News
Balancing Texas’ budget is always complicated. The pandemic and recession will make it even harder in 2021.
One of the largest tasks Texas lawmakers will tackle during the 2021 legislative session that begins in January is writing the state budget, which outlines state spending for the next two years. While the tome-like General Appropriations Act can seem overwhelming and...
Great Springs Project proposes a network of trails from Austin to San Antonio
Can one of the fastest-developing regions in the country prioritize conservation? That's the hope of the ambitious Great Springs Project, which has inched a little closer to realizing its goal of a national parklike trail connecting two of Texas' most populous cities....
Donor gives Dripping Springs 300 acres to create park
It's not every day that a city gets a $5.7 million parkland donation. The city of Dripping Springs just did — specifically, 300 acres to create a park that will be almost 30 acres bigger than Austin's beloved Zilker Park. Earlier this month, Dripping Springs City...
More than twice the size of Texas
To slow extinctions and climate change, President-elect Joe Biden has embraced a plan to conserve 30 percent of U.S. land and 30 percent of its ocean waters by 2030. It is perhaps the most ambitious commitment to conservation by a U.S. president. How he proceeds will...
Nation’s largest land bridge for people and wildlife opens in San Antonio
A very special public (and animal!) works project is now open in the Alamo City. Robert L.B. Tobin Land Bridge, the United States' largest wildlife crossing, opened in Northwest San Antonio on December 11. At 1 pm on Friday, officials lifted construction barriers on...
US Supreme Court dismisses Texas petition for review in Pecos River dispute
The Pecos river runs from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near Santa Fe, New Mexico through New Mexico and Texas and eventually into the Rio Grande River at the Texas-Mexico border near Del Rio, Texas. In 1949, Texas and New Mexico signed the Pecos River Compact, and...
Environmental groups allege Texas rubber-stamped industrial plants’ pollution — and that the EPA looked the other way
A group of Texas environmental groups say the federal Environmental Protection Agency looked the other way when Texas didn’t require tough enough rules on air pollution for several refineries, gas plants and chemical plants. The Environmental Integrity Project, along...
Bandera Canyonlands Alliance launches public awareness campaign
The Bandera Canyonlands Alliance (BCA) is urging local residents in Bandera and Uvalde counties to be aware of a precedent-setting permit application that would put pristine area waterways at risk. The Colorado-based Young Life organization is asking the Texas...
Opinion: Charity, Not Profiteering
The Texas landscape is changing, and not always for the better. Increasing population and expanding development are destroying native habitat, reducing access to clean and plentiful water, and threatening agricultural production. Between 1997 and 2017, over 2.2...
Cedar Park to continue looking at Lime Creek Quarry redevelopment with end of mining plan
In the next step of the redevelopment of Lime Creek Quarry, Cedar Park has authorized a resolution for an end of mining plan. The quarry is operated by Ranger Excavating, whose operation lease ends June 30, 2023. Blasting at the site will end in 2021, Assistant City...
Two groups encourage ‘lights out’ for human and bird benefits
Two organizations are encouraging Highland Lakes residents to go as dark as possible every night through October. The Texas Conservation Alliance is recognizing Lights Out, Texas! from Sept. 5 through Oct. 29, while the Hill Country Alliance designates October as Hill...
Hill Country Alliance’s inaugural Night Sky Month kicks off October with a Harvest Moon
This October features a full moon on its first day, known as the Harvest Moon, and another on its last, a Blue Moon—as in “once in a,” because two full moons in one month doesn’t happen every year. The Hill Country Alliance (HCA) invites people to go outside on these...
Gracias and do look up!
The Comal County Conservation Alliance (CCCA) wishes to express thanks to 61+ generous folks who reached toward open space protection with BIG GIVE gifts to enhance the Land Conservation Fund! For those wishing they had or who failed to reach out on that day, you can...
A pipeline poisons the wells in Hill Country
From the moment Kinder Morgan and its business partners announced that their 430-mile Permian Highway Pipeline would cross the Texas Hill Country, landowners, environmentalists, elected officials and groundwater protection agencies along or near the route have fought...
Great Springs Project envisions a network of trails from Austin to San Antonio
Twenty-seven years ago, Deborah Morin watched as the hills, streams, caves, and springs of the Hill Country outside of Austin were being gobbled up by construction... Almost three decades later, Morin, a San Antonio native, is at the head of a nonprofit working to do...
Texas moves ahead on discharging oil wastewater, even as EPA balks
Environmental officials in Texas and other western states are moving ahead on plans to allow oil and gas companies to treat drilling wastewater and discharge it into rivers and streams, even as the Trump administration balks at endorsing the practice amid widespread...
Q&A + Water: Robert Mace
In this issue’s Q&A, Texas+Water Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Todd Votteler, interviews Dr. Robert Mace, Executive Director and Chief Water Policy Officer for The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University. In addition to his position at the...
Shhh… This just might be the prettiest body of water in Texas
I’m a spring-fed freshwater swimming nut. Rivers and creeks are my thing, as long as they’re unspoiled, untamed, and unchlorinated—the clearer, the better. The sweetest water I’ve ever seen was on a ranch near the headwaters of the West Fork of the Nueces, out in the...
Texas Living Waters Project unveils 2020 Texas Water Conservation Scorecard
Texas water conservation practices have not improved in the last four years. June 23rd, 2020 - Austin, TX - The Texas Living Waters Project released the 2020 Texas Water Conservation Scorecard, an in-depth analysis and ranking of the water conservation efforts of more...
Black women come together to form Black Hikers Week
After witnessing the power and pride experienced as a result of Black Birders Week, Social Media Influencers and members of the black hiking community Zenovia Stephens (Huntsville, AL), Debbie Njai (St. Louis, MO), and Nailah Blades Wylie (Sandy, UT) joined together...
Revealed: millions of Americans can’t afford water as bills rise 80% in a decade
In the first nationwide research of its kind, our findings reveal the painful impact of America’s expanding water poverty crisis as aging infrastructure, environmental clean-ups, changing demographics and the climate emergency fuel exponential price hikes in almost...
TESPA files new lawsuit against Permian Highway Pipeline, Kinder Morgan
The Trinity Edwards Springs Protection Association (TESPA), acting on behalf of Blanco County landowners whose water was impacted in a spill of drilling fluid, has filed a lawsuit in federal court against the Permian Highway Pipeline and Kinder Morgan. The case...
What’s next for Black AF in STEM?
Last week, Black researchers and avian enthusiasts flocked to social media to participate in the first ever Black Birders Week (May 31-June 5). “Growing up, there weren’t many outlets showing diversity, so I was only able to be inspired by white conservationists and...
What’s at stake when we pave over, fragment and otherwise fail to protect Texas farmland from the disruptions of development?
Millions of acres of America’s agricultural land were developed or converted to uses that threaten farming between 2001 and 2016, according to “Farms Under Threat: The State of the States,” a new report by American Farmland Trust. The report’s Agricultural Land...
Sierra Club urges court to halt construction on parts of Permian Highway fracked gas pipeline
Late Friday evening, the Sierra Club filed a motion for preliminary injunction in its lawsuit against the Permian Highway Pipeline. In late April, the Sierra Club filed a lawsuit arguing that the Army Corps failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act...
New Vista Ridge pipeline water could delay start of water restrictions
"Because we are using less of the Edwards’ water, that maybe takes some stress off the Edwards. Maybe it drops less quickly," Gus says. "And maybe we’re a little less likely to hit the trigger. It does help us out in that regard." That's what aquifer officials hope...
SAWS flushing half of Vista Ridge water as cost overrun nears $80M
The San Antonio Water System is flushing some of the most expensive water in Texas down a Northside creek as it struggles to finish a connection pipeline that has run nearly $80 million over early cost estimates. Originally set to be finished in mid-April,...
Armed with Eminent Domain, pipeline projects continue to burden landowners during the pandemic
Pipeline giant Kinder Morgan is cutting a 400-mile line across the middle of Texas, digging up vast swaths of private land for its planned Permian Highway Pipeline. The project is ceaseless, continuing through the coronavirus pandemic. Landowner Heath Frantzen said...
As coronavirus cases rise, so does Austin-area contingency planning
As Texas saw its eighth consecutive day of record COVID-19 hospitalizations Friday, Austin-area officials began preparing for the possibility — considered remote but growing — that a field hospital might be needed to handle overflow patients. The Austin Convention...
Harriet Tubman, an unsung naturalist, used owl calls as a signal on the Underground Railroad
Many people are aware of Harriet Tubman's work on the Underground Railroad and as a scout, spy, guerrilla soldier, and nurse for the Union Army during the Civil War. Fewer know of her prowess as a naturalist. At the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad State Park in...