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News
Edwards Aquifer Authority has come a long way
The story of water and Texas starts here. San Antonio sits atop the Edwards Aquifer, one of the most abundant artesian aquifers in the world. It supplies water to more than 2 million people and thousands of farmers in the region. Spread underneath the land of South...
The Hill Country Land Trust video: Managing Cedar
The Hill Country Land Trust has released their second video in a series of videos on land management topics. This video takes a look at how best to utilize and control Ashe Juniper (Cedar trees). Many landowners are concerned about juniper's ability to overwhelm their...
Feeling the Burn in Big Bend
"It’s a place of delicate balance between fiercely competing plants, many living at the edge of their geographic ranges and tolerances for temperature and aridity. It’s an ecosystem on a knife edge, dependent on regular rains and steady temperatures. So in 2011, when...
Off-limits Boerne preserve is an oasis in the Texas Hill Country
As more and more people move to the Texas Hill Country, native plants and animals will need special sanctuaries to call their own. The board members who run one such wildlife haven, the private 644-acre Cibolo Preserve in Boerne, offered an exclusive look inside the...
Junction’s water issues
The Hill Country Alliance hopes to be part of the solution for how our rural communities can solve complicated problems like the one that occurred in Junction last month. On August 26th, the City of Junction Water System issued a Boil Water Notice to all of its...
‘Growth Summit’ Highlights Central Texas Economy
The Austin-San Antonio Growth Summit convened in San Marcos Friday, showcasing the economic strength of Central Texas. According to labor statistics presented at the summit, cities and counties all along the I-35 corridor have seen job growth well above the national...
HCLT hires first full time Executive Director
The Hill Country Land Trust has hired Jennifer Lorenz to be their first full time Executive Director. "I am thrilled to come on to an organization that has been doing great things before I got here; including having 20 fantastic permanent land protection agreements...
Dripping Springs plans effluent reuse but wants discharge permit
The city of Dripping Springs, facing an array of opponents to its plan to discharge nearly 1 million gallons per day of treated effluent into Onion Creek, has come up with a proposal to reuse the treated wastewater and is asking the opponents to help pay for the plan....
Women landowner, wildlife stewardship conference set Oct. 3-4
Women landowner numbers are growing. Simultaneously, interest in wildlife operations is increasing. An upcoming two-day conference will bring the two together in the Edwards Plateau region. “Women in Wildlife Conservation – Resources to Set a Stewardship Path,” hosted...
RIP Lone Star Rail
After months of fighting for its relevancy with politicians, bureaucrats and drivers on I-35, Lone Star Rail has passed away. It was 13. Throughout its lifetime, Lone Star Rail showed glimmers of promise, tantalizing Texans from San Antonio to Austin with the prospect...
How Micro-Flora & Fauna Contribute To Water Quality
They may be small, but micro flora and fauna play a significant role in the ecosystem of Texas waterways. At the Texas Water Symposium on Thursday, September 1 in Kerrville, a panel of educators, researchers and ecologists shared their insights on the impact of human...
Cook: The lure and challenge of the Texas Hill Country
Our Texas Hill Country lifestyle: dark quiet night skies filled with stars, the privacy afforded by having some space between you and your neighbors, less worry about crime and air pollution, and just a slower pace all the way around. These are some of the reasons...
HCA Director’s Notes: September 2016
The first two months of my official tenure as Executive Director at HCA have gone by in a blur. The outpouring of support from you—our readers, partners, media and friends—means so much to all of us at HCA. It is your work, care and contribution that make everything...
Texas experiences wettest August in 100 years
If you think August was a wet month in Texas, pick up your prize. Preliminary totals indicate that August averaged about 5.69 inches of rain statewide, in a tie with 1914 for the wettest August on record, according to figures from the State Climatologist office at...
Lands that I love
Our streams, woods, grasslands, and lakes are at greater risk than at any time in our history, but the stories of three places—a ranch in the Hill Country, a forest in East Texas, and a prairie outside Fort Worth—prove that ordinary people can find inventive ways to...
2016 Soil for Water Talk Series
Soil for Water will be hosting three free talks this fall teaching practical management techniques. Come learn how to improve the condition of your land, store more water on-site, increase biodiversity and productivity, and reduce the effects of drought and flooding....
TESPA continues focus on Hill Country groundwater threats
The Trinity Edwards Springs Protection Association (TESPA), originally formed as a response to Electro Purification development proposal near Wimberley, is continuing their focus on Hill Country groundwater issues by addressing new threats to area groundwater supply....
Bankruptcy sheds more light on Abengoa’s Vista Ridge dealings
Spanish conglomerate Abengoa routed nearly $119 million in borrowed funds for the Vista Ridge pipeline project through a nonprofit water supply corporation, according to bankruptcy court filings. Exactly why that money was funneled through the nonprofit Central Texas...
State to hear Flying L versus Bandera County water case
“It is hard to spend tax dollars on lawyer’s fees…[but] when one property owner deems their rights supersede another property owner’s…local control is needed,” City of Bandera Mayor John Hegemier said, on the issue of the Flying L Guest Ranch versus the Bandera County...
2016 Bennett Trust Women in Wildlife Conference, Oct. 3-4
Women landowner numbers are growing. Simultaneously, interest in wildlife operations is increasing. An upcoming two-day conference will bring the two together in the Edwards Plateau region. “Women in Wildlife Conservation – Resources to Set a Stewardship Path,” hosted...
TPWD’s Wildlife Diversity Program accepting grant proposals for conservation related grants
TPWD’s Wildlife Diversity Program is accepting proposals for grants ranging from $2,500-$30,000 for coalition building, conservation education, nature engagement, citizen science data mining, and SGCN research. 2-page applications are due by 5:00 pm on September 30,...
Court voids heart of Texas Highway Beautification Act
A state appeals court has overturned a law that allowed Texas officials to regulate signs along highways and interstates, saying key sections of the 1972 Texas Highway Beautification Act violate free speech rights. Limits on outdoor advertising, the legacy of efforts...
NOAA launches America’s first national water forecast model
NOAA and its partners have developed a new forecasting tool to simulate how water moves throughout the nation’s rivers and streams, paving the way for the biggest improvement in flood forecasting the country has ever seen. Launched August 16th and run on NOAA’s...
Colorado towns work to preserve a diminishing resources: darkness
Four out of five Americans live in places where they can no longer see the Milky Way. But here, the tiny neighboring ranching and railroad towns of Westcliffe (population 568) and Silver Cliff (population 587) have decided to tap into the dwindling natural resource of...
TPWD Proposes New CWD Zones; Public Is Invited To Comment
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) is seeking public comment on proposed rules establishing chronic wasting disease (CWD) zones and restricting movement of live deer authorized under TPWD permits to or from properties within those zones. The proposed rules...
Council Reviews ‘Rough Draft’ Priorities for $850 Million Bond
Wednesday marked one of many more steps in a lengthy and at times complicated process that reignites a deceptively simple, yet age-old question: How should we divvy up our money? City of San Antonio staff revealed preliminary 2017 Municipal Bond project estimates and...
Lone Star rail on life support after CAMPO vote
The Lone Star rail project, after one last Hail Mary with Union Pacific, is approaching the end of the line. And after state and federal regulators cross and dot a few t’s and i’s, it is likely that the Lone Star Rail District, which has been attempting for 13 years...
GEAA: Night sky and impervious cover protections removed from SA Tomorrow Plan
Dear GEAA members and friends, Last week the San Antonio Planning Commission voted 5-4 to exclude recommendations for impervious cover limits and dark skies protections from the proposed Sustainability Plan. Read more here. As a stakeholder participant who...
San Antonio City Council urged to restore natural resource provisions into SA Tomorrow Plan
Last week, the San Antonio Planning Commission removed two important provisions from the SA Tomorrow Plan, one for impervious cover and one for night sky protection. The SA Tomorrow Plan, more than a year in the making, will be the city’s prevailing document setting...
What Happens to the U.S. Midwest When the Water’s Gone?
"For the past 60 years, the Ogallala has been pumped out faster than raindrops and snowmelt can seep back into the ground to replenish it, thanks largely to irrigation machinery like the one sleeping nearby. As a result, in parts of western Kansas, the aquifer has...