News
Getting out: At a time of social distancing, people look to nature
With the spread of the new coronavirus causing school closures and mandatory work-from-home measures across San Antonio, people are looking to nature as a place to get exercise and find a source of peace, even while staying at least 6 feet away from each other, as...
Rare native prairie near Texarkana preserved by family, conservation groups
Fifth-generation Texans, David and John Talbot of New Boston, in February 2020 sold one of the last examples of unplowed native prairie in northeast Texas to the Native Prairies Association of Texas (NPAT) for permanent preservation as the Talbot Brothers Prairie...
Protecting the Edwards Aquifer means protecting the contributing zone
The total Edwards Aquifer watershed north of San Antonio is 2.5 million acres, composed of 2 million acres in the Contributing Zone and 500,000 acres in the Recharge Zone. To protect the total watershed, we must protect land and water in both zones, not just one of...
Recovering America’s Wildlife Act
Our natural world provides innumerable benefits to human health and economic prosperity. As wildlife and their habitats disappear, these benefits are compromised. Nationwide, experts have identified more than 12,000 Species of Greatest Conservation Need, including...
Important Update: Hill Country Living FESTIVAL Rescheduled for October 24, 2020
Vendors, Sponsors, Partners and Volunteers: Considering recent developments pertaining to COVID-19, and out of an abundance of caution, the Hill Country Alliance FESTIVAL planning team decided yesterday to RESCHEDULE the 4/4/20 Hill Country Living FESTIVAL + Rainwater...
NRCS announces 2020 sign-up available for partnership led conservation program
Producers should visit their local USDA service center before the first application pool closes on April 3, 2020, to apply for this opportunity. If funding permits, a second application pool will close May 15, 2020. If already a USDA client, a producer can submit...
Portman, bipartisan colleagues introduce the Great American Outdoors Act
U.S. Senators Rob Portman (R-OH), Cory Gardner (R-CO), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Steve Daines (R-MT), Mark Warner (D-VA), Angus King (I-ME), Lamar Alexander (R-TN), and Richard Burr (R-NC) today introduced S. 3422, the Great American Outdoors Act – landmarklegislation to...
Troubled waters: San Antonio weighs the cost of preserving its water supply
Taxpayers have spent $260 million to protect the Edwards Aquifer. With the tax set to expire, officials can’t agree on how much more to spend. The Frio River snaked south through the hills of Uvalde County, its clear waters coursing over a bed of white, fractured...
Hill Country Alliance: Meet Executive Director Katherine Romans
Once again the Hill Country Alliance (HCA) is hosting their spring Hill Country Living FESTIVAL + Rainwater Revival (April 4, 2020). And their fifteenth anniversary looms, all of which makes for a great excuse to sit down with the nonprofit’s executive director,...
Groundwater key to Southwest water policy
Western water conversations often revolve around rivers and streams. But water beneath the surface is just as important in shaping water policy and preparing for the future. Hydrologists and water planners from the western U.S. gathered at a National Groundwater...
February 2020 citizen scientist spotlight: Tyson Broad
In addition to serving as the Watershed Coordinator for the Llano River Watershed Alliance, Tyson Broad serves on the Steering Committee of the Texas Hill Country Conservation Network. Texas Stream Team is welcoming 2020 with Tyson Broad as the first Citizen Scientist...
TCEQ awards Meadows Center $350,000 for Cypress Creek Watershed Protection Plan
The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University has been awarded a $351,101 grant from the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to implement Years 4-6 of the Cypress Creek Watershed Protection Plan (WPP). The Cypress Creek WPP is...
Festival in Dripping Springs celebrates Hill Country living
The Hill Country Living FESTIVAL + Rainwater Revival returns to the Dripping Spring Ranch Park on Saturday, April 4, from 10am to 5pm. This free, one-day event promises something for everyone who loves the Texas Hill Country — whether you call it home now, plan to...
Tandy Hills Natural Area: A lasting legacy
I first started to get excited in late December 2019 when I first heard about the City of Fort Worth's new, Open Space Acquisitionsprogram. After watching the City Council work session video, I could tell they were serious. District 7 Rep, Kelly Allen Gray, actually...
Officials: San Antonio should continue managing Edwards Aquifer program, not give it to SAWS
San Antonio should keep a program aimed at protecting the Edwards Aquifer if voters choose to shift sales tax money that funds the program to instead boost public transit, city officials said Wednesday. Mayor Ron Nirenberg has sought to settle the fate of the Edwards...
Fredericksburg earns ‘dark sky’ designation
After review by the International Dark-Sky Association Board, the City of Fredericksburg’s application to become an International Dark Sky Community was unanimously endorsed. “The IDA works to protect the night skies for present and future generations by requiring...
Chronic Wasting Disease discovered at deer breeding facility in Kimble County
Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) has been discovered in a 5 ½-year-old white-tailed deer in a Kimble County deer breeding facility, marking the first positive detection of the disease in the county. The tissue samples submitted by the breeding facility as part of routine...
Hill Country residents challenge the state to stop quarry
Comal County residents are suing the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to stop the construction of a quarry they say will pollute the air with a lung-damaging contaminate. Stop 3009 Vulcan Quarry and Friends of Dry Comal Creek filed a lawsuit in Travis County...
Invasive tilapia are taking over Texas waters, including two San Antonio lakes
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is asking anyone who reels in tilapia at two San Antonio lakes to not return it to the water. There is apparently a lot of tilapia, a non-native species of fish that have been taking over freshwater lakes and rivers in Texas,...
Editorial: Yes, San Antonio can improve transit and protect aquifer
Too often in recent months, the discussion over Edwards Aquifer protection and improving transit was framed as an either/or proposition. Either San Antonio could improve transit, or it could continue to fund aquifer protection. Such a limited view always struck us as...
City staff propose keeping aquifer protection program under city control
As city officials try to get massive transportation plans moving, they are pushing a new plan to continue funding the Edwards Aquifer Protection Program. In a presentation to council members on Wednesday, city staff recommended keeping the EAPP under the city’s...
Proaction needed for water stewardship
Local water resources grabbed state-level attention at the Cow Creek Groundwater Conservation District last week. State Rep. Kyle Biedermann and his environmental policy analyst, Larry Bailey, joined Boerne Mayor Tim Handren in addressing the CCGCD directors and...
WVWA’s response to Judge Pittman’s ruling on the PHP
The Wimberley Valley Watershed Association has been a part of the fight against the Permian Highway Pipeline since we first heard about the project in October of 2018 (www.SaveTheHillCountry.org). We have been working to rally our communities across the Hill Country...
Take This Job: Testing water quality in Austin with TCEQ
Have you ever wondered how the quality of the water in our environment is tested? KVUE's Anavid Reyes got to check it out with the folks at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality(TCEQ). TCEQ strives to protect our state's public health and natural resources....
Hill Country pipeline opponents dealt setback
Opponents of a controversial natural gas pipeline through the picturesque Texas Hill Country lost a legal battle but vow to continue their fight against Houston pipeline operator Kinder Morgan. A U.S. district court judge in Austin on Friday rejected a request for a...
Swine country: How feral pigs took over the U.S.
For millions of years, as pigs snorted and snuffed their way across the planet, evolving and learning to dodge gray wolves and tigers and coyotes and alligators, they were almost assuredly safe from any potential threats from the sky. Then they arrived in Texas, where...
TESPA sues Barton Springs Edwards Aquifer Conservation District over Needmore Permit
The Trinity Edwards Springs Protection Association (TESPA) announced today that it has filed suit in Travis County District Court challenging the decision by the Barton Springs Edwards Aquifer Conservation District (BSEACD) to issue a permit to Needmore Water, LLC to...
Where light pollution is seeping into the rural night sky
Artificial light that floods the night sky is thought to be only an urban phenomenon. But when you adjust for population, the picture is dramatically different. The rule of thumb is that if you want to see the Milky Way, you have to venture out to the countryside....
Hays County: 2020 primary elections voter guide
Federal: U.S. Senate Every state in the U.S. elects two people to represent them in the U.S. Senate, which is the upper chamber of Congress. They are elected statewide for six-year terms. Texas Sen. John Cornyn’s term is up for re-election this year. About a dozen...
Judge: Pipeline through Hill Country can move forward
A federal judge has rejected an effort to halt construction of a pipeline that would carry natural gas from West Texas to refineries on the Texas coast. Officials from the city of Austin, Travis and Hays counties, and other local governments joined private landowners...