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News
Proposed wastewater expansion raises concerns in Dripping Springs
The City of Dripping Springs has requested a permit to discharge treated sewage into Onion Creek. Residents, downstream municipalities, and the local aquifer protection districts are concerned by the potential contamination of this pristine creek, local drinking...
How Fair Oaks Ranch residents and CCGCD put a stop to a high-density development
Boerne based Hill Country Weekly gives us a great human interest story that includes the details what can happen when water and politics mix. Kendall County’s Cow Creek Groundwater Conservation District is featured as it applies its rules to help residents of Fair...
Five Factors Driving Economic Growth in Small Cities
One of the challenges of urban economic development is that most conferences and case studies profile efforts in large, internationally-known cities. While large cities tend to captivate America’s attention, there are small cities lurking in their shadows – and these...
Proposed groundwater transfer riles Kendall County residents
A miniature version of the Vista Ridge pipeline dispute is unfolding here over a local utility’s bid to convey groundwater to its customers from a new well proposed miles outside its service area. As with the San Antonio Water System’s plan to pipe in water 140 miles...
Eyes on the stars
With eyes on the stars – and on the city’s future prosperity – the Wimberley Dark Sky Committee has been launched to attain official International Dark Sky Community status for Wimberley. “This is an initiative to protect our night skies,” Cathy Moreman, Executive...
More officials stand against discharge permit
Roughly a week after the Barton Springs Edwards Aquifer Conservation District (BSEACD) formally opposed Dripping Springs’ proposed discharge permit, the Hays Trinity Groundwater Conservation District (HTGCD) Thursday followed suit. By a 4-1 vote, the HTGCD made a...
The Hill Country Land Trust releases first video in Land Steward Video Series: Prickly Pear Management
Hill Country Land Trust is proud to share the first of a series of videos on land stewardship. Each video will focus on one stewardship practice. The first video features Steve Nelle discussing Prickly Pear management techniques. Take a look, then download the...
Goforth water, EP deal moves forward
A move by Goforth Special Utility District (SUD) approving a second amendment to its water supply agreement with Electro Purification, LLC (EP) means the water supply company has a year to prove the quantity and quality of its water to Goforth. EP has to deliver a...
Big Bend rancher sues pipeline company
The owner of an 11,000-acre ranch south of Marfa has filed suit in federal court, claiming the use of eminent domain by a private pipeline company to take part of his land is unconstitutional. Filed in Pecos, the lawsuit by lawyer John Boerschig of Katy against...
Additional CWD Cases Discovered at a Quarantined Captive White-tailed Deer Breeding Facility
Thirteen new cases of chronic wasting disease (CWD) were confirmed at a Medina County captive white-tailed deer breeding facility on June 29. Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC) and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) discovered these cases while conducting...
The Forgotten History of Environmental Protection in Texas
Before there was this thing called the internet, families who could afford to often bought an encyclopedia as a home reference. Typically they came with an atlas as well – a thick book of maps, charts and comparisons. Now Texas has one of its own: an unprecedented...
Reclaiming the Night
We can see the Milky Way from Dripping Springs, but lights in Austin steal a piece of our sky," Cindy Luongo Cassidy says looking out from the viewing deck of her personal observatory to the starry horizon. Nearby, her husband John tinkers with his large aperture...
Dripping Springs homeowners push against treated wastewater in creek
A group of neighbors in Dripping Springs are hoping to stop the city from dumping treated wastewater into their local creek. Thursday night, members of the Hays Trinity Groundwater Conservation District held a special meeting to discuss the city’s application with the...
Texas Comptroller Announces Partnerships with Texas A&M, Sam Houston State University to Study Monarch Butterfly
Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar recently announced Texas A&M University and Sam Houston State University will share about $500,000 in funding for a research project to study the monarch butterfly. The research will document the monarch butterfly population in Texas...
Graduate research study explores origin, quality of Pedernales water
Sarah Zappitello, a graduate student in the Department of Biology at Texas State University, has published results from a year-long study determining the origin and quality of water carried by the Pedernales River. The research is part of a larger study facilitated by...
Katherine Romans selected as Executive Director of Hill Country Alliance
The Board of Directors of the Hill Country Alliance (HCA) is proud to announce the selection of Katherine Romans to serve as full-time executive director of HCA. The selection was made after a nationwide search. Katherine will fill the vacancy created when founding...
TPW Commission Adopts Amended Deer Movement Rules
After extensive public testimony, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission recently approved an amended set of regulations for artificial movement of deer by permit as part of the state’s chronic wasting disease (CWD) management plan. Adopted provisions are the result...
Sprawl Costs Americans $107 Billion a Year, Says Study
Urban sprawl isn't a new phenomenon. But new analysis from City Observatory has finally quantified the cost of building cities that make us travel farther between the places where we live, work, and play. They call it the "Sprawl Tax." Based on numbers from a 2015...
STEVE NELLE: Misunderstood mesquite
A great deal of myth, misinformation and folklore surrounds mesquite ? the most common and most unpopular tree in West Texas. For decades, this attractive native tree has been maligned, abused and misunderstood. Yet mesquite survives and thrives, even in the midst of...
Rising Water Level Lifts Spirit of Residents, Local Businesses
More than four years ago, many Lakehills residents traded in their jet skis and boats for 4-wheelers and ATVs, said Kristin Eliason, who lives in the Brushy Creek subdivision next to Medina Lake. In a drought-ridden area like Medina Lake, there was no use for water...
Nestlé Just Suffered a Major Defeat as Community Blocks Water Privatization
Hydrogeologist and spokesperson for Nestlé Waters North America, Eric Andreus, announced at a monthly township meeting in Kunkletown, Pennsylvania, last week that Nestlé had given up on its plans to pump 73 million gallons of water per year from the town’s local...
Landowners Win Six Cases Over Compensation Claims Against Pipeline Company
A special commission appointed by District Judge Roy Ferguson to settle compensation claims in eminent domain lawsuits tied to the Trans-Pecos Pipeline has sided with landowners and against the pipeline company – Energy Transfer – in six of seven cases. The...
Texas Supreme Court: Accommodation Doctrine Applies to Groundwater
On May 27, 2016, the Texas Supreme Court issued its opinion in Coyote Lake Ranch, LLC v. City of Lubbock. Many Texas agricultural and water law attorneys were in Lubbock attending the State Bar of Texas Agricultural Law Continuing Legal Education Seminar. As soon as...
USGS Map Reveals Long-Term Changes in America’s Groundwater Quality
Chloride and nitrate concentrations are rising and arsenic levels are holding steady or falling. Those are two of the conclusions from a U.S. Geological Survey assessment of changes in the nation’s groundwater quality in the last two decades. The federal science...
Q&A with Tim Loftus
Trib+Water interview with Tim Loftus: Tim Loftus is a faculty member in the Department of Geography at Texas State University. He also serves as chair in water conservation at the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment. Loftus’s research focuses on water...
Program aims to keep local skies bright with stars, not lights
Members of Keep Utopia Beautiful recently joined Hill Country Alliance program director Cliff Kaplan to encourage Uvalde County Commissioners to support the preservation of dark skies in the area by reducing light pollution. Kaplan, along with Claudia Rogers and...
Eminent Domain and the Landscapes of Texas
A new study looks at the role of eminent domain and condemnation in the changing landscapes of Texas and the Hill Country. Are private companies taking advantage of loose regulations on the use of eminent domain to abuse private property rights? The Texas Hill Country...
Say goodbye to El Niño and hello to La Niña
This year’s monstrous El Nino, nicknamed Godzilla by NASA, is dead. It heated up the globe, ended the Central Texas drought, but didn’t quite end California’s four-year drought. El Niño delivered the promised rains to Central Texas, resulting in periods of deadly...
Commission rules against pipeline in condemnation case
Jeanne Simpson sits before a foot-wide section of 42-inch diameter green pipe, a sample of what is likely to be buried on her property. A fourth-generation landowner, Simpson co-owns and manages the Barreno Ranch southwest of Marfa, a more than 6,000-acre property her...
Aquifer District Director Precincts Extended to Annexed Area
New Director precinct boundaries that extend representation into the Shared Territory annexed in response to House Bill 3405 were finalized at the May 26, 2016 Board meeting after extensive research, a public hearing, consideration of numerous public comments, and...