News
Rainwater Revival Calls for Grant Applications from Hill Country Schools – Deadline Extended
For the seventh consecutive year, the Hill Country Alliance’s Rainwater Revival offers funds to help students learn about rainwater catchment and water conservation. As Texas Hill Country residents and businesses look for ways to conserve water, the Hill Country...
It’s Time for Texas’ Second Annual Pollinator BioBlitz
In support of Texas’ second statewide Pollinator BioBlitz, organizations and sites around the state will soon be hosting a variety of events to get people outdoors to observe pollinators of all types in yards, natural areas, gardens, parks and community centers. Of...
Over 200 drinking water systems affected by Harvey still shut or impaired -U.S.regulators
More than 200 drinking water systems out of 2,238 affected by Tropical Storm Harvey are still shut or have notices for customers to boil water, state and federal regulators said on Saturday. An additional 101 systems are still being contacted to “gather updated...
In post-Harvey Houston, extent of water contamination largely unknown
When Houston-based epidemiologist Winifred Hamilton spent a few days in the field last week collecting samples of the abundant floodwater Tropical Storm Harvey had left in its wake, she was able to practice the health safety advice she had urged her fellow Houstonians...
Flooded Texas ranchers struggle to safeguard stranded herds
A group of cattle ranchers from an hour south of Houston weathered record-breaking rainfall from Hurricane Harvey only to have their animals go missing. Fearing the worst, the ranchers found the lost but resilient cattle, and now must work constantly to make sure they...
Plastic fibres found in tap water around the world, study reveals
Microplastic contamination has been found in tap water in countries around the world, leading to calls from scientists for urgent research on the implications for health. Scores of tap water samples from more than a dozen nations were analysed by scientists for...
Study links groundwater with surface water in Devils River
A Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) study provides detailed models linking groundwater in a Texas aquifer to the surface flows in one of the state's most pristine rivers. The study shows how karstic pathways of the Edwards-Trinity Aquifer follow the same channels as...
Twelve steps Houston can take to address our flooding problem
The Houston region has a major flooding problem. Denying this fact does a disservice to us all, because flooding will only get worse in the future as the intensity and frequency of severe rain events increases. If we do not admit that we have a problem, we will never...
A Texas Farmer on Harvey, Bad Planning and Runaway Growth
"A century’s worth of unchecked growth...has brought prosperity to many. But it also has altered the landscape in ways that have made both the droughts and the floods more destructive and made that prosperity fleeting. Much of the region sits atop the overtaxed Gulf...
Travis County $185 million bond Nov. election to address roads, safety
Travis County commissioners called a $185 million bond election for Nov. 7 that focuses on road safety and park projects. On. Aug 15, Precinct 1 Commissioner Jeff Travillion said the bond aims to fund “safe roads to school, evacuation roads, low water crossings—places...
Photographer turns lens on our ‘complex, disconnected’ relationship with water
Mustafah Abdulaziz is a former Wall Street Journal photographer who left the media world to pursue a global, 15-year project exploring our "complex" relationship with water. He has visited 11 countries — including Brazil, China, Nigeria, India and Pakistan — to...
HCA Director’s Notes – August 2017
How often in Texas can we say that August began on a refreshing note? Well, it’s thankfully true for the Hill Country as rain brought relief to the dry land and cracked creek beds that naturally accompanies summers in the Lone Star State. Although the temperatures are...
Neighborhood in Travis County designated a “Dark Sky Friendly Development of Distinction”
River Hills Neighborhood Association (RHNA) has been formally designated a Dark Sky Friendly Development of Distinction by the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA). River Hills is a small Travis County neighborhood in the foothills of the Hill Country. In...
Chronic wasting disease continues to spread
An always-fatal neurologic disease is contributing to declines in Western deer and elk herds and raising the possibility of local extinctions. Bryan Richards, chronic wasting disease project leader within the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center,...
Groundwater Ownership in Texas
Groundwater is an integral part of the land, and private landowners have a vested ownership interest in the groundwater below the surface of their land. The Texas Constitution and more than 100 years of case law support this position. Secure, protectable property...
Branch Towers and T-Mobile Curtail Plans to Build Cell Tower
Thanks to some quick community organizing and excellent volunteer leadership from residents of Vanderpool, plans to build a new cell tower on the banks of the Sabinal River have been shifted to instead utilize an existing cell tower. With the help of HCA, Vanderpool...
HCA board member Kathleen Tobin Krueger to take over Edwards Aquifer Authority board seat
Dalondo Moultrie | Herald-Zeitung | New Braunfels resident Kathleen Tobin Krueger, a former mayor pro tem, was scheduled yesterday to be appointed to a vacated seat on the Edwards Aquifer Authority board of directors. Krueger is taking over for Craig Massouh, who was...
Abbott signs bill limiting annexation powers of cities
Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday signed into law Senate Bill 6, which requires cities in large counties to receive voter approval before annexing new areas, one of his top 20 priorities for the special legislative session. “I’m proud to sign legislation ending forced...
In South Texas, Threat of Border Wall Unites Naturalists and Politicians
Last month, Marianna Wright, the executive director of the privately owned National Butterfly Center here, discovered survey stakes on the property marking out a 150-foot-wide swath of land. Ms. Wright later encountered a work crew cutting down trees and brush along a...
Infill Development Could Make or Break San Antonio
San Antonio is changing. Just a few years ago the city saw the odd infill project here and there among the rehabs of historic homes in King William or Monte Vista. These days, infill projects are everywhere in the collar neighborhoods – the ring of historic streetcar...
Volunteers clean up South Llano River
On Friday, August 4th intrepid volunteers from the Texas Master Naturalist Program met with the Llano River Watershed Alliance, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD), and Hill Country Alliance to clean up a portion of the South Llano River south of Junction,...
150K gallons of wastewater spills in Llano due to flash flooding
Around 150,000 gallons of wastewater spilled into Oatman Creek, about 150 yards from the Llano River. The wastewater spilled from the city’s wastewater collection system starting around 7 a.m. Monday. At around 4 p.m. Tuesday, crews diverted the wastewater into a...
Invasive cane continues to plague land on creeks
Two years have passed since the attempt to eradicate Arundo donax began and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) continues to try to get landowners involved. Arundo, also known as giant river cane, is an invasive plant that can grow up to 30 feet tall, take...
Groundwater withdrawals may be the cause of disappearing streams in the mid-west (and here!)
Keith Gido, professor of biology, and Josh Perkin, a Kansas State University alumnus, recently published "Groundwater declines are linked to changes in Great Plains stream fish assemblages" in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The research maps the...
Volunteers improve creek-side habitat at Fort Mason City Park
If you have walked along the nature trail at Fort Mason City Park recently, you may have noticed something new. Something pink. Last week, volunteers from the Texas Master Naturalist Program joined staff from Fort Mason City Park and the Hill Country Alliance to...
Is Susan Combs caught in a Washington-style power play?
Former Texas Comptroller Susan Combs all but had her bags packed last week for a new top post in the U.S. Interior Department. Then, her path to Washington hit a speed bump. Combs, nominated to be an assistant secretary at the Interior Department, was up for a vote by...
Board approves proposal to use aquifer to supply hydraulic fracturing operations
A West Texas board unanimously approved a contentious project to drill into a desert aquifer near Van Horn, build a 60-mile pipeline and ship 5.4 million gallons of water a day from the Apache Mountains to the heart of the nation's most prolific oil field, the Permian...
Can the Monarch Highway Help Save a Butterfly Under Siege?
To stanch the losses and safeguard the migration’s future, in 2015 and 2016 a pollinator task force formed at President Obama’s request released reports that detail a major new strategy to rebuild the butterfly’s wintering population, mostly through aggressive habitat...
TESPA Granted Standing
The SOAH administrative law judge recently granted the Trinity Edwards Springs Protection Association standing to contest Needmore Water, LLC's proposed permit before the Barton Springs Edwards Aquifer Conservation District. Many landowner members of TESPA near...
New National Poll Shows That Hunter and Angler Support for Conservation Crosses Party Lines
“In today’s polarized political climate, conservation has become a partisan issue with decision makers, but hunters and anglers strongly support conservation policies across the board, whether they’re Republican, Democrat, or Independent,” says Whit Fosburgh,...