Hill Country Night Sky Month in Dripping Springs

October 12, 2020
HCAdmin
HCA in the News, Land Conservation and Stewardship, Land Stewardship, Legislature and Regulation, Low Impact & Sustainable Development, Native Landscapes, News, Night Skies, Planning and Development, Scenic Beauty

October is officially Hill Country Night Sky Month in Dripping Springs, TX. With urban sprawl creeping in from Austin and the east, and more people finding refuge in the hills of Dripping Springs, the importance of preserving darkness in our night skies is as important as ever. Across the world, artificial light at night is increasing and getting brighter, so why do the night skies need to be preserved? In 2014, Dripping Springs was the first community in Texas to…

Hill Country Alliance’s inaugural Night Sky Month kicks off October with a Harvest Moon

October 12, 2020
HCAdmin
Children in Nature, HCA in the News, Land Conservation and Stewardship, Low Impact & Sustainable Development, News, Night Skies, Planning and Development, Scenic Beauty

This October features a full moon on its first day, known as the Harvest Moon, and another on its last, a Blue Moon—as in “once in a,” because two full moons in one month doesn’t happen every year. The Hill Country Alliance (HCA) invites people to go outside on these respective nights and howl at the moon as part of its first-ever Night Sky Month celebration. The October event was created to bring awareness to the importance of night sky…

Wastewater treatment plant recognized as “Utility Of The Future Today”

October 9, 2020
HCAdmin
Land Conservation and Stewardship, Legislature and Regulation, Low Impact & Sustainable Development, News, Planning and Development, Water Planning, Water Quality, Water Resources

The City of San Marcos Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) has received national recognition as a Utility of the Future Today for Community Partnering and Engagement. The San Marcos WWTP is one of 65 water utilities being recognized for transformational work in community engagement, watershed stewardship, and recovery of resources such as water, energy, and nutrients. Read more from San Marcos Corridor News here.

Blanco Council approves balanced No-Discharge Task Force

October 2, 2020
HCAdmin
Economics of Sound Planning, Land Conservation and Stewardship, Land Stewardship, Low Impact & Sustainable Development, News, Planning and Development, Regional Planning, Water Planning, Water Quality, Water Resources

With its unanimous vote Sept. 8, the Blanco City Council delivered on progress toward a lasting solution with Protect Our Blanco for growth and development without wastewater discharge into the Blanco River. A contentious recent history is replaced today by a task force to discuss and quantify engineering options before the end of the year. The vote represents a second step forward following the Aug. 25 presentation from David Baker, Executive Director of the Wimberley Valley Watershed Association, representing Protect…

Truly sustainable infrastructure plans can’t rely on concrete

October 2, 2020
HCAdmin
Coronavirus News and Resources, Low Impact & Sustainable Development, News, Planning and Development

When governments are faced with a recession, they reflexively look to the example set by Franklin D. Roosevelt. History textbooks maintain that the 32nd US president single-handedly wrenched his country from the grip of the Great Depression with his New Deal programme of public investment. In doing so, he created a template that future leaders would deploy when confronting their own financial crises. Its guiding principle is simple: spend massively on infrastructure to create jobs and boost productivity. Some modern…

Comal County needs to borrow tools from Hays

September 14, 2020
HCAdmin
Economics of Sound Planning, HCA in the News, Land Conservation and Stewardship, Land Stewardship, Legislature and Regulation, Low Impact & Sustainable Development, Native Landscapes, News, Planning and Development, Public Lands, Regional Planning, Wildlife

I want to thank Craig Massouh for the article published on August 21 about the work being done to protect our environmental resources in Comal County. Cliff Kaplan, the operations manager for the Hill Country Alliance (HCA) pointed out that “Hays County just agreed to put on the Nov. 3 election a $75-$80 million item to address the need for 16 parks throughout its county, including six in San Marcos and one in Kyle.” The article concluded by explaining what…

Texans must treat every drop of water as precious

The state of Texas is a behemoth. At some 268,000 square miles — from the Piney Woods of East Texas, the Hill Country and the Panhandle to the desert mountains of West Texas and the Gulf Coast — the Lone Star State encompasses disparate climate regions, each with varied economic, social and environmental drivers. As climate change continues, each of these areas will change. As a general rule, scientists predict a significantly warmer and drier climate — with occasional catastrophic…

Ensuring One Water delivers for healthy waterways: A framework for incorporating healthy waterways into One Water plans and projects

September 8, 2020
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Drought, Economics of Sound Planning, Low Impact & Sustainable Development, News, Planning and Development, Water Catchment Areas (Watershed), Water Conservation, Water Planning, Water Quality, Water Resources

The One Water approach offers tremendous opportunities for improving how water is managed within communities. Using water efficiently and taking advantage of diverse, locally available water supplies are important goals. It is also important that the approach support communities in assessing how their water use affects the health of waterways, both upstream, where water is sourced, and downstream, where other communities and aquatic resources may be impacted. Local water capture and reuse technologies are some of the most successful innovations…

Blue Hole Primary wins TWDB Rain Catcher Award

The Wimberley Valley Watershed Association is so proud of the collective accomplishment that is Wimberley ISD’s One Water School – Blue Hole Primary. The honor of the 2020 TWDB Rain Catcher Award will be shared by the many hands and minds that came together to make this reality—not just theory. The Wimberley Valley Watershed Association has a long history of preserving and protecting water resources in Hays County and the greater Hill Country. Locally, we see water resources that are…

City could store three Lake Austins’ worth of water underground by 2040

September 8, 2020
HCAdmin
Drought, Economics of Sound Planning, Groundwater Resources, Low Impact & Sustainable Development, News, Planning and Development, Water Catchment Areas (Watershed), Water Conservation, Water Planning, Water Resources

Austin gets all of its water from the Highland Lakes, but that might not always be the case. The city recently took a first step towards storing massive amounts of water underground. If the plan works, it could help Austin survive as climate change threatens traditional water supplies. The technique is called aquifer storage and recovery, or ASR. In it, utilities pump water into underground aquifers to save it for later. Aquifer storage and recovery is touted as a good…