News
How the ongoing drought impacts the Hill Country
In 2022, San Antonio received only a third of its average annual rainfall. Kerrville received 12.38 inches, 60% below its normal average. Popular swimming holes from Jacobs Well in Wimberley to the Guadalupe River near Center Point dried up. The Pedernales, Llano...
You have all the parking you need—and it’s hiding in plain sight
Communities far and wide believe that they have a parking problem. This concern generally ranks as a top problem voiced in public meetings and shows up in master plans and visioning documents. Lack of parking creeps in as an excuse for declining or stagnant economic...
Urban gardens are good for ecosystems and humans
Traditionally, it has been assumed that cultivating food leads to a loss of biodiversity and negative impacts on an ecosystem. A new study from researchers at multiple universities, including The University of Texas at Austin, defies this assumption, showing that...
Massive influx of visitors expected for 2024 solar eclipse
The Highland Lakes area should expect a massive influx of visitors for a total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, and significant preparations are necessary to accommodate them, according to Hill Country Alliance Night Sky Program Manager Dawn Davies. Davies gave a...
Drought hits hard in the Hill Country
The Frio River is flowing again — in places. “The water is clean, and the water is good right now,” said Brett Rimkus, who operates the concessions at Garner State Park in Concan, 90 miles west of San Antonio. “If you want to get in the water, it is great. The river...
Black and Hispanic Texans say they don’t trust the quality of their water
Black and Hispanic people and those living in low-income Texas communities are highly concerned about the quality of their drinking water, a new survey shows. Commissioned by the nonprofit organization Texas Water Trade, the survey included responses from 650...
The lost reservoir inside our water infrastructure
Water is shaping up to be a priority during the 88th Legislature. Texas weathered its fourth-most intense drought on record last year and entered 2023 with half the state still in drought. Spurred by this precarious situation, a group of House lawmakers recently...
Department of Defense announces 2023 REPI Challenge funding recipients
The Camp Bullis Sentinel Landscape Partnership (CBSL) has received a $5.1 million award from the US Department of Defense (DOD) to protect groundwater supplies in the Texas Hill Country. Funds from DOD’s Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration Challenge...
Guadalupe runs dry with rainfall scarce
Despite the recent rain across the region, the Guadalupe River and a popular watering hole are in a sorry state. January usually sees 2 inches of rainfall in the San Antonio area. But it hasn’t even been close this year. The region has received just 0.47 inches of...
Environmental advocates push feds to investigate Texas’ enforcement of water quality
The Environmental Protection Agency says an informal investigation is underway after more than two dozen environmental advocacy groups submitted a petition against the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The petition alleges that state regulators are not doing...
TxDOT central I-35 expansion project puts businesses at risk of displacement, loss of 625 jobs
The Texas Department of Transportation released the environmental impact statement (EIS) draft for its proposed Interstate 35 Capital Express Central project. The draft provides Central Texans their first look at how many residences and businesses could be impacted by...
Texas heat-related deaths reached a two-decade high in 2022 amid extreme temperatures
Heat-related deaths in Texas last year reached a new high for this century amid a sharp rise in migrant deaths and soaring temperatures enhanced by climate change, according to a Texas Tribune analysis of state data going back to 1999. In 2022, Texas saw its...
Rural Central Texas’ plentiful trees make power outages a frustrating fact of life after storms
By the glow of a flashlight, Stacy McAlpine and her 10-year-old granddaughter played Go Fish and other card games as they snuggled up next to a propane fireplace. Thirty miles south in Robertson County, Elizabeth Smith and her husband cooked freeze-dried camp food...
New bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers wants to highlight the state’s fragile water infrastructure
A bipartisan group of state lawmakers plans to spend part of its time in Austin this year highlighting the state’s increasingly fragile water infrastructure. Texas Water Foundation, a nonpartisan nonprofit focused on creating a sustainable water system in Texas,...
Flawed groundwater planning process puts Texans at risk
Texas’ process for protecting its groundwater resources is fundamentally flawed — lacking critical funding, science, and planning tools, failing to safeguard future groundwater supplies, and endangering both the water security of Texas communities and the property...
A billionaire’s luxury development fuels fight over Texas Hill Country
A billionaire seeking to build a resort with luxury homes in the Texas Hill Country is facing off against neighbors opposed to development on environmental grounds, highlighting the growing tensions as the region’s economic surge fuels a boom outside Austin. Steve...
Miranda Wait discusses Spring Lake adventure with Big Ideas TXST
Texas State University’s Miranda Wait, deputy director of Spring Lake education for The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University, joins the Big Ideas TXST podcast for February’s episode to discuss various projects and programs that can be...
Are you lonely? It’s not you, it’s the way we’ve built our nation
If you’re feeling lonely, you’re not alone. Loneliness is an increasingly common experience, and it can have severe consequences. People who feel lonely are at higher risk of serious health issues, including heart disease, immune deficiency and depression....
Texas Legislature 101: Understanding the state government and how it passes laws
The first time Shera Eichler entered the Texas Capitol to work as a legislative aide in 2002, she was nervous. She didn’t have much experience at the Capitol, apart from a visit through a school field trip. But she was quickly promoted about a month later to chief of...
An ode to Texas’s disappearing swimming holes
I lived through the golden age of Texas swimming holes. Having spent my youth submerged in chlorinated pools in and around Fort Worth, I moved to Austin in 1973 and discovered Hippie Hollow before it was a county park and Barton Creek before a mining executive...
South Texas rancher profile: Native American Seed Company — Taking Texas back to her roots
Bill Neiman has performed as keynote speaker at over 100 events for like-minded naturalist people around the state of Texas. His topic is his passion — sustainable native grass prairies, clean rivers, rainwater harvesting, and harnessing the energy of the sun for the...
Opinion: It’s time for a water session at the Legislature
There are now over 30 million Texans. The state crossed that landmark in mid-2022, gaining the most new residents of any state in the nation, with projections of an additional 25 million people living in Texas by 2050. All that growth is taking its toll on the state’s...
Neighbors fighting rural concert venue
A developer wants to bring a 5,000-seat concert venue to a rural, two-lane road in Dripping Springs, about an hour and a half northeast of San Antonio — but neighbors are singing a different tune. The so-far-unnamed Fitzhugh Road concert venue started making waves in...
Preservation vs. development: Opinions differ on the future of Hill Country
Only about 5% of the area is currently protected from development. Hill Country Alliance Executive Director Katherine Romans believes projects like this are scary propositions. The organization noted that the region has grown 50% in the past 20 years. “Currently we...
An art series honoring state parks is on exhibit at the Bullock Texas State History Museum
An art exhibit called 'The Art of Texas State Parks' will first get shown at the Bullock Museum on Jan. 7 to April 30. It features more than 30 parks with artwork created from Texas' most celebrated artists. After these artworks are displayed in exhibition for three...
Texas’ first House Water Caucus positions water as a top priority this legislative session and beyond
Texas Water Foundation (TWF) today announced the establishment of the Texas House Water Caucus, a new, bi-partisan collaborative focused on water issues with a starting roster of thirty-eight legislators committed to the cause. As one of the fastest growing states in...
Residents in far north Bexar County fighting to protect endangered bird
A tiny bird is at the center of a growing battle over land development in far north Bexar County. Cibolo Canyons is home to the endangered golden-cheeked warbler, a bird native to Central Texas. A proposed land swap in is raising questions for neighbors. Read more...
Noisy neighbors: Musk’s Boring Co. and SpaceX unsettle rural Bastrop County
In August 2021, a handful of Bastrop County residents noticed something big unfolding on quiet Walker Watson Road. The two-lane road, about a quarter-mile long from end to end, bisects cow pastures, cornfields and woods. It’s lined by 15 homesteads, most on lots of 1...
Hays County partners with Hill Country Conservancy and La Cima to acquire Purgatory Creek Nature preserve as conservation land
Hays County has acquired Purgatory Creek Nature Preserve, a 1,068-acre conservation easement that will permanently protect and preserve the land from future development. This easement was proposed and sponsored by the Hill Country Conservancy (HCC) to be funded...
In Texas Hill Country, darkness enlightens and inspires
The city of Blanco sits on the edge of darkness, and it’s trying to stay there. Nestled in the rural Hill Country of Central Texas, the 1,700-person town is growing – but locals are wary of losing the longtime neighbor they all share: the neighbor that lives overhead....