UPDATESJuly 2, 2020  
Due to the recent spike in COVID-19 cases and the projected trajectory of COVID related hospitalizations, beginning on Monday, July 6, all facilities and park amenities will remain closed. This includes facilities previously reopened such as cultural facilities, pools, golf courses, tennis facilities, park concessions, and other amenities. 

All in-person programming for the month of July will be suspended including sports and fitness programming, summer camps, and cultural programming. In addition, the Barton Creek and Bull Creek greenbelts will remain closed. Parks will remain open; however, all amenities (e.g. volleyball courts, tennis courts, playgrounds, disc golf courses, etc) will be closed except for restrooms and water fountains.
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City of Austin parks and trails (except for those listed above) will remain open; however, rules regarding mask use and social distancing continue to apply. PARD Rangers will continue to patrol parks and help educate park uses for voluntary compliance. 

Due to the pandemic and closer of Barton Springs, all SOS eco-tours and hikes will remain cancelled throughout the summer.  Barton Springs University scheduled for September is also cancelled.  
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On Thursday, June 25th at 2:00 p.m. Travis County District Court Judge Maya Guerra Gamble will hear our appeal of TCEQ’s permit authorizing Dripping Springs to discharge over 800,000 gallons per day of treated sewage into Onion Creek.  

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the hearing will occur via video conference. The public can watch the hearing live via the Court’s YouTube channel. Please note that you will only be able to watch the hearing in real time—the Court’s broadcast will be deleted from YouTube immediately after the hearing has ended. Video or audio recording by members of the public is prohibited.

The hearing will consist of oral arguments from attorneys for SOS Alliance, the TCEQ, and the City of Dripping Springs.  The entire hearing will last 2 to 3 hours.  

Our primary argument is that the permit violates Clean Water Act standards prohibiting degradation of high quality waters like Onion Creek and all of our Hill Country streams.

Last week we filed our closing, or reply, brief.  You can read our brief here.  
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This case is important not just for Onion Creek and Barton Springs.  The court’s ruling will largely determine whether our clear Hill Country streams are, in fact, fair game for treated sewage discharges, as the TCEQ has assumed them to be in recent years.  This fact led several other organizations opposing proposed discharges to other Hill Country streams to file a “friends of the court” brief in support of our appeal.  Read that brief here.  

Stratus Properties (“Stratus”) owns some of the largest areas of land within the Barton Springs Zone. They own land all throughout Southwest Austin, including the site of the notorious 4,000-acre Barton Creek PUD, which was the catalyst of the SOS movement 30 years ago, when more than 800 Austin residents rallied to protect Barton Springs from overdevelopment. Oftentimes, the inherent conflict between developer profits and our mission to protect the water quality of Barton Springs and the Edwards Aquifer puts SOS at odds with developers, like Stratus. But, this is not one of those days.

SOS is pleased to share the news that we have reached an agreement with Stratus that will help protect approximately 10 acres of land from commercial development and will reduce the total amount of impervious cover (i.e., pavement) that can be built in the immediate area surrounding the new apartment complex by 6.9 acres.

The development in question is the last phase of a five-phase development at the southwest corner of William Cannon and Southwest Parkway (7415 Southwest Parkway) in the area known as Lantana. In exchange for being able to convert their approved office project to multi-family housing, Stratus has agreed to reduce the overall imperious cover of their planned project to 25% net site area (from 60% NSA), by dedicating additional developable lands towards land conservation immediately to the project’s south. This would be functionally equivalent to the limits required under the SOS Ordinance. 

While this is certainly not an ideal scenario, and we would of course prefer full compliance with all existing environmental regulations, the unique circumstances surrounding this site, including an approved site plan for an office development, make it much more likely that the developer would proceed with construction of the approved office park than leave the land undeveloped. Under such a scenario, we protect no additional lands, get no parkland dedication, and end up with more impervious cover.

SOS would like to thank Stratus for working with us on mitigating the environmental impacts of their planned development, by dedicating additional lands towards conservation purposes, beyond even what was recommended by the initial City of Austin recommendation. 

That said, there is still much more work to do. Every year, SOS is notified about dozens of new developments attempting to take advantage of outdated environmental regulations and skirt the will of Austin’s voters by trying to exempt themselves from compliance with the SOS Ordinance.
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The SOS Alliance was formed to be the watchdog protecting Austin’s groundwater, creeks and springs. Seeking compliance with Austin’s environmental regulations is a big part of that, and we will continue to pressure developers (and the City) to protect our limited resources.

Barton Springs Pool will reopen Tuesday, June 9th, four days a week;  Tuesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  On those days, the pool will open from 5 – 7 am for swim-at-your-own risk and then open for reservations between 8 am. and 10 pm.  During the modified  COVID-19 operations, no admission  fees will be charged.
 Anyone who bought a Summer 2020 swim pass and would like a refund should email [email protected] including their current address and where and how they paid for the pass.
We would like to thank City of Austin Parks and Recreation and the pool staff for their hard work in getting the pool open and safe. 
Please see the instructions for reservations, safety rules and other information below:
•            Reservation required:   go to www.Austintexas.gov/parksonline- if you do not have an account you can easily create one – go to browse tickets/park and pool passes then to ticket search for date and keyword Barton Springs – choose date and front or back gate – continue to shopping card and check out – ticket will be emailed to you – no charge
o          No fee required while under modified operations
o          If you do not have access to a cell phone or computer phone reservations are available seven days a week from 8am to 5pm, at 512-974-9330
o          Initially reservations to be available one-week prior
o          Capacity has been limited
o          Reservations are only available to persons identified as in your household through account creation
o          You must enter at the gate associated with your ticket
•          Screening required before entry to facility which includes temperature testing
o          Patrons will confirm they have not been experiencing COVID symptoms for the last 72 hour
o          Patrons receive wristband after successful screening
o          Screening begins 30 minutes prior to entering the facility
•          Showers and Changing areas not available
o          Under the current guidelines set forth by The State of Texas regulations/Orders, we are restricting access to changing rooms and showers. You are only permitted to use the toilet areas and sinks.  We ask that individuals not utilize toilet areas as changing areas. Please come to the facility ready to swim. 
•          Guests required to wear a cloth face covering while in the facility when not actively swimming/submerging underwater
•          Swim at your own risk
o          Every day of the week, including closure days
o          5a-7a only
•          Closure days are Monday, Wednesday and Thursday
•          Facility Entry/Exit
o          Northside Primary entrance is being relocated to the “side gate” for reservation swim times
o          Exiting on the northside will occur out the turnstiles or out the traditional entry way for ADA access
o          Staircases on the north side of the pool have been designated as one-directional
o          South side entrance remains the same
o          Swim at your own risk can enter through traditional gates
We look forward to jumping into Barton Springs again!
Please follow all rules and stay safe. 

Were You There?

As you can see, Esther's Follies legend Shannon Sedwick was there, telling the truth and cracking us up.
Thirty years ago, on June 7th, 1990, over 1000 citizens showed up at Austin City Hall to protest the "Barton Creek PUD," a 4,000 acre development proposed for the banks of Barton Creek by Freeport McMoRan, a global mining company that was the single largest discharger of toxic pollutants into the waters of the United States. Austin citizens from all walks of life took their allotted 3 minutes to tell the city council to vote "no" on the massive development proposal.  After taking testimony throughout the night, the City Council voted unanimously the next morning to deny the development approval.   The event triggered Austin's "save our springs" movement followed by the passing of  the SOS Ordinance in 1992.

We are excited to be celebrating 30 years of citizen advocacy and the birth of the Save Our Springs movement on June 7th!  Were you at City Hall on that historic day? Did you listen in from home on KUT?  We want to hear your story.  What do you remember?  What changed for you or someone you know after that night?  Please send us your experience in an email or in a short video (no more than 90 seconds) to [email protected].  Share a photo or two as well, if you have them.  Be sure to include your name and phone number.  If you know someone who was there, please pass this along to them.  

We'll be reminiscing a bit between now and June 7th, and planning a virtual reunion that day.  Mark your calendar and please jump in with your memories. 
Pound the PUD!!

P.S. If you are able, please consider a contribution to Esther's Follies' Performers Fund.  We gotta save Esther's pool -- Shanon, Michael Shelton, Ray Anderson and their cast mates are essential Austin. We can't afford to lose them. 
Watch the condensed 30 minute video of the hearing HERE.  

Lot's of us are wondering when Barton Springs Pool might reopen.  The word from City of Austin staff is that the Parks & Rec Department is working with the City's Health Department, city leaders and others on a phased opening plan for all of the City's swimming pools.  Timing and details of the phased opening will be subject to the best judgment of these officials. 
The City's current "Stay Home, Work Safe" orders extend to May 30.  Thus, Barton Springs will not open before some time in June.  It could be later.  We'll stay in touch with Parks staff and let our springs friends know as soon as we hear something more definitive.  Let's all be safe and patient, and enjoy the beautiful weather, with safely-distanced walking, hiking, bike riding, and swimming in the Highland Lakes when we are able.  ​

It was perhaps the most important Chronicle cover ever. With the Chronicle cover, plenty of chatter from KUT DJ' John Aielli and the for-profit morning radio talk jocks as well as paid radio ads from Austin environmentalists, the word definitely got around.  Six days later over 1000 people showed up at City Hall to tell Mayor Lee Cooke and the City Council to vote "No PUD."  

Read Daryl Slusher's key piece from that day 30 years ago here.  And don't miss Scott Henson's and Tom Philpott's sidebar that follows Daryl's piece: "Freeport McMoRan: Number One With a Toxic Bullet" 
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Stay tuned this week in the run up to Saturday's 30th anniversary celebration of the all night City Council meeting that gave birth to the Save Our Springs movement.  Share your memories with us if you were there ([email protected]).  And join with us as we take stock of where we are 30 years later in the continuing struggle to save our springs. 

Most of us love Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi. 
 
Here in the heart of Texas, we’ve lived it for three decades—a bulldozing bender, with the constant promise that if we keep spending billions on more roads and bigger highways, then our traffic problems will be solved. But, traffic just gets worse. And, more of what we love gets lost, all at once or in small increments, the unavoidable side effects of urban sprawl.
 
Then, a terrible pandemic comes along. We are forced to stay at home—take a breath. The air clears. The traffic disappears. You can hear the birds, the wind, and neighborhood kids playing outside. 
 
As Brigid Shea, Travis County Commissioner and Save Our Springs co-founder, recently observed, the coronavirus pandemic has shown us we don’t have to pave our Austin paradise with the false promise of reducing congestion. Employers, both public and private, can and should continue telecommuting practices made mandatory during this pandemic. These measures don’t have to be as extreme, once Covid-19 passes; but letting more people work from home on more days, combined with staggered work hours to avoid rush hour jam ups and other strategies that reduce driving, can pretty much solve our traffic problems. 
 
These strategies cost very little. They reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and traffic congestion, without pavement and pollution. 
 
Most of the $42+ billion in tax dollars that our transportation leaders at CAMPO want us to cough up over the next 25 years could be saved and redirected. Instead of paving hundreds of miles of concrete, we could invest in other critical needs, such as public education, affordable housing, reliable health care, and saving our Hill Country home from global heating. 
 
The worst part of the plan calls for spending over $4.2 billion to build new roads and expand existing ones over the Edwards Aquifer watershed in southwest Travis and western Hays counties.
 
For a fraction of the $4.2 billion that CAMPO wants us to spend expanding roads and building new ones within the Edwards Aquifer watershed, we could expand our parks and watershed protection lands in southwest Travis and western Hays counties, protecting the life source of Austin, Buda, Kyle, and San Marcos forever.  The simple fact is that it is far cheaper to save rather than pave the Edwards Aquifer watershed in southwest Travis and western Hays Counties. 
 
Overwhelmingly, residents and voters prefer that southwest Travis and western Hays County stay rural and scenic, protecting our beautiful Hill Country home waters. 
 
CAMPO staff justifies this $4.2 billion plan to pave roads across the aquifer by projecting that the population within the Hays County segment of the Edwards Aquifer watershed will increase by 450% in the 30 years from 2015 to 2045, growing from 79,000 to 433,000. But, CAMPO’s own data shows that the actual growth trend in western Hays County would more likely yield 54% growth, or 122,000 by 2045. (See the numbers here.)
 
CAMPO’s vision for the future of the Hill Country is bleak—paved, polluted, and pumped dry.
 
In our age of global heating, it’s time to stop paving the countryside with roads we don’t need and that encourage more driving, not less. The last month has shown us that telecommuting, staggered work days, and other traffic demand management strategies can unclog our roads, clean up our air, and help us avoid billions in unnecessary road construction.
 
No one wanted or needed the coronavirus pandemic. The pain and death it brings, here at home and across the planet, was unimaginable just a few months ago. But, we can learn from it.. Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit’s book A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster explains how people, working together, can shape the futures they (we) want when recovering from catastrophe. It’s a better future that bubbles up from people working together, often against powerful forces that only want to go back to how things were, paving paradise and putting up parking lots (both linear and square).Please join us today with a small step toward shaping a better future for our Hill Country home by speaking up on the CAMPO 2045 draft plan, with your own message or with one we have suggested here.  And if you are able during these difficult times, please consider a tax-deductible donation to support our work here at Save Our Springs Alliance. Stay safe, but please do get outside and enjoy the beautiful springtime that surrounds us.  

Most of us love Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi. 
 
Here in the heart of Texas, we’ve lived it for three decades—a bulldozing bender, with the constant promise that if we keep spending billions on more roads and bigger highways, then our traffic problems will be solved. But, traffic just gets worse. And, more of what we love gets lost, all at once or in small increments, the unavoidable side effects of urban sprawl.
 
Then, a terrible pandemic comes along. We are forced to stay at home—take a breath. The air clears. The traffic disappears. You can hear the birds, the wind, and neighborhood kids playing outside. 
 
As Brigid Shea, Travis County Commissioner and Save Our Springs co-founder, recently observed, the coronavirus pandemic has shown us we don’t have to pave our Austin paradise with the false promise of reducing congestion. Employers, both public and private, can and should continue telecommuting practices made mandatory during this pandemic. These measures don’t have to be as extreme, once Covid-19 passes; but letting more people work from home on more days, combined with staggered work hours to avoid rush hour jam ups and other strategies that reduce driving, can pretty much solve our traffic problems. 
 
These strategies cost very little. They reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and traffic congestion, without pavement and pollution. 
 
Most of the $42+ billion in tax dollars that our transportation leaders at CAMPO want us to cough up over the next 25 years could be saved and redirected. Instead of paving hundreds of miles of concrete, we could invest in other critical needs, such as public education, affordable housing, reliable health care, and saving our Hill Country home from global heating. 
 
The worst part of the plan calls for spending over $4.2 billion to build new roads and expand existing ones over the Edwards Aquifer watershed in southwest Travis and western Hays counties.
 
For a fraction of the $4.2 billion that CAMPO wants us to spend expanding roads and building new ones within the Edwards Aquifer watershed, we could expand our parks and watershed protection lands in southwest Travis and western Hays counties, protecting the life source of Austin, Buda, Kyle, and San Marcos forever.  The simple fact is that it is far cheaper to save rather than pave the Edwards Aquifer watershed in southwest Travis and western Hays Counties. 
 
Overwhelmingly, residents and voters prefer that southwest Travis and western Hays County stay rural and scenic, protecting our beautiful Hill Country home waters. 
 
CAMPO staff justifies this $4.2 billion plan to pave roads across the aquifer by projecting that the population within the Hays County segment of the Edwards Aquifer watershed will increase by 450% in the 30 years from 2015 to 2045, growing from 79,000 to 433,000. But, CAMPO’s own data shows that the actual growth trend in western Hays County would more likely yield 54% growth, or 122,000 by 2045. (See the number here.)
 
CAMPO’s vision for the future of the Hill Country is bleak—paved, polluted, and pumped dry.
 
In our age of global heating, it’s time to stop paving the countryside with roads we don’t need and that encourage more driving, not less. The last month has shown us that telecommuting, staggered work days, and other traffic demand management strategies can unclog our roads, clean up our air, and help us avoid billions in unnecessary road construction.
 
No one wanted or needed the coronavirus pandemic. The pain and death it brings, here at home and across the planet, was unimaginable just a few months ago. But, we can learn from it.. Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit’s book A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster explains how people, working together, can shape the futures they (we) want when recovering from catastrophe. It’s a better future that bubbles up from people working together, often against powerful forces that only want to go back to how things were, paving paradise and putting up parking lots (both linear and square).Please join us today with a small step toward shaping a better future for our Hill Country home by speaking up on the CAMPO 2045 draft plan, with your own message or with one we have suggested here.  And if you are able during these difficult times, please consider a tax-deductible donation to support our work here at Save Our Springs Alliance. Stay safe, but please do get outside and enjoy the beautiful springtime that surrounds us.  

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Thank you to everyone who filed a public comment on the CAMPO 2045 long-range transportation plan for the Austin metro region! You are free to comment again—and we hope those of you who have not yet commented will join in. 
 
Please take a few minutes to send in your comments. We have written suggested comments, but please modify these with your own personal comments as you see fit.

For now, the public comment period is set to close this Monday, April 20. However, Travis County, SOS Alliance, and many others have asked that the comment period be extended for at least another couple of months. We have also asked that the May 4 vote on the draft plan be postponed accordingly.
The CAMPO 2045 draft plan that is posted for public comment period remains incomplete.  Also, with only one week left in the official public comment period, the most fundamental piece of public information on the draft 25-year plan—an accurate map of the projects in the plan—is still missing. 

If you go to the CAMPO2045.org website on the draft plan, and then click on the View Projects in the Plan link you get this map. The map does not show several of the new roads proposed in the draft plan. These missing proposed new roads include some of the worst projects in the plan:  a proposed extension of Escarpment Boulevard from Circle C down to FM 150 in Hays County (crossing City of Austin watershed protection lands); a proposed loop around Dripping Springs in the Barton Creek and Onion Creek watersheds; and a proposed new alignment of Jacob’s Well Road next to the Jacob’s Well Natural Area; but these road projects, all within the Edwards Aquifer watershed, remain buried in the 49-page long CAMPO 2045 draft plan projects list. 

(View this excellent map and chart that we prepared showing the more than $4 billion in road projects the 2045 draft plan proposes for construction in the Edwards Aquifer watershed in southwest Travis and western Hays counties.) 

The 21-member CAMPO Policy Board, mostly consisting of elected officials from cities and counties in the six-county CAMPO planning area, tell their constituents they value public input into their decisions. Federal law requires the public be given a “reasonable opportunity” to comment on the draft 25-year transportation plan. Yet the draft plan remains incomplete and the most key part of it—the map—is wrong.  

As proposed, the CAMPO 2045 plan is loaded with tens of billions of dollars of road projects—the vast majority of them designed to serve endless, 360-degree sprawl across the six county region. The draft plan admits that if we build these roads with our local, state, and federal tax dollars, congestion will only get worse—just not as bad as if we did nothing.  

It’s time to rethink our most basic approach to transportation planning. This new report by Transportation for America, The Congestion Con, spells out how the twin ideas that building roads will reduce congestion and that reducing congestion should drive our transportation policies are both wrong. (If you want to understand the truth about traffic in growing urban areas, please read this report.)  

Locally, tens of billions of dollars and the future of Barton Springs and the land, water, air, wildlife and quality of life of our region is shaped by how we spend our transportation dollars, perhaps more than anything else we do.  

The CAMPO 2045 draft plan speaks volumes about who we are, what we value, and what we want for the future of our region. The plan—and the public process for adopting the plan—also speaks volumes about our local, elected leadership, from Georgetown to San Marcos, and from Marble Falls to Lockhart (but especially from Travis and Williamson County).  
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So, please join us in telling our local, elected transportation deciders that we want an honest, public engagement process and a plan that builds an affordable, sustainable, healthy and beautiful future for the Austin metro region.