There were four of five things going on in town last Thursday that I wanted to attend. Typical night in the busy ’Burg, huh? One of them I had to let pass was a forum at Schreiner University dealing with water pollution sponsored by the Hill Country Alliance.
Fortunately, Texas Public Radio recorded and archived the talk, which can be found at www.tpr.org/post/balancing-population-growth-and-healthy-rivers-texas.
Ann Rogers Harrison, water quality program leader with Texas Parks & Wildlife Department, served as moderator. Panelists included: Skye Lewey, Nueces River Authority, who has worked on our river cane problem; Chris Herrington, City of Austin Watershed Protection Department; Mary Stone, landowner and vice-chair of Texas Real Estate and Advocacy Coalition, and Nathan Pence, science lead with the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority.
With all of the development going on in the Hill Country — particularly nearer to San Antonio, but also here in the higher hills — we should keep an eye our waterways. The growth obviously is not going to stop and, as they pointed out in the forum, many smaller governmental entities are not prepared to deal with the number of wastewater permits. That being the case, many are allowed to drain directly into streams and rivers.
Read more from Ken Esten Cooke with The Fredericksburg Standard here.