News & Updates
County to turn off lights in summer and fall to protect songbirds
The Travis County Commissioners Court passed a resolution Tuesday that will mandate county buildings to turn off all nonessential lights from 11 p.m.-6 a.m. during key migration periods for migrating songbirds. The Lights Off initiative will be in effect annually from...
The well fixer’s warning
The well fixer and I were standing at the edge of an almond orchard in the exhausted middle of California. It was late July, and so many wells on the farms of Madera County were coming up dry that he was running out of parts to fix them. In this latest round of...
4 charming Hill Country spots named among Texas’ best small towns by Travel + Leisure
Travel + Leisure magazine has given its seal of approval to four Hill Country communities as being among eight of the best small towns in Texas. In a list published July 28, the magazine lauds Bandera, Dripping Springs, Johnson City, and Wimberley, offering vignettes...
How discharged wastewater is feeding massive Hill Country algae blooms
Green mats coat what once were clear, scenic creeks and rivers, the result of algae blooms that are frustrating those who live in the Texas Hill Country. Effluent is wastewater with its pollutants removed, also known as treated wastewater. When effluent is discharged...
Why a Chinese billionaire bought 140,000 acres of land in Texas
On June 7, Texas governor Greg Abbott sat down at a desk in the state capitol and, flanked by a half-dozen lawmakers, put pen to paper for a ceremonial signing of the Lone Star Infrastructure Protection Act. “As far as I know this is the first law of its kind by any...
Texas Hill Country harvests No. 3 ranking among American wine regions
Sorry, Napa Valley. Apologies, Sonoma Valley. The Hill Country crushes both of those heavily hyped California destinations (like a grape) in a new ranking of the best wine regions. The Hill Country lands at No. 3 in the 2021 USA Today 10Best Readers’ Choice awards for...
How this Texas town became one of America’s fastest-growing cities
In the not-too-distant past, motorists driving along a stretch of Interstate 35 just northeast of San Antonio were met with vast fields of wildflowers and grazing cows in grassy pastures. Today, the cattle are gone, replaced with clusters of sleek apartments, gated...
“We can’t have land back without water back”
Growing up in Sandia Pueblo, on the banks of the Río Grande in New Mexico, Julia Bernal heard tales about the world of her ancestors. Elders told her that the area was home to diverse flora and fauna, the likes of which she had never seen. The river used to overflow...
The key to slowing traffic is street design, not speed limits
On September 8, Wiley & Sons will release the second book in the Strong Towns series: Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: A Strong Towns Approach to Transportation. Chapter five is about building great streets and how it is essential, if we want places that are...