Kevin thuesen austin

So a coalition of organizations urged voters to petition for an election on an enhanced ordinance. They got enough signatures, the item was placed on the ballot, and the Save Our Springs Ordinance passed easily in August of But, true to form, the Texas Legislature had other ideas and passed a bill that grandfathered all plats filed before the ordinance was passed including the Freeport development , exempting them from the new regulations.

The state's move did not stymie Austin environmentalists, who won a majority of seats on City Council in Chronicle alumnus Daryl Slusher was one of the new council members and was instrumental in the genesis of the WQPL program. By this point, Slusher says, the city knew it wanted to preserve the faraway land because the Watershed Protection Department had done studies and dye traces establishing that the Slaughter, Bear, and Onion Creek watersheds were essential to the health of Barton Springs.

Because the then-operational Green Water Treatment Plant across from Barton Springs was sending some water into the city's drinking supply, Slusher proposed that the land be purchased with a utility bond, and thus not have to compete with general-fund needs.

Most council members campaigned in support of what the city has long called its "wild idea" of purchasing land to preserve its resources as opposed to regulating development. The early years of the program, led by Thuesen's predecessor Willy Conrad, were spent purchasing land and setting up a strategy for management and public access.

User groups wanted a range of uses, from absolutely none to putting in soccer fields and housing for the homeless. A compromise was eventually reached that it would be limited and intentional — the program was under the Water Utility and not Parks and Recreation, after all — and that the organizations, not the utility, would plan, build, operate, and maintain the trails. The Water Utility had also started looking at land to purchase using a matrix of sensitive properties assembled by Watershed Protection.

This, Slusher says, allowed the city to stretch its funds and the families to retain their ranches and heritage while also making some money. If you've swum in Barton Springs Pool during the early morning, especially if it hasn't recently rained, you likely found yourself stunned by how pure and clean the water seems. According to Bunch, the springs generally still have, under base flow conditions, very low levels of human toxins.

But two important pollutants that are harmful to aquatic life, including the endangered Barton Springs salamander, are increasing. This includes nitrogen and phosphorus, which Bunch says largely come from wastewater plants in the watershed and trigger the growth of nuisance algae that, when dying off, increase bacteria that consume oxygen and impact what plant and animal species can thrive and survive.

Other harmful substances include petroleum hydrocarbons, pesticides, and heavy metals. The springs are still pretty high-quality because a whole lot of the watershed is still undeveloped.

So the future of the springs is still up for grabs and largely rests on how much of that remaining undeveloped watershed is preserved versus how much is developed. Some of this has already sold to developers, some of whom likely have grandfathered plats. So the WQPL program must find developers and other landowners who, as Thuesen says, want to "conserve their land in perpetuity. Still, he says, this work is rewarding. And quite literally for citizens not born yet.

Even when the program has successfully purchased land to protect, there are often larger forces at play. We pass through what is called a wildland-urban interface, with the orderly Shady Hollow subdivision on one side and the WQPL, full of prickly pear and coyotes, on the other. Eventually the sight of SH emerges, huge and imposing, and I can't help but hear Cat Stevens singing in my head.

Thuesen says they weren't fans of the road because of all the WQPLs this property has the densest collection of caves, sinkholes, and other karst features. The city had already agreed to sell the right of way to TxDOT, so his staff aimed to get the best environmental protections. To some surprise, Thuesen says the project ended up being more environmentally conscious than expected. And these crisscross the freeway to avoid large caves.

Pretty soon you end up with a piece of land that is cut up into all these pieces. That's not as good for water.

An important part of this is excavating sediment from existing and newly discovered caves so that water can flow unimpeded. The caves are located by looking for circular depressions in the ground where green plants are growing or by asking landowners if they ever noticed whirlpools on their ranches. Initial excavation can be lengthy, sometimes taking up to a decade, because all rocks and sediment — which they estimate have been deposited relatively recently — are removed through five-gallon buckets and sometimes the caves are full of water and inaccessible.

Big steel grates are then placed over the entrances to caves, and these are periodically cleaned off to keep an optimal amount of water going in. Thuesen jokes that his wife says, "It's like a hair catcher at the bottom of a tub.

Above ground, staff work on restoring ecosystems back to their "ideal native states. Standing in the blistering August sun, McCaw explains that some of the lands come to them as overgrazed pastures with juniper cedar and brush encroaching.

Cedar is an infamous water-sucker, and McCaw says that when soil has been compacted by cattle hooves, water cannot be easily absorbed below ground. So staff light fires on the land to kill off cedar and brush and put nutrients back into the soil, something that used to be done naturally by wildfires. McCaw says prescribed fires let them get the same benefits in a highly controlled fashion.

After burning, volunteers sprinkle the fertile ground with seeds of native wildflowers and grasses like muhly bunch grass and little bluestem. Having more plants per square foot helps keep soil from eroding and recaptures carbon in the soil. Plants with deep roots also help water infiltrate the aquifer, and native grasses, roots, microbial biomasses, and small bugs play an important role in churning the soil and reducing its density so that water can reach small conduits.

It's a dynamic that's been demonstrated all over the world. A secondary benefit of the program includes providing habitat for some endangered species as well as monarch butterflies when WQPL staff discover any endangered species, they amend their plans for prescribed fire and other mechanical interventions. And Watershed Protection says that because the WQPLs reduce the amount of impervious cover that would be present on developed land in the form of parking lots, roads, and residences, they also reduce the volume of floodwater during heavy rains and the duration of high water levels from certain creeks like Onion, Bear, and Slaughter.

By this point, we're at Barton Springs Pool, standing near the diving board, the sounds of people talking and water splashing in the background. Thuesen points to some rocks along the eastern edge and explains that this is where water pours out of the aquifer and into the pool.

This acid eats the calcite in the limestone under the soil to create the karst features, and these features consists of big and small cracks and caves under the surface. Slowly draining karst feature near Onion Creek. This karst feature has bigger cracks, which causes it to drain faster. I had a chance to try out flintknapping and other great nature activities at the Wild Basin Preserve a few months ago. This karst feature has a huge crack to help water drain quickly to the aquifer.

No standing water here. We saw a few rattlesnakes on our hike, and Dr. Thuesen cautioned us to watch out for them. When the snake started rattling as I walked by, my heart jumped!

This one was near the karst feature with the huge crack, and it was very hard to see at first. Can you spot the rattlesnake in this picture? They were digging for food grubs?

The treat at the far end of the hike was the whirlpool that flows into Cripple Crawfish Cave another karst feature! Thuesen said that they installed a screen over the cave opening to keep out debris and to help water flow more easily into the cave and eventually into the aquifer. Scientists have used a special dye to discover that water that flows down this whirlpool can reach Barton Springs Pool in about 22 days or so. Amanda Ross, Commander Ben, and Dr. Kevin Thuesen and the end of our wonderful whirlpool hike.

Thank you Ms. Thuesen, and the other knowledgeable guides for the fantastic hike! Ross has always been kind and helpful, and she had some neat posters. I first met Ms. I enjoyed talking with Dr. Thuesen about the different rattlesnakes. He also knew a lot about invasive plants and talked with me about some of the ones in the area, including the Malta star-thistle and King Ranch Bluestem KR Bluestem.

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Dry karst feature with flint rocks. Search Site Search for:. I educate kids of all ages - and all learning styles - about invasive species, science, and dyslexia.