News
Will exotics wipe out whitetails?
Exotic deer were brought into the Texas Hill County in the 1930s. Exotic numbers began to increase rapidly in the 1950’s, with the birth of the hunting industry. Exotic surveys by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department began in the 1960’s. At that time, there were 13...
January Director’s Notes: A Letter from HCA’s New Board President, Matt Lara
Thank you to board members past and present, friends, and supporters who joined us to toast the New Year in San Antonio! Dear Hill Country Neighbors, It is a privilege to serve as the new Board President of the Hill Country Alliance (HCA) and to work with my fellow...
Are pipeline land takings in the public interest if oil, gas headed overseas?
Pipeline companies in Texas and other states have long had the power to take land under the eminent domain principle that projects to transport energy to heat homes, generate electricity and produce fuels are in the public interest. But what if the public is in...
New push for eminent domain reform expected at Texas legislature
If you want to cook up a battle over private property rights in Texas, here’s the recipe: Take a handful of sprawling cities and growing populations that are expanding into once-rural areas, add a booming oil and gas industry with a desperate need for new pipelines to...
Thanks to ambitious goals, Austin wins Bloomberg climate change challenge
Citing Austin’s aggressive environmental goals, which include making municipal operations carbon neutral by 2020, Bloomberg Philanthropies on Friday announced that the Texas capital has won a national climate change challenge. The honor means Austin will join a...
How Texas Parks and Historic Sites are dealing with the government shutdown
As the federal shutdown—which entered Day 20 on Thursday—continues, self-appointed cleanup crews have been organized across the state as well as the nation to help care for parks that have remained open, albeit with little in the way of services. Some, like Viverette...
Entities turn to new technology to meet water, aquifer demands
As urbanization and climate change are impacting aquifers across the country, officials and municipalities are turning to new technologies to meet water demands. For many entities, investing in Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) systems might be the way to go. ASR,...
Bill would prevent Texans from unknowingly buying homes in areas designed to flood
After Hurricane Harvey inundated the Houston area with rain, scores of homeowners learned too late that their properties were designed to flood. Senate Bill 339 would require such disclosures. It would also force notice of whether a home has previously flooded. State...
Female ranchers are reclaiming the American West
As men leave animal agriculture for less gritty work, more ranches are being led by women — with new ideas about technology, ecology and the land. Hundreds of years before John Wayne and Gary Cooper gave us a Hollywood version of the American West, with men as the...
Texas land grab: How the federal government abused its power to seize property for a border fence
A decade ago, many border Texans got a raw deal when the federal government seized land for a barrier — while others pushed up the price. Will the government's rushed, haphazard process be repeated as it pushes for a border wall? BROWNSVILLE — The land agents started...
Texas Hill Country landowners fight Kinder Morgan pipeline
FREDERICKSBURG — Hank Sauer reminisces about the 18 years he’s owned these 45 acres a few miles south of Fredericksburg — hunting deer with his now-17-year-old grandson, spending holidays there with the family, and dreaming of spending the rest of his days with his...
Hays County Master Gardener Association announces 2019 training course
The Hays County Master Gardener Association will hold a Master Gardener Training Course on 12 Fridays in spring of 2019. The Master Gardener Training Program is an educational/volunteer program conducted by Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service designed to increase...
New Year’s resolutions for friends of fresh water
It’s true that in many ways, 2019 brings us more of the same: Texas is growing, the climate is changing, and we’re in a race to figure out how Texans can thrive in a not-so-distant reality of tumultuous flooding, harrowing droughts, and less fresh, drinkable water....
Van Gogh’s Starry Night reimagined as Amsterdam Light Festival installation
Serbian artists Ivana Jelić and Pavle Petrović have reimagined Van Gogh's famous painting The Starry Night as an LED installation over the canals of Amsterdam, to highlight the issue of light pollution in urban areas. A series of 1,400 acrylic rods illuminated by...
$250 million residential, golf course project planned for Driftwood
Amid continued growth in the Texas Hill Country, construction is poised to start on a $250 million luxury residential community and private club that would bring more than 300 houses, a golf course and other development to 800 acres near the popular Salt Lick BBQ...
Research underway to help track pollutants in the Edwards aquifer
Jessica Quintanilla, a hydrologist for the Edwards Aquifer Authority, sloshes back onto shore in her black waterproof boots from the middle of this creek just off Scenic Loop Road, south of Grey Forest. “Next, we have to set up the peristaltic pump,” she said, as she...
Barton Springs Pool to reopen after drilling clouds water
Barton Springs Pool will reopen Saturday. The City of Austin closed the pool Wednesday due to cloudy water. They now know that cloudiness was caused by drilling. City officials say sediment was discharging into the pool due to a well being drilled in the Barton...
America’s holiday lights can be seen from space
Forget going out to view your neighborhood's Christmas lights this year: You can do it the 21st-century way, bathed in the pallid glow of a monitor. That's because NASA has just released a wonderful bunch of satellite images of American cities, gleaming like nebulae...
Worries grow after quarry cited for discharge violations
Violations stemming from two separate discharges of sedimentary debris into Onion Creek in 2016 and 2017 led to citations for the Hays Quarry Rock Crushing Plant, according to a Barton Publications investigation. The investigation came after video and photo evidence...
San Antonio getting first sanctioned outdoor rock climbing area in 2020
Medicine Wall, a roughly 80-foot limestone bluff in northern San Antonio, will become the city’s first officially sanctioned outdoor rock climbing area when access to the site opens in 2020. After roughly two years of negotiations with landowners and developers, the...
Natural gas pipeline planned to run through Hays County
More than 80 Hays County landowners—and hundreds more across the Hill Country—either have already or will soon be contacted by Kinder Morgan, Inc., one of the largest energy infrastructure companies on the continent, asking for permission to survey their property to...
First of 55,000 current by GE streetlights installed in innovative regional program spanning 11 Southern California cities
The City of Murrieta, California earlier this month became the first of 11 Riverside County cities to obtain ownership of thousands of streetlights that will be retrofit with LED fixtures to minimize light pollution, enhance public safety and save approximately $60...
Is Texas’ overcrowded, underfunded state parks system being loved to death?
More people are enjoying Texas’ 95 state parks than ever. In the 2017 fiscal year, there were 10 million visitors, a 20 percent increase over 2012. Visitation at some destinations has skyrocketed. For example, the number of visitors to McKinney Falls, a small park on...
Reserve a big part of local dark sky efforts
The stars at night are big and bright … for now. But encroaching development and lights are making our views of the nightly heavens less heavenly. But several communities and individuals are working to see that this part of the Hill Country can still focus upward for...
TCEQ grants hearing on Vulcan quarry project
As expected, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality on Wednesday granted numerous requests for a contested hearing on an application by Vulcan Construction Materials for an air permit to operate a limestone quarry in Comal County. If approved, the project would...
Austin’s Water Forward plan is a bold step into the future
One of the clearest threats to the future of the Texas economy and the well-being of our communities is the lack of water. During times of drought, supplies are already stretched razor thin in many areas of the state – so, what will happen when our state’s population...
Report: Edwards Aquifer at greater risk with climate change, population growth
The Edwards Aquifer could be at risk in the next 50 years as a result of warmer temperatures and more frequent and severe droughts, compounded by population growth. “These climate change impacts will be exacerbated in central Texas’s rapidly urbanizing regions, as...
Texas parks department, advocates pushing Congress to reauthorize key conservation fund
The chief of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department says the absence of the 54-year-old Land and Water Conservation Fund is a "substantial loss" for state parks and natural areas. With Congress set to adjourn next week, parks advocates are pushing for lawmakers to...
Wharton County reservoir key in updated Colorado River management plan
A long-running feud pitting Austin-area lakeside communities against farmers downriver could settle down with proposed changes to a water management plan for the Highland Lakes. The pending update to what’s essentially a user’s manual for operating the river could...
Agency: Cost to curb Texas flooding over 10 years is $31.5B
DALLAS — The cost to curtail damaging flooding across Texas over the next 10 years is more than $31.5 billion and state officials are urging lawmakers to adopt legislation meant to end a cycle of “repairing and rebuilding,” according to a series of recommendations...