Houston has finally let go of a piece of land it never knew what to do with. In 1986, the city paid $5.7 million for 1,400 acres near Brookshire on the Katy Prairie, intending to build a third major airport to ease pressure on Bush Intercontinental and Hobby. That plan never got close to a runway. Environmentalists warned the site sat in the middle of one of the region's busiest wintering grounds for geese and waterfowl, developers and officials spent years arguing over the numbers, and the oil bust of the 1980s quietly killed off the demand the airport was meant to serve. By the late 1990s, the project was dead in all but name. Now, nearly forty years after the land was bought, Houston City Council has sold it on to Waller County for $19.7 million, not for aircraft, but for parks, wetlands and flood control.
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