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Cover Story
Water Paradises
Balancing protection and public access for fragile resources.
By Carol Flake Chapman
There are certain special places in Texas, like Hamilton Pool, west of Austin, that remind me of paintings I’ve seen from the Middle Ages of the sacred space known as the hortus conclusus, or enclosed garden. When I’ve come upon these places, created by forces of nature rather than by artistic design, I’ve felt what I imagine to be the same sense of wonder and awe that those small but precious places must have evoked in medieval times. And the key for both kinds of places, whether natural or artificially ordered, is water, springing forth almost as though by miracle.
In the hortus conclusus, there was always water at the center, in the form of a well or a fountain, and the space was often surrounded by a rock wall or by a stone arcade. Water is the focal point of these special places in Texas, too, which I call water paradises. Most of these hidden retreats are sprinkled around Central Texas, thanks to karst formations that lend themselves to collapsed grottoes. At the heart of these places is water, in the form of pools, springs or waterfalls. And there is usually a dramatic backdrop of rocks, as well as the same feeling of sanctuary and seclusion as in the artful enclosed gardens. Those who have been fortunate enough to visit the Hill Country treasures of Hamilton Pool, Westcave Preserve, Gorman Falls, Jacob’s Well or Blue Hole may have felt the same way I did when I first saw them. After recovering my breath after first seeing them, I had contradictory impulses. The first was a protective feeling, of wanting to keep this secret place to myself so that it would remain unspoiled, and the next was a desire to tell everyone I knew about it so they could share the experience.
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Obviously, keeping these extraordinary places to oneself is neither a realistic nor an admirable expectation. Most of them are on public land, of one sort or another, and questions of stewardship can get quite complex. Over the years, as pressures grow for access to such beautiful places, the caretakers of these water paradises, whether they are located in parks or preserves, have been diligently trying to balance the seemingly contradictory imperatives of public access and the protection of a unique resource. It’s a precarious balance that parks everywhere struggle to maintain. As it happens, each of these unusual water resources in Central Texas has had a different history, but all incurred some form of ecological damage in the past as a result of overuse or outside encroachment. Each has been managed differently, and policies have shifted over the years as physical conditions and public attitudes toward fragile natural resources have changed. [read more]
This Month's Features
Where the First Raindrop Falls
Managing watersheds on a regional scale, involving multiple landowners, is the key to meeting Texas’ water needs.
By Larry D. Hodge
John Graves said it best in Texas Rivers: “The loss of our primeval forests and prairies, the extinction or increasing rarity of many species of living things, the disruption of our waters’ flow and their pollution — all these evils and more … are the price we have paid for progress and prosperity and our nation’s power, for getting to the point we have reached today.”
What point have we reached? Gunnar Brune’s Springs of Texas (1973) gives a clue. “Texas originally had 281 major and historically significant springs, other than saline springs. Of these, four were originally very large springs (over 100 cubic feet per second flow); however, only two, Comal and San Marcos, remain in that class today. Sixty-three springs, many with important historical backgrounds, have completely failed.”
Why does this matter?
Spring flow is a barometer of underground water supply. “A spring is normally a spillway for an underground reservoir,” Brune said. It is those reservoirs, through seeps and springs, that provide what hydrologists call base flows, the water that courses through streams after runoff from rainfall ceases. Underground reservoirs also supply water to lakes, ponds and wells. The fate of springs is ours as well. Graves was right. We have paid a tremendous price — not out of our own pockets, but borrowed from future generations — for getting to where we are today.
So where do we go from here?
In 1947, former President Johnson recognized that private landowners are the key to conservation when he said, “Saving the water and the soil must start where the first raindrop falls.” This is especially true in Texas, where more than 90 percent of the land is privately owned. [read more]
The Great Rain Harvest
Go ahead, collect your rainwater. Everybody’s doing it.
By Rusty Middleton
While Hari Krishna was visiting his native India recently, he traveled through a remote rural village and saw that rainwater was being collected from the roofs of some of the buildings. He stopped and asked the villagers how they learned to build the catchment system. One man went inside and promptly brought out a copy of The Texas Manual on Rainwater Harvesting written by none other than Krishna. A longtime employee of the Texas Water Development Board, now working as a consultant, Krishna was gratified to find his handbook so far from home, but not all that surprised.
“Texas is the national leader in rainwater collection and the U.S. is among the most active internationally,” said Krishna, who is a leading proponent of rainwater collection in Texas. “It’s an ancient method that is catching on again, and we are leading the way. What was once thought of as fringe technology in Texas has become mainstream, at least in rural Texas. In fact, drought-stricken Central Texas is the most active rainwater harvesting region of the country.”
But why did all this happen in Texas and not, say, Arizona, where it is generally drier; or California, where, by reputation at least, early adoption of alternative technology is common? [read more]
Laughing Water
No matter what the season, waterfalls transform a landscape into a wonderland.
Photos by Lance Varnell
From the waterfall he named her, Minnehaha, Laughing Water. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Not long after this city kid moved to the Hill Country, I found myself spending many a tranquil hour at the trove of idyllic swimming holes that grace our corner of the world. Many had waterfalls of various shapes and sizes — a slow, secretive trickle through a froth of ferns, rapids tumbling over boulders toward their final destination, or dramatic drops of the greatest grandeur. I imagined what it was like for Cabeza de Vaca when he stumbled upon this paradise, finding crystalline water cascading across the limestone rocks, lacy cypress trees and circling hawks sharing an azure backdrop, abundant wildlife also seeking the watering hole that brought life for all. [read more]
Weather Watchers
Trained meteorologists and amateurs alike help keep track of that crazy Texas weather.
By E. Dan Klepper
The day might have begun like any other — fresh eggs, dairy cow milk, and a bumpy ride down the dirt bluff road to the beach along the shores of Lake Texoma. Although choppy conditions may have kept the boat off the water, we would have fished anyway, casting our chances from the gravelly shoreline, waiting for the coolness of morning to give way to the heat of the day. By mid-afternoon we would have shed our shoes and gone swimming.
But Mother Nature had other plans. That night we slept inside the cabin’s screened porch, a handmade homestead that sat along a rural route stretching north between the oxbow curves of the submerged Red River. The lake air moved gently through the mesh, carrying the scent of cedar berries and striped bass noodling in the riprap.
Abruptly and without warning, a funnel cloud descended out of midnight, screaming like a jet engine just above the treetops. The deafening sound sent us scrambling for shelter beneath the cabin’s kitchen table, my sister and I excited, my mother and grandmother terrified. The roar shut down our ears. Then, just as suddenly, stillness. [read more]
Keep Texas Wild (PDF)
Every Drop Counts
