah, I volunteered to drag wood out of the jam into the parking lot - FOR FREE FIREWOOD FOR THE CITIZENS - and that was denied as well. Think of all that wood, keeping people warm, made into things ... Look this is a problem that will not go away on its own - PERIOD. Mother Nature? Once Lake Ray Roberts was impounded? Mother Nature had already been spanked. So after that point, this stretch (Ray Roberts to Lewisville) needed human management. I disagree completely with the Mother Nature idea, unless you have the key to me living another hundred years.
Definitely need to go to UNT asap. Names of contacts there? Anybody connected to people there willing to reach out?

My latest article - https://texasflycaster.com/denton-greenbelt-380-park/
The Website Page - https://texasflycaster.com/denton-greenbelt/

AND I am debating launch of www.dentongreenbelt.com . If I can get a little volunteer (constant-long-term) help with it, I'll do it. Meanwhile I hate using "I" all the time, but until there is an organized "WE" ...

I live very near Cooper Lake in Delta County and the upstream feeders all have this issue; some more severe than others but mainly the Middle Sulphur River. The experience up here has been you can clean it up but as soon as the next heavy rains come it will look like no one has ever cleaned anything up since the lake was built. We have a log jam in the Middle Sulphur that I am told stretches for a mile or two up stream from the lake and it continuously grows. About the only places they focus on around here are the bridges. They'll get so piled up in one flood cycle that the water flow could destroy them the next time around if they didn't keep them cleared.

Well I am not alone after all! Unfortunate for you as well.
If we take the time to really think about this, there are bigger reasons why this happened, and why it happened now instead of 10-15-20 years ago. You know I am going to say it, so just cover your eyes. Global warming. I am not saying it to argue about why it is warming, it simply is warming for whatever reason(s).
More severe droughts. More dead trees. More dead trees by the drought stricken waterways. More radical rain events. More flooding. Flooding washes out the deadfall and we get what we got.
The USACE concept "Let Nature Take It's Course" is impossible to defend or support now. Once a river gets dammed, like the Elm Fork of the Trinity, nature is done taking its course. Now, with "temperature change," and no hands-on management NOW or in the FUTURE? Nature taking its course will take a hundred years or more to self-correct, and I would say it will NEVER self-correct.
Not only has this mismanagement rerouted the river, it has created a marshland that nature taking its course never would have created. Trees are now drowned, and dead. The natural habitat for these animals is drowned. Vast areas of the bottoms are useless for more decades to come - unless the river is allowed to again flow it's natural course.
NOTE: I have had not a single person contact me to be a part of the solution either.

Global warming has nothing to do with this. This kind of thing is natural and has been happening since the beginning of time. If you go look at big river systems on google earth such as the trinity downstream and the Mississippi River, you will see oxbows and cut off lakes all over the place. The rivers get dammed up and change course over time leaving behind the scars on the land. The biggest factor here is the damming of the lakes and the river itself. The water slows when it is dammed up and so the rivers don't flow like they used to and logs pile up.

I am down to help but I am not sure what we can do without outside help.

^^Exactly this^^

KidKrappie is 100% correct... We messed with a natural river by damming it in several places and it caused issues that need to be managed from time to time (this is a net good thing because it created habitable land). Nothing more, nothing less. Because of this, the State and/or Counties should spend a little money to clean this up as needed.

It only needs to be managed to allow us to enjoy it for recreational purposes. Meaning, a few jams along the way will not stop the actual water because water will always find a way. Rather, the jams simply stop our ability to float a plastic boat down the waterway. In my opinion, this is a first-world problem.

Global warming is not real? Pretty sure the science shows the globe is warming. I don't care about the reason for warming, it's a scientific fact. And its a fact the globe has warmed and cooled over thousands of years. We just happen to be here now. Will we live long enough for it to cool off? Not me. I believe this bout of higher temperatures causes more unstable weather patterns. Do you? And in those patterns we have more intense heat and sometimes drought, followed by more intense rain events. Do you agree? Let's get out of these weeds and just move forward ...

Now, once civilization steps in to "manage" an area, like the Greenbelt from Ray Roberts to Lewisville? That kind of trumps the natural science of the past million or so years, right? Meaning the oxbows, and other rerouting of the rivers everywhere on the map. So once (the) man steps in to say, this is for us! This is for our recreational experience! Does the man not have a duty to try and keep it at some level of viability for their original intended original purpose? If not, let's plow it all and let nature take its course.

Thanks for being down to help, and I too am not sure what we can do without some outside help. I do know there are places not to go and seek help now ... I got sucked into a true cesspool earlier this week, called Reddit. That place is downright dangerous - people with all kinds of misinformation, racist, agist and hundreds of people sitting at their keyboards all day at work, not working but trolling on Reddit. Sickos. As soon as the clocks strike 5, they stop posting until the next morning. I guess most are working for the man? Anyway, they succeeded in running me off after two days of their insanity

.

I wanted to make sure I didn't know what I was talking about! The term "global warming" refers only to man's participation in the warming of the earth's temperatures - so I am not debating with anyone on that. Here is what Chat says about the way I think it is:

Earth's average temperature has varied over thousands of years due to natural factors such as changes in solar radiation, volcanic activity, and variations in Earth's orbit (known as Milankovitch cycles). These natural variations have led to ice ages, when large portions of Earth's surface were covered in ice, as well as warmer periods, such as the Holocene Climate Optimum, when temperatures were warmer than today.

However, the current rate of global warming, driven by human activities, is unprecedented in Earth's history. The rapid increase in greenhouse gas concentrations since the Industrial Revolution has led to a warming trend that far exceeds natural variability. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has concluded that it is extremely likely that human activities have been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.

That is all it says - unedited.

The area in question is between two dammed reservoirs. We messed with the waterway by slowing the water flow to zero for several weeks at a time. We also use the adjoining acreage for flood control, thus killing off trees. These two things (dead trees and zero water flow for weeks at a time) have caused the log jams.

To the best of my knowledge, these reservoirs and the greenbelt between are managed by the Corps of Engineers. If so, they are literal engineers and literal conservationists and might have determined that the created "wetlands" are just fine as they are. If this is the case, no amount of activism will make them clean it up.

Also, the jams have gotten so bad that we (volunteer civilians) can't clean it up alone. It will need a small barge with a grapple crane and chipper to clear the area. Given the fact that this area is part of two very nice recreational lakes (each being well-maintained), I don't anticipate that the State/Corps will allocate the resources to clean this up... especially because said efforts will only be temporary.

I appreciate your efforts and am not attempting to debate the issue, just sharing how I see the situation (i.e.: lost cause).

The Trinity south of Lewisville is navigatable/fishable. You might want to give this area a try.

The best analysis I have seen.
I had a dream about it though, and saw a potential solution in that dream. WAY TOO MUCH TIME SPENT THINKING ABOUT THIS!
Not only can the problem be solved, the improvement will be permanent and still beautiful to behold - in the long run.
It is extremely debatable and would be controversial AT FIRST.

1) Clear Cut the shoreline to the distance of the max height of a native tree. So a tree that falls will not reach the water.
2) Do it with (many) overhanging tree intervals - in areas that are not as prone to erosion.
3) Clear the waterway. Keep it clear using the new access (from the clearcut).
4) Essentially, this will convert the area into a "meadow-like" flowing river - in appearance. (Think NOT TEXAS-looking meadows.)
5) Accept that there will still be overflowing of the banks (flooding), but not due to multiple areas of blocked riverway.
6) Those areas where flooding provides ongoing evidence of where it will flow, create offshooting ponds that will be habitat for migratory birds.
7) Those areas where the flooding shoots off into the meadow? Build boardwalks over the wetlands or best case - over channels that lead to the ponds.

NO I did not dream all this at once! But when I woke up, I saw it all at once.
Anybody got a couple-hundred-mil? Government workers are expensive these days. Private funds are the way to go I think ... Call it The Jerry Jones Prairie or somesuch (not really).
The clearing of the waterway leads to clear cutting anyway (see the piece on the S side of 380 at the park).

So have you pitched Jerry Jones the proposal? His name forever wondering the banks of Trinity river. I think he is your only hope. And he has a few big guys on his pay role too.

I did not say Global warming was not real because it is. It is a fact. I just don't think global warming had anything to do with the river getting jammed up. That process is natural and has been occurring since the beginning of time.

I can't help but feel that this is more on the TPWD side. The corp owns the land but the fishery is managed by TPWD. This is a recreation/biological issue and so I feel it would fall on them. Who knows. I am seeing first hand that fish have trouble making it up stream to their spawning grounds because of all of the blockages. It is trapping them and making them more susceptible to angling pressure

So, here's the thing. . . I've been reading this thread, and I applaud your valiant and diligent effort to have this place turned into a great recreational area, but it is just too expensive to maintain throughout the year; every year. I've been around that area since the mid-70s, and there is always a drought or a flood. As soon as the State or Corps spends 100s of thousands of dollars to establish it as a safe and fun recreational space, then will come the 6 months of rain as we had in 2019/2020. Six Solid Months. . . And that happens every few years. The Trinity is Always gonna flood and wipe out all the improvements. Bottom line is it is just Not Cost-Effective. And the "dream" you had would cost Millions of dollars to complete a project like that. As I said at the top. . . I applaud your desire and efforts.

I do remember when it was a nice place to go. . . But then came the rains.