Summary
Since founding the Wimberley Valley Watershed Association in 1996, [David Baker] has been fighting to keep developers from chewing up [Jacob]'s Well. At the moment, the watershed association is tied up in a lawsuit with a group that wants to build RiverRock, a "residential resort" - spa, "lagoon-style" pool, gourmet restaurant- a few hundred feet from Jacob's Well. RiverRock wants to build a road through the Jacob's Well Preserve. Baker hopes to stop the development altogether, claiming that it would pump 15 million gallons per year, which could have a direct impact on flows at the springs.
Why, then, has Rep. Patrick Rose, the Democrat who beat [Rick Green] in a squeaker of a race in 2002, been reluctant to give the groundwater district greater power to regulate and possibly save the Trinity Aquifer? That question nags conservationists in Hays County. For three sessions, the district and its backers have asked Rose to file a bill granting full regulatory powers. Rose has steadfastly declined, saying that he doesn't think the district should have taxation powers and that the issue is divisive. Four months into this legislative session, he offered a "compromise" bill that allowed the district to collect fees for two years to help pay for a groundwater sustainability study - what [Jack Hollon] compares to "throwing some candy to kids in the backseat to quiet them on a long trip." In late April, the district board voted to say "thanks, but no thanks" to the proposal.Hollon, the Wimberley native, knows what they're up against. "We've got to come to terms with our growth," he says. "Growth is fundamental to capitalism, our banking system and so forth, but it doesn't make much sense ecologically speaking. That's going to take some time to seep in."See the full content of this document
Extract
Silent Springs
Sixty feet below the shimmering surface of Jacob's Well, an artesian spring that for thousands of years has pulsed iridescent bluegreen water from the Trinity Aquifer to the surface, a sophisticated instrument measures the spring's vital signs. The results are beamed almost instantaneously to the Internet.
These days the gauge detects only the thinnest of pulses.On a hot April afternoon, David Baker, an artist turned conservationist, stands on the limestone Up gazing down into Jacob's Well. Earlier, Baker had checked the spring flow: an anemic five gallons per second. "At that point, the spring has basically stopped flowing," he says.Old-timers recall- and spotty historical data confirm - that the spring used to have enough of a head to jet swimmers back to the surface after they cannonballed in. Today the pulse is bare...See the full content of this document
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