Why you should care about Barton Springs

Cross-posted at Daily Kos. Keep in mind I wrote this for non-Austinites but since it has to do with the upcoming Propositions, I posted it to AustinBloggers as well.

If you go a little over 1 mile southwest from the direct center of downtown Austin, Texas, you'll find yourself at one of the greatest natural sites left in Texas:  Barton Springs pool.  Fed by the endangered Edwards aquifer, the water is a clear and cool 68 degrees year round, making the swimming in the middle of the Texas summer at least bearable until the cool Fall breezes sweep in.  Barton Springs is in the southern part of a 12 mile long greenbelt of undeveloped land that snakes through the western edge of Austin, much of which has been set aside by the citizens of Austin in bonds to protect the green space as well as the sensitive aquifer that resides beneath it.  Most Austinites visit Barton Springs pool a couple of times a month in the summer to roast in the Texas sun and share the natural experience with other Austinites so close to the hustle, sprawl and large, multi-story buildings of downtown.  To most in Austin, Barton Springs isn't merely a swimming hole; it's a generational gift to them from their parents and a prime example of what defines Austin as a city and a culture.

Environmental protection of Barton Springs has gone on since the beginning of the environmental movement but really unified in the late 80's.  Since then, various local ordinances dealing with development over the aquifer have been passed as well as hundreds of millions of dollars for land purchases to protect the sensitive natural area from development.  But, as some would say, there's a new threat to the green space and possible future existence of Barton Springs.  And disturbingly, the threat seems to reside within the very governmental body chartered to protect the springs:  the Austin City Council.

There now exists a palpable disconnect between the Austin City Council and local environmentalists who feel that their government is no longer working for them.  Fueled by this frustration and using history as a guide, the Save Our Springs Alliance drew up and circulated 2 amendments to Austin's City Charter.  The amendments, primarily a response to what the environmentalists felt was a closed door, back-office deal brokered between a developer (Stratus Properties), a client (Advanced Micro Devices), and the City Council, strive for transparency in the land development process as well as seeking to hold local government accountable by using technology to facilitate the opening of information to the public.

Unfortunately, the current situation echoes one from just 16 years ago.  In 1990, a developer (Freeport McMoRan) sought to develop 4,000 acres within the Edwards aquifer and on top of Barton Springs by building hundreds of homes and apartments.  The citizens of Austin quickly banded together in an effort to block the development by lining up to speak against it in front of the City Council.  Over seven hundred speakers signed up to speak in front of the Council against the proposed development that night.  By the end of the epic Council meeting, the development was stopped by a unanimous vote of the Council, 7-0.  This victory essentially started the formal defense of Barton Springs (at the time named the Save Our Springs Coalition) and some much needed local ordinances were drafted to further inhibit development within the sensitive area.

But, after the Council meeting when the draft legislation was released, the lobbyists and developers tried to stop the most damaging parts of the ordinance; the "nondegradation" clauses which prohibited futher polluting within the aquifer.  After nearly a year of redrafting, the Council finally adopted a loophole-ridden version of the original draft.  Some felt this "Composite Draft" did not protect the springs adequately so the Save Our Springs Coalition wrote up a competing draft and set off to collect the required 20,000 signatures needed to put the ordinance on the ballot.

Once the signatures were collected and verified, the City Council delayed the recognition of the citizen-sponsored ordinance to where it could not get on the May 1992 ballot but it eventually made it onto the August 1992 ballot.  But in that time, the developers filed requests for development within the Barton Springs area in the hopes of "grandfathering" if the new ordinance from SOS passed.  Interestingly, it was also during this time that a Chamber of Commerce led campaign against the SOS amendment was undertaken, directed by none other than George W. Bush's right-hand man, Karl Rove.

When the election was finally held and the citizens of Austin finally had their say, the citizen-drafted and citizen-sponsored ordinance passed by nearly 2-1 (65% approval).  The ordinance finally put in place some much needed environmental protections to protect Austin's premier natural treasure.

It's with that history still fresh in the minds of the citizen environmentalists that a new threat to the springs comes forward.  Since the passage of the SOS ordinance in 1992, citizens have asked major employers to not build in the sensitive areas of the Edwards aquifer and to locate in the "Preferred Development Zone;" an area still close to downtown but not located over the aquifer and thus does not affect the water quality of Barton Springs.  That is until recently, in what these citizen environmentalists believe have been back-room deals with the Austin City Council, Advanced Micro Devices' new offices was "grandfathered" within the zone even though they appeared to have no legitimate grandfathering claim.  Worse still, the development would be a monster; a $220mil, 875,000 sq. ft. office pavillion which would serve as a "hub" for other development spurs into the sensitive area.

So, with history as a guide, the SOS Alliance drafted 2 new amendments to the Austin City Charter and went about collecting the 20,000 signatures that each amendment required to gain entry on the voting ballot.  Each amendment attacked what they saw as a problem in their efforts to be included at the discussion table for development within the Edwards aquifer and specifically with the AMD situation.  

The first amendment, now known as Proposition 1 and commonly referred to as the "Open Government Online" amendment, tries to bring tranparency to the local government and its elected officials.  It provides for new accountability and transparency standards for the highest City officials; the City Council, City managers and their staffs, and Division heads.  It requires phone and meeting logs to be posted "real time" to the City's website for those officials as well as defaults the City's Public Information policies towards openness.  It makes it harder to keep the public out of the now-secret negotiations between developers and the City as well as opening up police misconduct records to public scrutiny, bringing Austin inline with 2,000 other law enforcement agencies across the state of Texas.

The second amendment, Proposition 2 or the "Clean Water" amendment, seeks to add protection to Barton Springs and the Edwards aquifer by asking major employers to not locate on the Barton Springs watershed as well as curtailing city tax money for developing toll roads in the environmentally sensitive area.  The amendment would limit the city's authority in "grandfathering" claims that have weaker environmental standards than the 1992 voter-approved ordinances where, over the last 14 years, scores of development projects have been allowed to build in the sensitive area with only voluntary compliance to the 1992 ordinance.

Once the signatures had been collected and verified, the City Council originally drew up blatantly misleading ballot language in what seemed to be an effort to discourage the passage of the amendments.  Some citizens of Austin sued the City in court to rewrite the ballot language to comply with the state standards of fairness for ballot measures and for the first time in Texas history (and you have to think about how corrupt Texas politics can be and this was the first time...), a court found that the ballot language proposed by a municipal council would have to be rewritten.  The language originally approved by the Council was found to not "present a fair measure of the proposed measures [and] chief features" of the amendments.  But instead of trying to follow the direction of the judge (who, jokingly said that the state standard could be met by saying "This one is about open government; this one is about the springs") a few on the Council, led by Council Member Brewster McCracken opted to take out the "offending" passages but still leave enormously misleading language.  But because the Council delayed formulation of the original language and then went to court to defend itself, the final, still misleading language had to be placed on the ballot to meet the Travis County's deadline for getting ballots out to absentee voters.  

At its core, this is about how the citizens of Austin feel their government has failed them.  Austin, the poster child for an environmental town if there ever was one, with its collective of actors, artists, athletes, musicians, writers, geeks, students, Californians, Democrats and yes, even Republicans, pride themselves on just how much the environment is a part of their daily lifestyle.  Just look at any of the "Best places to live" lists and Austin is almost always on it.  And usually, at the top of those lists of the reasons why Austin is such a great place to live, it's noted how much green space is available through park lands, environmentally sensitive planning of developments and natural places like Barton Springs, Hamilton pool or Hippie Hollow.  The last thing that Austinites want is a city that looks, feels, smells and functions like Houston or Dallas.  We are all in love with the unique blend of arts, technology, people, scenery and general quirkiness that makes this city so damn appealing and most residents long to keep it that way for future generations.  This truly is a city of individuals but on one issue, Barton Springs, almost all are on the same side.  

Over the coming days I'll be cross-posting from my personal blog into this diary in an attempt to pull attention to this issue from outside of Austin.  I hope to show you, the national Daily Kos reader, the reasons why this issue is important to you even if you live in South Dakota.  As history has shown, what happens here in Austin is sometimes a national warning if we just listen.

Revision history:

• 4/28/06 - I was mistaken that it was a Federal court. It was actually the 345th Judicial District State Court and removed the Federal references.