Texas Observer (2009)
In 2000, Jacob’s Well stopped flowing for the first time in recorded history.
Its source sapped, Cypress Creek came to a trickle in Wimberley, and the state added it to a list of streams with impaired water quality. “I think it was a big wake-up call for the community,” Baker says. “If the well is the canary in the coal mine for the aquifer, then the canary was choking and about dead.”
The spring ceased flowing again in October 2008. As this story went to press, it appeared Jacob’s Well had gone to zero a third time.
The cessations confirm what water experts have been warning: that Jacob’s Well is under immense stress from a development boom over the Trinity Aquifer, the primary source of water for much of the Hill Country… Read more