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Aquatic Habitat Restoration - Long an exceptional fresh water fishery and a haven for ducks, wading birds and other wildlife, Lake Livingston is nearly 60 years old. It has lost much of its aquatic habitat and the water quality has declined. Once a destination for bass anglers, there has seen a precipitous decline in angling activity. Recreation on Lake Livingston is a major economic engine for numerous surrounding communities and the decline in the fishery has negatively affected local revenues.
Since 2013 and with start-up and continuing assistance from Friends of Reservoirs, Texas Parks & Wildlife (TPWD), the Trinity River Authority (TRA), the Hookers Fishing Club (Livingston, TX), Fishings Future (Tx), and 6 local high school Ag programs, Friends of Lake Livingston (FoLL) is restoring habitat for fish and wildlife populations by adding aquatic and riparian plants along the shoreline to create feeding and breeding grounds and reducing erosion! Working with the local community to achieve these objectives is considered fundamental to the FoLL project. Additionally, the FoLL project partners with the Livingston, TX Hookers club who will be working with the FoLL project team who began introducing hybrid bass into Lake Livingston in 2024 in collaboration with Texas Parks & Wildlife.
The long-term goal of the project is to increase the abundance and diversity of native aquatic plant species and riparian habitat in and around Lake Livingston, TX, thereby improving littoral habitat conditions for the fish community and other aquatic life. Texas Parks & Wildlife has proposed that a successful restoration will need to cover 5% - (4,250 acres) of the lake and/or shoreline habitat. Additionally, through work with our volunteer high schools, we have discovered that a significant number of volunteering students do not know how to fish or if they do, rarely go. As such, as part of our objectives, we have established a permanent partnership with Fishings Future which adds Angler Education to our objectives. At our recent high school plantings, fishing instruction and actual Fishing has now been incorporated into the volunteer effort. A final note. We have spent all of 2025 and now 2026 restoring previously planted sites on the north side of Lake Livingston that were destroyed in severe floods several years ago.

Beginning in 2014, a single plant species (American water willow) was introduced at numerous sites around Lake Livingston. Beginning in 2017, multi-species aquatic plant propagation was added providing expansion of establishing more aquatic habitat. Plants introduced included American Water Willow, Bulrush, Hyssop, and Lilies. These have been underway now for over 9 years.
Since 2017, we have been applying RFHP principles including creating founder colonies that have been established in several locations. Founder colonies are now part of our planting process to provide initial protection against herbivory actions for all new sites. They have been very successful.
Volunteer propagation and plant introduction by the local community has been in place since the project started in 2013 and continues today. Our process at the 5 local high schools includes yearly ecology education (at the start of every school year in late August), propagation of aquatic plant species on each high school campus and later introduction of their own plants at selected sites in Lake Livingston. Part of the instruction also includes Macro-Invertebrate principles and monitoring at their planting sites as an indicator of water quality.
Additionally, we work with the Texas Dept. of Corrections (TDCJ) Ellis Unit-Lee College horticulture class which also includes ecology education outreach as well as plant propagation which supplements high school volunteer plant propagation. This prison unit is used as an initial plant propagation site after which plants are transferred to the high school groups for further growth. We continue to work with several other community groups including Master Gardeners (San Jacinto County), Texas Master Naturalists (Livingston, TX & Conroe, TX chapters), the Livingston, TX Hookers Club, Rotary Clubs, and the Livingston, TX Chamber of Commerce.
Over the course of 2025 and spring of 2026, we have hosted two “high school” plantings where participating high schools students came to selected sites and constructed founder colonies with water willows and additional new aquatic plants. These sites have already shown positive expansion over the last few summer months.
Additionally, one of our participating community sponsors, Carolina Creek Christian Camp (now Camp ChoYeh), called us in April and requested we sponsor a conservation project for a visiting group, Camp Hope America – Ft. Worth. This Camp Hope Chapter works with kids exposed to domestic and sexual abuse over the course of 12 months. In 2024, Camp Hope planted 1,000 water willows in Carolina Creek next to the camp. In early June 2025, we once again hosted Camp Hope youth at Carolina Creek Christian Camp for Angler Education and Georgia Cube reef building. The kids built 3 new Shelbyville type reefs which were put into Lake Livingston during the summer by the Trinity River Authority in Livingston. In June 2026 we hosted the Arlington Camp Hope group for a fishing expedition involving both Elementary School kids as well as high school kids. This fishing expedition was held along Carolina Creek on the north side of Lake Livingston adjacent to one of our re-planted aquatic habitat restoration sites which was compromised in severe flooding several years ago.

Both Texas Parks & Wildlife and the Trinity River Authority are both involved in working with FoLL to approve sites for planting American Water Willows and associated aquatic plants for aquatic habitat enhancement. The lake management plan documents this work with numerous references to the FoLL project work. The TPWD lake management plan also denotes the need for habitat enhancement with numerous references to our project work. A link to the Lake Livingston management plan is included in this submission. Of note, both TPWD and TRA attend every high school youth planting in the spring and fall and provide logistical and boat transport support for both the aquatic plants and the kids.

Lake Livingston TPWD lake management plan - https://tpwd.texas.gov/publications/pwdpubs/media/lake_survey/pwd_rp_t3200_1326_2024.pdf

White Bass, Black Bass, Blue and Channel Catfish, Crappie, Striped Bass, Bluegill, Threadfin and Gizzard Shad (as prey species)

Outreach - FoLL has built a broad outreach plan that includes:
• Updated website – friendsoflakelivington.com
• Active Facebook site updates
• Bi-annual community newsletter
• Posting of activity in local community newspapers
• Presentations on the FoLL project to the local “Hookers” fishing club and several community organizations including 2 master naturalist chapters in Conroe & Livingston, TX, and the TPWD Texas Waters Education program.
• Yearly Ecology outreach to our 6 participating local high school agriculture programs
o Education on lake ecology, littoral habitat, lake conservation, horticulture, active plant propagation in supplied propagation tanks, invertebrate monitoring, riparian habitat restoration and water quality testing

• Yearly instruction of Texas Master Naturalist concepts at the Texas Dept. of Corrections Lee College horticulture program including lake ecology, plant propagation, and supplied propagation tanks