News
Water Seed Grant Initiative webinar summarizes project progress
In 2020, seven multidisciplinary teams were chosen as recipients of the fiscal year 2020-2021 Water Seed Grant Initiative, “Research, Engineering and Extension: Creation and Deployment of Water-Use Efficient Technology Platforms.” The teams were selected by Texas...
White House to review floodplain building codes in response to petition
The White House on Tuesday announced a series of new proposals for climate initiatives, including new building standards for structures in flood-vulnerable areas. In the fact sheet, the Biden administration announced a comment period for an update to the National...
EPA announces the expected availability of $21.7 million in grant funding to support rural and small water systems
Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it expects to issue by October 15th a $21.7 million grant funding opportunity for technical assistance and training providers to support small drinking water and wastewater systems that are often...
Two distinctive Hill Country wineries show why Texas Wine Month is well worth celebrating
With more than 500 wineries driving an economy valued at $13 billion, it’s clear Texas wine has long passed the all-hat-and-no-cattle phase. That there’s red, white and rosé gold in them there hills is further underscored by other statistical rankings that put the...
If you think the Texas electrical grid is fragile, take a look at our water infrastructure
In August, during the second special session of the 87th Texas Legislature, the Texas Capitol flooded. After the water stopped cascading down the pink granite walls inside the Capitol extension, the Legislature resumed its deliberations. The August flood was preceded...
Already, 18 weather disasters costing at least $1 billion each have hit the U.S. this year
This year is on pace to be one of the most active and costliest years for disasters in the United States. Through the first nine months of 2021, the U.S. has endured 18 separate weather and climate disasters that have cost at least $1 billion, according to the latest...
Climate change is making Texas hotter, threatening public health, water supply and the state’s infrastructure
Climate change has made the Texas heat worse, with less relief as nighttime temperatures warm, a report from the state’s climatologist published Thursday found. Climate data also show that the state is experiencing extreme rainfall — especially in eastern Texas —...
All in the Family
Bryan Parras recalls a time in elementary school when he accompanied his dad on a work trip to Nederland, in Texas’ Golden Triangle. The warehouse where his dad organized county workers was “just one open vacant room with a bunch of chairs like you would see in a...
Return on Investment: How putting a dollar figure on the value of conserved lands can help save more of them
The fall issue of the Land Trust Alliance Saving Land magazine highlights recent grants to land trusts for remote monitoring projects, transformative partnerships between land trusts and Indigenous groups and NRI's work to define the economic value of protected lands....
25% of all critical infrastructure in the US is at risk of failure due to flooding, new report finds
As a massive investment to repair roads and adapt to climate change faces an uncertain fate in Congress, a new report finds much of the country's infrastructure is already at risk of being shut down by flooding. And as the planet heats up, the threat is expected to...
Building the Texas Water Data Hub from the ground up
Roughly five years ago, the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation began gathering a small group of Texas water data stakeholders to discuss opportunities to improve decision-making in the water space by improving access to the data that decisions are based on....
Highland Lakes residents speak at recent LCRA board meeting as agency continues work on new commercial dredging ordinance
By Emily Hilley-Sierzchula - Published October 27, 2021 Highland Lakes residents who spoke during a recent Lower Colorado River Authority board meeting urged directors to be cautious while creating a new commercial dredging ordinance. At its Nov. 17 meeting, the LCRA...
Bee Cave seeking to become Dark Sky Community
The city of Bee Cave will apply to become a Dark Sky Community, a move that would further efforts to preserve the night sky in the Hill Country region by placing restrictions on lights inside city limits. To become a Dark Sky Community, cities must apply through the...
2021 Hill Country photo contest winners announced & 2022 Calendar for sale!
The Texas Hill Country is a unique region filled with diverse wildlife, clear springs, sprawling rural landscapes, historic towns, and some of the starriest night skies in the country. With a rapidly growing population and increasing development coming into the...
River otters are on the rise in Texas
With their thick, glistening manes, proclivity for play, and taste for crawfish, members of a growing southeastern species are flocking to Texas. And no, we’re not talking about recent graduates of Louisiana State University. North American river otters, which were...
Biedermann declines reelection in District 73
After nearly six years in the Texas House of Representatives, Fredericksburg Rep. Kyle Biedermann on Wednesday announced he would not seek a fourth term representing District 73. His statement, posted on his Facebook page just after 10 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 20, hinted...
Republicans say Texas’ new political maps are “race blind.” To some voters of color, that translates as political invisibility.
As they devised political maps to maximize their hold on power for another decade, Texas Republicans laid the foundation for a crucial argument they may need in defending their handiwork against multiple legal challenges claiming they are discriminating against Texans...
Farm families and mental health
Farm families face unique stressors, including financial challenges and family-farming relationships that blur the line between their business and personal lives. These stressors can affect the entire family and may lead to physical illness, depression, substance...
Texas is watering down federal infrastructure funds
A ticking time bomb lies at the bottom of the Llano River, near a small town called Junction. In 2018, major flooding across the watershed overwhelmed the region’s water infrastructure as high waters brought with them silt, dirt and debris. Nearly three years later,...
Developers going big in surging town
It’s a trend in Texas’ fastest-growing county: growing pains. The population of Dripping Springs, a bedroom community west of Austin in Hays County, boomed over 175 percent in the last six years to nearly 7,500 people, census figures show. Now it needs to upgrade...
2021 Hill Country photo contest winners announced & 2022 Calendar for sale!
This past year has continued to challenge us as a region, a state, and a country in ways that no one could have anticipated, from once-in-a-lifetime snowstorms to an unusually rainy summer. Through it all the Texas Hill Country has given us a steady stream of comfort,...
Developer aims to create ‘legacy’ music venue with massive 20,000-seat amphitheater in Southwest Austin
Developers hope to add a crown jewel to the Austin area's already bustling live music scene: a 20,000-seat amphitheater at the center of a 71-acre entertainment and residential project near Bee Cave. International Development Management Co. aims to open the first...
Freshwater mussels in Guadalupe River could go on endangered list because waters they live in have changed
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed placing six Texas freshwater mussels on the endangered species list and designating nearly 2,000 miles of Texas rivers as critical habitat for them. The Guadalupe River Basin — one of four river basins highlighted by the...
Accolades pour in for Comal county conservationist Jensie Madden, who died Sept. 24 in Fischer
Longtime Fischer resident and San Antonio native Jensie Simms Madden, 74, a “founding sister” of the Comal County Conservation Alliance whose fierce advocacy extended to many other prominent environmental organizations in Comal County, died unexpectedly on Sept. 24...
Loss of a fish affirms fears about growth
A tiny, rare fish found only in a small section of the San Marcos River has gone the way of the dodo. The extinction of the San Marcos gambusia affirms the fears of scientists and environmentalists that mounting development and rapid population growth in Hays County...
City approves incentive package for Spurs training center and research campus at La Cantera
The San Antonio City Council approved an agreement with the San Antonio Spurs organization Thursday to contribute up to $17 million in tax rebates for a proposed new development and practice facility on the far Northwest Side. The Chapter 380 Economic Development...
Greenway system is a jewel, fund it in bond
The Howard W. Peak Greenway system is a jewel, connecting San Antonians to nature in the heart of our city. Bike, walk or run on these 82 miles of developed trails and you will encounter deer, foxes, the occasional ambling armadillo, and an array of butterflies and...
1,400-acre development near Hamilton Pool ignites push to protect salamander
Austin's Save Our Springs Alliance and a group of environmental scientists have filed a petition with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the Pedernales River springs salamander as "endangered" or "threatened" under the federal Endangered Species Act. The...
Residents struggle to coexist with quarries
Growing up in the Texas Hill Country, Mark Friesenhahn often would run barefoot through the countryside with his younger brother — but only if their father, “a 150-pound, mean little banty rooster German, full of the culture and work ethic,” hadn’t assigned them a...
Opinion: Unconscionable if lawmakers were to ignore water infrastructure
Less than a year ago, at the end of a particularly vicious peak in the pandemic, half of Texas was without drinking water. Some neighborhoods went dry for weeks. COVID-19 in the aftermath of Winter Storm Uri was a public health emergency that should never be repeated....