News
How eminent domain is blighting farmers in path of gas pipeline
In July 2015, Neal Laferriere and his wife, Beth, purchased a home in Summers county, West Virginia. The first time they visited the property after purchasing it, they found stakes outlining what they would later find out to be the route for a gas pipeline. About two...
100 years later, Medina Lake dam still a marvel
The Medina Lake dam is a huge block of concrete, lodged in a canyon, which impounds a waterway flowing along the border of Bandera and Medina counties. But that description hardly does justice to the enduring edifice on the Medina River, say those behind Saturday's...
Hays County, Kyle, landowner lawsuit against railroad commission questions pipeline oversight
Two years ago, Heinz Stefan Roesch bought a roughly 30-acre property along RR 1623, outside of the city of Blanco. His whole family is from the Hill Country, he said, and he had been saving all his life to buy something just like it. Last fall, he started hearing...
One man’s half-century project to heal a Hill Country landscape created a legacy reaching far beyond his fenceline
In 1969, a San Antonio fried-chicken tycoon was struck by a life-changing idea: He would find, buy, and heal “the sorriest piece of land in the Hill Country.” Now celebrating its 50th anniversary, the Bamberger Ranch Preserve sprawls across 5,500 acres of grassy hills...
Texas House passes bill to spend more than $3 billion to help pay for flood control projects
Nearly two years after Hurricane Harvey ravaged the Texas coast, the Texas House approved legislation Thursday that would pull more than $3 billion from the state's rainy day fund to help pay for flood control projects statewide. The House version of Senate Bill 7 is...
Opinion: Through grandmother’s house it goes – Kinder Morgan’s pipeline, that is
Pipeline giant Kinder Morgan would very much like to route a pipeline over the aquifer and through the woods, grandmother’s house be damned. Or condemned, as the case may be. We are talking about KM’s planned Permian Highway Pipeline, a 430-mile-long, 42-inch-diameter...
Centuries-old irrigation system shows how to manage scarce water
It’s spring again, the time of year—for the 300th time in some instances—when New Mexico communities come together to clean the acequias, irrigation channels that carry snowmelt from the mountains to newly tilled farm fields. Each annual cleaning is one more...
Cave explorers discover new 600-foot passage in Natural Bridge Caverns
After six hours of trekking through cappuccino-colored muck last week, a team of cavers entered a previously unexplored 600-foot-long passage inside Natural Bridge Caverns. The passage, located 145 feet underground, is full of mineral-rich pools of water bordered by...
Local official opposes state water bill in Austin hearing
Last week Boerne’s Milan Michalec, chairman of Cow Creek Groundwater Conservation District, was in Austin speaking against House Bill 1806. Authored by Senator Donna Campbell, HB 1806 was the subject of a public hearing in the Agriculture, Water and Rural Affairs...
Lake Dunlap to completely drain after dam failure
Water continues to pour out of lake Dunlap, draining the lake after a spill gate failed early Tuesday morning. Officials say the lake, located in the northern portion of Guadalupe County on the Guadalupe River, will have completely drained by day’s end. “The lake...
May Director’s Notes: Get to Know Ted Flato
Dear Hill Country Neighbors, Spring is the time for neighbors to reach across fence lines, celebrate the good rains we’ve been enjoying, and get together to speak with a common voice for the Hill Country. From the Pedernales Potluck (a bi-annual landowner gathering...
Endgame: Water for a water district
For well over two years and spanning two legislatures, Kendall County Water Control and Improvement District (WCID) No. 3 has searched for a source of water. It now appears that a source has been found, but only if the law that protects the Edwards Aquifer can be...
Gay Ruby Dahlstrom Nature Preserve opens
Gay Ruby Dahlstrom Nature Preserve, Buda, TX – Hays County and the family of the late Gay Ruby Dahlstrom today officially opened the nature preserve named in her honor. “This 384-acre preserve is the culmination of Gay Ruby Dahlstrom’s vision to share her love of the...
Kinder Morgan asks judge to throw out Permian Highway Pipeline lawsuit
Houston pipeline operator Kinder Morgan is asking a judge to throw out a lawsuit filed against a project to move natural gas from the Permian Basin of West Texas to the Gulf Coast. Citing various technicalities, lawyers representing the pipeline company filed a motion...
Hill Country Headwaters Conservation Initiative accepting applications for Regional Conservation Partnership Program
AUSTIN, Texas – Hill Country Conservancy (HCC), the Texas Hill Country Conservation Network and 18 partner organizations today announced Applications of Eligibility are now being accepted from farmers, ranchers and wildlife managers to take part in the $5.15 million...
KXAN investigation sparks bill to make sure companies pay for environmental violations
AUSTIN (KXAN) — A Texas State Representative recently laid out a House Bill that aims to protect clean air and clean water by making sure companies pay for environmental violations. The bill cited a KXAN investigation that found TCEQ had offered discounts on many...
A new pipeline through the Hill Country is pitting the oil industry against landowners
The state’s biggest industry finds itself in an unusual position: facing landowner-friendly reforms at the Texas Legislature. On the day of the explosion, Randy Zgabay’s grandmother kept him inside. His grandfather would usually hold Randy, who was only eighteen...
Preserve our local land
In 1846 when Comal County was founded with an area of 575 square miles, it had a population of 1,700. The U.S. Census Bureau has estimated the 2018 population to be 148,373, a 37% increase over the last eight years. Or, as the Herald-Zeitung’s April 20 editorial...
Wren: Dark skies vital to gaining perspective
Friday evening’s Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math Expo keynote speaker was William Wren, a distinguished and award-winning advocate for dark sky preservation. Wren has worked at the McDonald Observatory for 29 years and currently is the special...
Texas Senate approves using herbicides to fight illegal border crossings
It’s not a wall and it isn’t more boots on the ground, but the Texas Senate has approved a bill that would send millions of dollars of herbicides to the front lines to battle illegal immigration. The Texas Senate passed legislation to send up to $10 million in...
Bulverde developments threaten local water supply by discharging treated sewage into the Edwards Aquifer
The past decade has seen numerous developments sprouting up in the area around Bulverde, Texas. Driven by close proximity to the one of the fastest-growing cities in the U.S., the sprawling development in the Bulverde area is going largely unchecked, causing all sorts...
How San Antonio uses its water to influence Kendall County development
Two years have passed since Kendall County Water Control and Improvement District (WCID) No. 3 was introduced in Senate Bill (SB) 914, by Sen. Donna Campbell. As written, 1,055 acres were to be developed and more than 2,000 homes built, but it had no source for a...
Dark skies bill moves forward in legislature
International Dark Sky communities are one step closer to using Hotel Occupancy Tax (HOT) dollars for infrastructure meant to reduce light pollution. House Bill (HB) 4158, authored by State Rep. Erin Zwiener (D-Driftwood), would give Dark Sky communities more...
A creek flowing to the Colorado River turned black. Now the state has sued the alleged polluter.
ALTAIR — For more than two months, the waters of Skull Creek have flowed black, its surface covered in an iridescent sheen. Yellowed fish skeletons line the pebbled banks of the Colorado River tributary, and a dizzying chemical odor hangs in the air. The odor is so...
Oil or property rights: House panel clashes over which to favor as it weighs eminent domain reforms
Lawmakers, lobbyists and landowners sparred at a Capitol committee hearing on Thursday over a batch of bills designed to protect property owners whose land may be seized by private companies to build oil and gas pipelines. A bipartisan — though largely Republican —...
Two Views: In pipeline politics, love of the land is a shared value
We can be fairly certain that gas pipeline giant Kinder Morgan didn’t have this consequence in mind when it decided to route a massive, nearly four-foot diameter gas pipeline through the Texas Hill Country and over the fragile Edwards Aquifer. That consequence is a...
Dr. Robert Mace to receive Texas Rainmaker Award
Texas Water Foundation is honored to announce the 6th recipient of the Texas Rainmaker Award – Dr. Robert Mace. The Award is given to leaders who have made exceptional contributions and long-lasting impact to promote sustainable water policies in Texas. On May 7,...
Railroad Commission, Kinder-Morgan sued over route of Permian Highway Pipeline
Hays County, the city of Kyle and a coalition of Hill Country landowners have filed a lawsuit to fight the route of Kinder Morgan's proposed Permian Highway Pipeline and challenge how the state agency that regulates the oil and gas industry allows companies to use...
Time for reform of eminent domain law
Corporate entities that take property with eminent domain authority often claim the system is working. It does. For them. Corporations with this powerful, often abused, tool are not required to follow the same rules of transparency that a government must observe. They...
Farmers’ group pushing for transparency in land acquisitions
With the state's ever-increasing infrastructure needs, Texas farmers and ranchers are bracing for the likelihood of pipelines, transmission lines andrailways cutting through their fields and pastures. But some say it’s unfair to allow private companies or other...