Words to foolish (and the wise) on this April 1

Dear GEAA members and friends,

In recognition of April Fools’ Day, GEAA would like to give a shoutout to some folks who are, in our opinion, worthy of the title.

— Trip DuPerrier and David Holmes and Ronnie Urbanczyk for failing to come to an agreement that would allow Texas Parks and Wildlife and the Texas Nature Conservancy to purchase the Honey Creek Ranch property and Save Honey Creek.

—Lennar Homes for suing the Mayor and City Council of Cibolo as individuals for declining to approve a preliminary plat for 145 homes on 44 acres.

— The Texas Legislature and Texas Commission for Environmental Quality for rejecting repeated attempts to protect Hill Country waterways from direct discharges of sewage effluent.

I’m sure that many of you can add to this list. We certainly got an earful about all kinds of foolishness when GEAA hosted the Sunset Commission staff here in San Antonio on March 21st to hear citizens’ concerns about how well the TCEQ is fulfilling their mission to protect our health and environment. The general consensus seemed to be that Texans deserve better. You can read Brendan’s report here, watch a recording of the event here, see GEAA’s comments here, and you can send comments to the Sunset Commission staff here.

The Sunset Commission staff will come out with their report and recommendations for the TCEQ in earl summer. We will keep you posted and hope that our legislators take action to make this agency truly worthy of our support and respect.

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Kudos to the National Wildlife Federation for issuing a new report that details how habitat loss is threatening the wildlife, lands and waters that hunters and anglers rely on, and outlines the consequences in states such as Texas.

The report goes on to make recommendations and point out multiple benefits of land preservation. “When you have a healthy river with vegetation on both sides, it provides habitat, but it also slows floodwaters,” said Aaron Kindle, the federation’s director of sporting advocacy. “It cleans the water before it gets to a human drinking-water source.”

You can read more here. It certainly couldn’t hurt to send this to your state legislators and county commissioners.

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Stay tuned as we set our agenda for the upcoming 2023 legislative session. As we all well know, there is a lot that needs fixing. We will be bringing together the leaders of GEAA’s member groups next month to discuss our ambitions for the 88th session.

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GEAA has an opportunity to compete for a $100,000 award from Ancira Auto Group. You can help make that happen! Before April 24, go to anciragivesback.com and nominate Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance for the “small” category.

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And, last but certainly not least, our heartfelt gratitude goes out to all of you who renewed your GEAA membership for 2022. Special thanks to those of you who qualified to have your donation of $200 or more matched dollar for dollar by the S/M Hixon Foundation. If you are not yet a GEAA member, you can easily fix that by clicking here.

Hope you all enjoy this wonderful spring weekend!