Wasted in Travis County

[Update: Photo Credit: Thanks to the Pitres of Tecolote Farms for sharing great photos of the park and their farm for this piece./Correction: It is the FM 969 growth corridor, not "696" Corridor as previously posted. Thanks to an eagle-eyed reader who caught and helped correct that error.]

Officials for Travis County often take a somewhat hard line with small potatoes like family farms or individuals.

Our county commissioners are elected officials. Numbers, and potential political campaign contribution fund sources are the real numbers we are talking about here more than individual votes -those numbers, need to be BIG to capture a Travis County politician's interest the way their County wells have already captured so much of the available aquifer in eastern Travis County.

Somehow, sitting in their offices at their desks they might be missing the big picture along with the big numbers participating in a transformation that is happening all around us. According to an article in the New York Times recently, the seed supply and nursery folk have already seen this phenomenon all around the country.

With the economy tanking, people are focusing on growing their own food to save money. This has led to a tripling of seed sales in some areas. People who have never raised food crops before are putting in gardens, and large numbers of people who are already gardening are increasing the areas of their property given over to raising food.

My husband and I count ourselves in that number. We have methodically eradicated areas formerly dedicated to St Augustine lawn and replaced that monoculture with what we intend to become self sustaining diverse garden areas filled with plants that will feed the soil, the local flora/fauna, and ourselves, not necessarily in that order. Here are glimpses of what we have replaced our lawn with.
We've even seriously considered a move in our future, going out to a more rural area to try our own hands at raising and providing healthy local food to Austin area markets. And we are not alone there, either.

In an article running this weekend, the Times documents another trend, that of folks leaving high pressure corporate careers to enter into a second career, responsibly raising food as a small source supplier for other locals interested in knowing where - and who - their food is coming from.

As the Tomato Salmonella Scandal enters it's third month, now involving 38 states and claiming at least 887 victims, it becomes increasingly clear that the trust previously placed in large chains and agribusiness concerns to watch our food for us is not only misplaced, it is unfounded. Neither our governmental agencies or the huge agribusiness concerns can - or will - be able to tell us what is being done to our food before we eat it, much less where it came from originally.

All these health risk alerts in concert with more folks raising our own food inevitably leads to an increased awareness of what others who raise food locally are facing. It's just human nature. We always pay more attention to people who are doing whatever we are trying to do.

And once we start paying attention, we will begin to hear about problems small family farms, including Travis County's own organic CSA purveyor, Tecolote Farm, are facing, again. Many people are going to be shocked by what they see and hear.

If you are thinking this seems to be a resurgence of the situation that originally created the need for Willie Nelson and friends' Farm Aid some 21 years ago, you'd be right. Only this go-round, the players are not nameless family farmers in the Midwest, most of whom were driven out of business years ago. Nope, this go-round we are playing the home version of the "Who Can Afford to Farm" game, right here in Travis County.

A lot of folks are going to try and break this out into bumper sticker slogan sized sound bites. County Park Bad:Farmers Good. But this is more complicated than that. A simple good/bad split won't hold water any more than some of the struggling wells in eastern Travis County.

The new park in eastern Travis County is not just a water guzzling enterprise, is it also a hard fought victory for folks who were more typically finding their new neighbors to be cement production outfits or landfill operations. Other than this park, those were the types of enterprises more routinely approved for this out flung area by the NIMBYcentric commissioner's Court.

It is a sad fact that the politicians, along with their more populous and affluent constituents in the western and central regions of the county, have typically treated the eastern sections of Travis county like most of us homeowners do that section behind the fence. Out of sight, out of mind, if I don't see it it doesn't really matter...

Nope. The new park is a great idea. Who wouldn't be in favor of wide expanses of grass being in parks set aside for free public use rather than the more typical grassy areas sitting unused and unavailable all around people's suburban homes?However. While developing a park area is a great idea, that park requires water, and having that park does not in any way justify the egregious wasting of that water. Watering in the heat of the afternoon, letting water run across a parking lot, that all wastes water. Creating large open unshaded stocked fishing ponds that will lose significantly to evaporation, for that matter trying to get any fields established at all in the hottest driest part of the year, these are all practices that don't so much use water as they lose water. Lots of water. Water that is lost in ways that cannot be recaptured and takes it away permanently from others who need it for their livelihood.

Water lost for no good reason that could be used in other ways. Water lost that further depletes the aquifer and eventually will affect all the wells in the area including the ones providing drinking water for most of the folks who will ostensibly benefit the most from having that gorgeous park in their part of the county.

Our economic woes are only beginning. We all need water. We all will have to make tough choices. The county is supposed to be a role model - showing us how to use water properly, especially in hot dry times when the aquifer is not recharged.

As we individual consumers are routinely told by our water providers, when the aquifer falls and temperatures rise, priorities shift. Car washing and lawn watering has to be curtailed. That applies to eastern Travis County and the water used for the public park no less than anybody or anywhere else.

Look at these beautiful vegetables.You tell me how a family is supposed to be able to raise these to sell to hungry folks in other families when they are spending hours hiking up a creek to try and dislodge jams preventing water from reaching their property? Having to haul in expensive water to purify to prepare their crops for market? Or worse yet, spending countless other hours inside meeting rooms trying to determine how to fairly handle the water crisis developing along with the other growth along the FM 969 corridor?

How wounding must it be to have to try and convince others that your farm, and along with your farm, your family, has the right to be allowed to survive?

Find out who your County Commissioner is. Call their offices today and politely let them know you are concerned about the water problems in eastern Travis County.

Let them know you are concerned about the future of Travis County if all the land suitable for food production loses the water support it needs for irrigation and greenhouse watering. Explain to them how you are concerned about food prices and sustainability and you want to know what they are going to do about the wasteful water practices in their parks, especially the Eastern Metropolitan park in the photos shown above.

Then give them a listen and hear what they have to say. They are your elected representatives. This is your county, they are your parks. It's your water, and pretty soon, it will be your wallet that will be opened to pay the price for the water wasted and the food crops lost. Right here in Travis County.

How Dry I Am, or What Would Jesus Drink?

In an article in the Austin American Statesman today, Asher Price is reporting on the very real threat that our sweet local CSA venture, Tecolote Farms, might be forced off their property and run out of their family's organic produce business due to their well drying up.

Now you could take a jaundiced view here and say something about how all farming is a risky venture, the amounts of rainfall and the varied climatic situations are always threatening agriculture, etc. but that isn't the whole story.

Sure, less rainfall is partly to blame for the Farm's well going dry, but the larger culprit is a shocking lack of water use regulatory policy in Texas. We may tout "Texas - It's like a whole other country", but out in east Travis county, we are more like "Texas - Whoever has the biggest pump wins.".

At the moment, the big water draws in East Travis County belong to a commercial provider - and to the county itself, taking water to irrigate playing fields for the East Metropolitan Park, which will eventually encompass, according to a recent bond program approved: "... recreational facilities...include: two multi-use ball fields, three youth baseball fields, one adult baseball field, two soccer fields, one covered basketball court, playscapes, concessions facilities, restrooms, hiking trails, and three ponds that will support catch-n-release fishing programs. The ball fields and soccer fields will be ready for play this fall after the turf has time to establish itself. The master plan for the park resulted from an extensive public outreach effort that elicited ideas about park design and layout from throughout Travis County.

The 2005 Bond program allows for the completion of the park’s master plan and will include additional baseball fields, soccer fields, concessions stands and restrooms, a meeting facility, a tennis court, shuffle board courts, an 18 hole disc golf course and additional trails."

I am a native born resident of Austin. My husband and I came back here in the midst of the economic slump of the 80s and we raised our two children here. I am not reflexively against growth and I am a huge fan of the public parks in our area. BUT....

The idea that we can allow unregulated subdivisions to explode around us, to have the county itself as well as other commercial pumping outfits making a profit off the groundwater at the expense of other pre-existing local businesses, especially local organic farms, just doesn't make any sense to me.

The Pitres are trying to find a way to buy some of the water that is actively being sucked away out from under their own land, but hoping to do so at an agricultural rate. So far, they are out of luck. Katie Pitre remarked she was told when checking with a local water supplier "most farmers rely on Jesus.".

This is ironic considering Tecolotes Farm's neighbor, Manville Water Supply Corporation, says on their website they began as a group of farmers after a prolonged draught in 1967, originally calling themselves the "Farmers Home Administration Water System.". In a state where agriculture used to reign supreme, in a county where farmers were organizing as recently in the late 60's to preserve their water supplies, how could we have allowed ourselves to neglect to regulate water use?

In a paper prepared for the Peak Oil Preparation group, Nancy Dennis took a look at whether or not Austin already has more people than can be fed with food grown locally. In her research about how many acres of irrigated land there are in our county, Dennis discovered a huge shift away from agricultural to other uses for land county wide. Looking at the county's figures as reported in "Texas Environmental [County] Profiles", and figures reported to the federal authorities, there are 1300 acres dedicated to "irrigated croplands" and 38,000 "cultivated" acres of county wide. Looking at all the 2020 projections for use, the only number that goes down is that for irrigated water use by sector (from 1224 in 2000 to 622 in 2020[acre feet]).

So who might be of assistance? LCRA? They are the ones selling water rights in the area, but according to their new, supposedly more "green" GM, Tom Mason, help won't be coming any time soon from the LCRA, either.

Quoted in an article in January ("Full Stream Ahead"), Mason states LCRA won’t take the initiative on sustainability unless a higher authority says it must. “That’s for the state to decide,” he said. “The state water code sets priorities of uses, how you can use the water, under what circumstances you get a permit. The Legislature tends to lag behind people’s needs, and they respond to constituents’ concerns. That’s where I think we’ll see changes in water conservation. It needs to be done on a statewide basis. Groundwater and surface water are separated by law, but in reality, they are connected. There’s a finite amount of water around. When water gets so expensive, if you can’t construct a reservoir—many water planners will tell you there’s very few reservoir sites left in the state of Texas, for all sorts of reasons. That leaves conservation, conjunctive use of groundwater and surface water, desalination, which right now is very expensive because of energy costs, and changing human behavior. At some point, as it has in the past, the Legislature is going to change laws and direct us in a certain way because it is inevitable we need to manage a finite resource in a slightly different way.”Apparently decisions have already been made that will affect all of us whether or not we care about what we eat or where it comes from. These land use policies are being underwritten by a lack of actual decision making with regards to water use. Travis County will gradually, inexorably move from a county with ample groundwater to support irrigated land capable of generating food crops, to our current worsening status of a county whose policies support only "other" uses, providing for increased subdivisions, manufacturing, mining, livestock, and, oh right, parks.

Travis County Commissioner Ron Davis is quoted in the newspaper article as saying, ""We all benefit from that park," "Listen, before this park came about, the folks in that part of the county, they either had to go to Bastrop or all the way into Austin to entertain their families with park events." Which "folks in that part of the county" are we talking about here? Those "folks", would they be the same ones whose family farm, operating since 1993, has just run out of water?

I guess, sure, with no water meaning no work to be done, there would be loads more time for the Pitres to spend playing in the park with their children. As long as they don't plan to try and shower or get a drink of water at their house, afterward.

Bottom line is this, according to Ron Davis. Parks or food. He is apparently not willing to see any way to provide for both. Fresh, locally grown vegetables or more land supporting a monoculture of grass for people to play and sit on. Is that a tough choice for anybody else? Davis is not a bad guy in my book, don't get me wrong. He has stood up for the folks in Eastern Travis County for years, when other folks were content letting them live in the midst of unregulated landfills. So sure, get your folks a park, Mr. Davis. But keep an eye on how big that park will be, how much water it will take to keep those fields green, and watch out for your farmers, too.

As for Katie and David Pitre relying on Jesus for water to grow and clean their organic produce in preparation for sale locally, I guess I see where that comment is coming from. After all, according to the Bible, at the very beginning of our combined history on earth - that is, the combined history of humankind and everything else living on this planet, "Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.". I don't read anything in there about 18 hole disc golf courses or shuffle ball courts.

So yeah, maybe Jesus is the last recourse for anybody trying to grow food these days. It sure as shoot isn't going to be somebody like, say, County Commissioners or the LCRA who will give them any help.

Why should YOU care?

There is an ancient saying, "Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you." ( Pericles, 430 B.C.).

Just because you might not have a CSA share that is threatened by water use in eastern Travis County doesn't mean you won't be impacted by the "if we have water we gotta sell it" policies we currently suffer under. If you think food prices are high now, consider how much higher they will rise when oil prices stay up and all the food you can buy to eat - even at a farmer's market - has to come to you from property outside the county. You can at least make a choice about driving (or not) to play at the park.

Think about living in the Houston Metro area where the concept of a farm is something you'll only see on bulletin boards or hear about in grade school classrooms as they talk about Texas History.

Food or parks? I say we need both/and, not either/or. You with me on that?