The mission of the Hill Country Alliance is to bring together a diverse coalition of partners to preserve the open spaces, starry night skies, clean and abundant waters, and unique character of the Texas Hill Country.
Our Work
Land
The Texas Hill Country region covers over 11 million acres in 17 counties of mostly privately held land.
Water
Thirteen Texas rivers begin in the Hill Country and provide water for millions of downstream neighbors.
Night Sky
The Hill Country sits on the edge of night and as development pushes westward, we are losing our view of the night sky.
Community
90% of Hill Country lands are in unincorporated areas where there is little authority to plan for growth.
Collaboration
HCA serves as the backbone organization and fiscal sponsor of the Texas Hill Country Conservation Network.
Latest News
How eminent domain is blighting farmers in path of gas pipeline
In July 2015, Neal Laferriere and his wife, Beth, purchased a home in Summers county, West Virginia. The first time they visited the property after purchasing it, they found stakes outlining what they would later find out to be the route for a gas pipeline. About two...
100 years later, Medina Lake dam still a marvel
The Medina Lake dam is a huge block of concrete, lodged in a canyon, which impounds a waterway flowing along the border of Bandera and Medina counties. But that description hardly does justice to the enduring edifice on the Medina River, say those behind Saturday's...
Hays County, Kyle, landowner lawsuit against railroad commission questions pipeline oversight
Two years ago, Heinz Stefan Roesch bought a roughly 30-acre property along RR 1623, outside of the city of Blanco. His whole family is from the Hill Country, he said, and he had been saving all his life to buy something just like it. Last fall, he started hearing...
One man’s half-century project to heal a Hill Country landscape created a legacy reaching far beyond his fenceline
In 1969, a San Antonio fried-chicken tycoon was struck by a life-changing idea: He would find, buy, and heal “the sorriest piece of land in the Hill Country.” Now celebrating its 50th anniversary, the Bamberger Ranch Preserve sprawls across 5,500 acres of grassy hills...
Texas House passes bill to spend more than $3 billion to help pay for flood control projects
Nearly two years after Hurricane Harvey ravaged the Texas coast, the Texas House approved legislation Thursday that would pull more than $3 billion from the state's rainy day fund to help pay for flood control projects statewide. The House version of Senate Bill 7 is...
Opinion: Through grandmother’s house it goes – Kinder Morgan’s pipeline, that is
Pipeline giant Kinder Morgan would very much like to route a pipeline over the aquifer and through the woods, grandmother’s house be damned. Or condemned, as the case may be. We are talking about KM’s planned Permian Highway Pipeline, a 430-mile-long, 42-inch-diameter...
Centuries-old irrigation system shows how to manage scarce water
It’s spring again, the time of year—for the 300th time in some instances—when New Mexico communities come together to clean the acequias, irrigation channels that carry snowmelt from the mountains to newly tilled farm fields. Each annual cleaning is one more...
Act Now
Shop the HCA Store
HCA Resources
Reports:
One Water in the Texas Hill Country:
Connecting Communities with Projects and Professionals
