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News
New Report Shows That Vista Ridge Project Would Harm Aquifer Levels
A new report written by groundwater hydrologist, George Rice, uses the state’s own Groundwater Availability Model to predict that the Vista Ridge water supply project would drop water levels and hydraulic (water) pressure hundreds of feet in the Simsboro and Carrizo...
Texas Water Symposium – The San Antonio/Vista Ridge Pipeline: Regional Considerations of a Potential Municipal Water Supply Project
An upcoming Texas Water Symposium (download flyer), set for October 21 in San Antonio will take a close look at the SAWS/Vista Ridge pipeline project. The program will feature a conversation about the regional, financial and ecological considerations of the 142-mile...
Team begins work on giant river cane
Work has begun to fight back against the giant river cane clogging local creeks. Members of the Hill Country Alliance and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department met early Wednesday morning at the recently renovated Frantzen Park to start test plots on treating Arundo...
“We all know that the Hill Country is one of the most beautiful features of Texas”
“And, we know that its springs and pristine rivers are its jewelry,” Con Mims at the HCA Leadership Summit. More than 150 regional leaders assembled in Fredericksburg last week. “Protecting those springs and rivers is an ever increasing challenge as the population of...
Controversial Water Report to Get Peer Review
Calvin Finch, the lead author of what has become a controversial report on long-term water management and conservation in San Antonio and Fair Oaks Ranch, stands by his work. His still-unreleased report has become the talk of the water community, even if only a...
Vista Ridge study making San Antonio headlines
“City has suppressed controversial water report…Report slams pricey water project City has kept it hidden despite coming vote on SAWS rates,” “Lead writer of water study replaced,” “Puente: Water policy study a ‘joke’...SAWS boss tears into water policy study" and...
Restoration Agriculture Design Workshop
Using nature as a model, Restoration Agriculture is the intentional restoration of healthy, functional ecosystems as the context for economically-viable farm and ranch operations. Perennial crops, livestock, fungus, and pollinators are integrated to produce abundant...
Editorial: Dripping should rethink Onion Creek disposal site
Onion Creek is both a defining landmark and a potent talisman for our community, symbolizing as it does both the bounteous wonder and the fragility of our little part of the world. In peril from recurrent drought and changing climate, and even development on its...
Chronic Wasting Disease In Texas
A total of four animals from a Medina County herd have tested positive for Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD). On September 16th, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) and the Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC) announced that a captive deer in Lavaca County...
A Hill Country Senate race to pay attention to
State Rep. Susan King (Abilene) has announced that she is running to replace Sen. Troy Fraser in Texas Senate District 24 (Bandera, Bell, Blanco, Brown, Burnet, Callahan, Comanche, Coryell, Gillespie, Hamilton, Kerr, Lampasas, Llano, Mills, San Saba and parts of...
Environmental group opposes state water grid
The state's largest environmental group is voicing strong opposition to a proposed study of a state water grid — a network that would distribute water across the vast and often dry expanses of the Lone Star State. Proponents of the idea say a study is needed to cope...
Comanche Moon to Eclipse this Sunday Night
By Wayne Gosnell: My friend Sandy and I get great pleasure out of being the first to text the other whenever we first glimpse a Comanche Moon. That’s when the full moon rises out of the eastern horizon just after sunset, catching the rays of the setting sun, which...
What should be the new drawdown of the Trinity Aquifer?
A special public workshop and meeting of the Hays Trinity Groundwater Conservation District (HTGCD) will be held at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 23, at the Wimberley Community Center. The board is to discuss, and possibly vote on, how it will participate in the upcoming...
Hill Country Workshop Provides Landowners with Information on Conservation Easements
The Hill Country Land Trust (HCLT) and The Hill Country Alliance (HCA) are hosting a conservation easement workshop on Friday, October 23. This workshop will focus on the landowners in the nineteen-county Hill Country region and will bring landowners the message...
Blanco River Flood Exacerbated by Manicured Lawns on the Riverbanks
Rachel Ranft steers a mud-splattered white pickup slowly along River Road, a narrow strip of asphalt a few feet above the now-placid Blanco River in Wimberley, Texas. She pulls up next to a towering bald cypress, a type of conifer native to central Texas that grows...
Colorado nonprofit partners with city on mobility
Austin leaders announced a partnership Monday morning between the city and Colorado-based nonprofit Rocky Mountain Institute to develop “innovative mobility solutions” to the transportation woes that frustrate many Austinites. Jeruld Weiland, managing director of...
TCEQ grants permit to take land for private developer despite judge’s ruling
The Graham family can never seem to cut a break from big government. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), the state agency that grants wastewater permits, approved a permit for the neighboring developer of Johnson Ranch in spite of the fact that...
House Committee Holds Medina County Hearing For CWD Update
Colleen Schreiberm Livestock Weekly: The Texas House Committee on Culture, Recreation and Tourism conducted another special hearing to address the chronic wasting disease issue. This one was not held at the Capitol, however, but in Medina County, where four deer in a...
Photo Contest Winners Announced!
Winning Photos in Calendar Contest Capture Extraordinary Moments of Hill Country Beauty Dazzling color and light emanate from each of the winning photographs from Hill Country Alliance’s (HCA) annual photography contest. Soft ripples of lavender and tangerine clouds...
Hill Country residents are encouraged to participate in Regional Water Planning
Hill Country regional planning groups have completed drafts of their portions of the 2017 State Water Plan, and now is the time to review and make public comments. These plans are essentially lists of water supply strategies intended to accommodate growth...
As the Lone Star State booms, our wide-open spaces shrink
As the heart of Texas — the Texas Triangle — swells with population, the cornfields and sunflower stands recede before the march of the suburbs. But there is a glimmer of hope because ranchers and environmentalists, hunters and city dwellers now have something crucial...
New Law May Not Thwart Hays County Water Project
On a recent weeknight, nearly 200 Hays County residents packed into the Wimberley Community Center for what some described as a celebration. Six months earlier, three times as many had stormed the place demanding state legislation they hoped would thwart a major water...
Residents of Hill Country town upset about wind farm plan
They first started appearing in West Texas, where the wind howls through oil rigs. Then it was the Panhandle, and small towns along Interstate 20, like Sweetwater, where cattle farms have given way to giant, white spinning blades. Now the wind turbines are getting...
Transportation the Talk of Austin-San Antonio Growth Summit
“A key area for improving connections, he said, is transportation. Raising the opportunity to finally plan and build commuter rail service between the two cities with stops all along the way, Adler said, “Austin is ready to have those data-driven conversations....
Join GEAA protecting landowner rights and water
TCEQ recently approved a plan by the Johnson Ranch subdivision in Comal County to dump approximately 350,000 gallons per day of treated sewage effluent on their neighbors' land. Neighboring families have spent the last year and hundreds of thousands of dollars...
Texas Farmers Brace for New Clean Water Rule
In the 65 years that Tommy Calvert has grown hay and raised cattle in Denton County, he’s never applied for a federal permit. But with a new national clean water rule in effect, he's not sure if it's something he needs to think about. After heavy rains, runoff from...
Kendall County’s History of Conservation
A four-part series by Brent Evans: Kendall County’s tradition of protecting natural resources has a long history of gradual recognition of needs and spirited citizen action. Brent traces the history of local conservation efforts up to the present, and encourage both...
The Future of Conservation in Kendall County, Part 2
Part Two - By Brent Evans Here are some selected voices about future conservation efforts. (I have had to edit for brevity.) Mayor Mike Schultz and Pamela Bransford, Public Relations Coordinator for the City of Boerne: “When Boerne’s founding fathers settled in this...
The Future of Conservation in Kendall County
Part One - By Brent Evans “In the end our society will be defined not only by what we create, but by what we refuse to destroy.” - John Sawhill, The Nature Conservancy The beauty of the Hill Country, “the Sweet Spot of Texas”, is its blessing and its curse. Being one...
Kendall County’s History of Conservation, Part 4
Part Four - By Brent Evans “If future generations are to remember us more with gratitude than sorrow, we must achieve more than just the miracles of technology. We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was created, not just as it looked when we got through with...