San Marcos River Foundation Newsletter - Vol. 8, No. 1
Printed Quarterly on Recycled Paper - January 15, 1998

ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING IN JANUARY

Date: Thursday, January 29, 1998
Time: 6 p.m. Refreshments, 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Meeting
Place: San Marcos Public Library
Agenda:

Financial Report
Review of '97 Activities
Election of Board Members
Discussion of Direction for '98

NOMINATIONS FOR BOARD MEMBERS

The annual Membership Meeting will give members the opportunity to elect new Board members and tell the Board what direction to pursue in the coming year. The nominating committee of Dr. Jack Fairchild, Charles Blankenship, and Dr. Tom Arsuffi have come up with a slate of board members to be voted on.
Mark Boucher, who has served one three-year term, is nominated for a second term. Mark works at SWT as a programmer in Information Systems and Services, and volunteers his computer expertise to manage the mailing list of SMRF members.

Since Fairchild and Arsuffi have both served two terms, their positions are open, and Dr. Alan Groeger and Dianne Wassenich have been nominated to run for those positions on the Board of Directors. Groeger is a respected professor in SWT's aquatic biology program within the Biology Department. Wassenich is a long time volunteer who has worked for the River Foundation since it began.

If there are additional nominations that members wish to make as alternatives to these three candidates, they can be made in writing to Secretary Jo Ellen Korthals' attention, by mail (P O. Box 1393, San Marcos, TX 78667-1393.) 10% of the River Foundation's membership must endorse such a nomination. Another way of nominating an alternative candidate is to attend the annual Membership Meeting on January 29, and nominate such person from the floor when the President calls for any additional nominations. This kind of nomination must have 25% of the members attending the meeting to endorse the nomination. These nominating procedures are outlined in the River Foundation's bylaws.

The annual meeting will also be an opportunity to meet and visit with the many people involved in the Foundation's work. Refreshments will be served at 6 p.m. and the meeting will run from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Visitors are very welcome.

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PRESIDENT'S COMMENTS

This will be my last message to you as President, as I have served the maximum two terms on your Board of Directors. I will not go away, however, and plan to continue to help out as an active member. I am sure that you will cooperate with and support the new President and make his/her job as easy as you have made mine. My five years as your President has been very rewarding. During this time, we have accomplished many things together, but we cannot rest on our laurels as many projects are still not completed, and new challenges to the River will arise and will need agressive action.
As I review these past years, we can be proud of our many accomplishments which have helped to preserve the quality, flow, and purity of our beautiful San Marcos River. Some of these are outlined below: *Significant reduction of pollutants discharged into our River through our successful protest of the old City of San Marcos Wastewater Discharge Permit. The new treatment plant will be complete and on line this May, and will enable the antiquated Camp Gary sewage plant to be shut down. Hallelujah! And just by talking with Texas Parks & Wildlife we are seeing improvement in their plans to treat their discharge from the hatchery.

Encouraging the City of San Marcos to develop a more realistic plan for their future water supply by opposing their unwise "Bed & Banks" application and supporting use of firm Canyon Lake water and beneficial reuse of wastewater.

Continuing support of many educational projects (kiosks, aquifer maps, workshops, lectures, and conferences) and River improvement projects like the River Ranger testing group, River cleanups, and scientific research. Establishing a website to extend our educational resources to a wider audience, and promoting birding to promote preservtion of natural riverbank habitat.

Reorganizing our financial resources to provide more money for expensive legal actions through the Financial Advisory Committee. Also, initiating annual audits of our finances by an outside CPA to assure our members that the Foundation is on a sound financial base.

Initiating a successful grant application program to provide additional funds for our projects. These grants have provided money to pay for legal help in our permit work, and allowed us to purchase needed office equipment (computer and printer) and water quality measurement instruments to support our work.
Why have we been so successful these past years? I believe it can be attributed to the availability of willing and competent workers, doing our homework before entering a dispute, basing our policy positions on sound science and logic rather than emotion. And persistence---NEVER GIVING UP. This is the legacy I would like to leave to the new leadership of the Foundation. Again, I have enjoyed serving as your President and hope to continue in any way the new leadership desires. For those of you who have not taken an active role as yet, COME ON IN, THE WATER IS FINE!! VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES, MONTHLY MEETING DATES

Get out those calendars!

On January 20, there will be a Parks & Recreation Advisory Board meeting at City Hall at 5:30 p.m., where SMRF members can express their opinions about a 12 foot waterfall, canal and fountain which has been suggested for the space between the Library and the Activity Center. Following this meeting, at 7:30 p.m. there will be a public meeting on the subject of a parks master plan, which is the first of four that will be held all over the city. Since so much of San Marcos's park system is along the River, SMRF members need to give input as well as watch the outcome of this plan.

On February 20, the SMRF will serve lunch at the Charles S. Cock House Museum, located at the intersection of Hopkins and C. M. Allen. Please be sure to come eat lunch for $5 including drink and dessert, and bring all your friends. The big cooking session will be the day before, and the Friday luncheon will be from 11 to 1. Call 512-393-3787 in advance to help with the cooking, serving, or baking of home made desserts. The list of volunteers has to be turned in by the end of January, so don't delay. This luncheon benefits the Heritage Association, the major donor to the River Foundation's endowment fund, which has turned out to be the key to defending this River now and in the future.

On March 7, the 26th annual Spring River Cleanup will hit San Marcos and the whole length of the River all the way to Gonzales. Always a huge and fun event, the locals are joined by canoe clubs from all over Texas, and all kinds of groups from this area, including the Adopt-a-River groups. For information, call Tom Goynes at 392-6171. Canoes will be provided by TG Canoes and Spencer Canoes. Dinner at Shady Grove Campgound in Martindale will be at 6 p.m., provided by SMRF. If you have a group that might like to participate, call Tom to see if he might want to assign you to a particular area, or perhaps you can suggest one. If he runs out of places to assign groups, we can think of several tributaries to the River that are unbelievably trashed, like Willow Creek near IH 35, Purgatory Creek anywhere in town, and Sessoms Creek along Sessoms Drive through the SWT campus.

Nuts & Bolts work meetings for SMRF are called that because they are monthly, and they enable everyone to stay up to speed on what is going on. This is how everyone finds out what needs to be done to the nuts and bolts that hold SMRF together. They are on the third Tuesday of each month at 6 p.m. in the little stone building at Rio Vista Dam that used to be the Parks & Rec office. This building is reached by turning in to the parking lot near the swimming pool, off Cheatham Street between C. M. Allen and the River. Please feel free to attend, all visitors are welcome. The Nuts & Bolts meetings coming up are on February 17 and March 17, so mark your calendars so you won't forget. And don't forget April is River Awareness Month.

Volunteers are needed for lots of miscellaneous jobs: Sally the 16' Blind Salamander needs some paint and work at Aquarena, the River Rangers always need more testing volunteers and will have a training session soon, many locations still need an adopting group to clean up along the riverbanks, and more jobs come up every week. Call 512-393-3787 to volunteer or get more information.

Birding information can be obtained from the website SMRF set up two years ago to promote the excellent birding in San Marcos at http://www.centuryinter.net/birding

And don't forget to call 396-BIRD every month to hear the latest local bird news written by Dick Henderson,and recorded by the Chamber folks onto the phone line sponsored by SMRF. These monthly pages of bird news for the past two years are being bound to put into the Public Library historical files. Ask for them next time you are at the Library, if you'd like to compare the previous years of bird sightings to this year.

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5K GRANT FROM RACHEL & BEN VAUGHN FOUNDATION

The Vaughn Foundation has once again helped SMRF out with a grant of $5000 which SMRF will match with donations from members, to defend the River. This money will be used for scientific studies and legal fees in the coming hearings and court cases on both the fish hatchery discharge permit and the City's two permits to withdraw water from the River, as well as the EPA permit appeal currently in the works on the City's federal wastewater permit.

The Vaughn Foundation is also the donor of the much appreciated hydrolab equipment given last year that will enable SMRF to test the discharges into the River around the clock. The Lola Wright Foundation also contributed $1000 to SMRF this past year to purchase the laptop computer needed to connect to the hydrolab. The laptop feature will mean that the data can be taken to a hearing or other location.

SMRF owes some of this bounty to the expertise of Madge Winks, grantwriter and consultant at Cornucopia Consulting of Austin, who was recommended to SMRF by Richard Salmon, Hays County Grant Coordinator. The County's grantwriting initiative has brought millions of dollars into Hays County and San Marcos: an innovation that has really paid off well for them. Dr. Jack Fairchild, SMRF President, has also written some of the grant information, and answered questions about the grant purposes when the grant administrators call. SMRF member Dianne Wassenich collected and wrote information for the grantwriter's use as well.

LATEBREAKING GRANT NEWS!

After the above article was written, the Margaret C. Wray Trust sent SMRF a check for $2,500 to also be used on scientific research and legal fees to protect the River. Dr. Fairchild wrote the request for this grant, and the Wray Trust answered with this invaluable assistance, as they have before. We are very grateful.

HOT OFF THE PRESS---NEWS ON HEARINGS AND COURT CASES

The State fish hatchery permit paperwork has finally been declared complete, and notice of the new details will be published soon in the paper. They amount to a change from 2.7 million gallons per day discharge to 5 million gallons per day, and an effluent treatment level of 5-10-1. The change in the letter that went out to all the parties involved had an error about changing the 54 ponds to 2 ponds, and that will be deleted in the newspaper's published notice. All the new material will be analyzed by SMRF's technical experts, and SMRF members will be alerted if any further action is needed. There will be a hearing at the Hays County Jail at 1307 Uhland Road at 10 a.m. on February 19, 1998. Please make a special point to attend if you can, especially if you are a party already in this hearing process that started a year ago.

No news yet on the EPA appeal on the City's wastewater discharge permit.

The briefs are all submitted to Hearing Judge Rogan on the State permit for the City's Bed & Banks plan, and a decision should happen any day. Watch the newspaper for this decision on whether the treated sewage put into the River is State water or the City's private water that they can withdraw downstream without having a permit. The matter will not be over after this decision, but rather just beginning, since there is still a court case pending on basically the same issue, and possibly another hearing if the waste is declared State water, and the City persists.

No news on the City's second permit to withdraw water from the River, since they will need to get the Bed & Banks permit to make the second one worth pursuing.

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SWT DEVELOPMENTS

The University now has plans to pave a section of the grassy area beside the slough on University Drive, between the softball fields and Aquarena's entrance, to serve as a parking area for about 7 cars and a site for maps of building locations on the campus. This "turnout", as they are calling it, would serve as an "entrance" for SWT. The huge paved parking lots just across the street, including the stadium parking lots, are unfortunately not being considered as an alternative site. The already paved areas would be preferable to paving more land so close to the water.

The plan to build a large building and more parking at Aquarena for Texas Parks & Wildlife's Aquatic Conservation Center is also worrisome. The very fragile and small Spring Lake could be damaged beyond repair by a large development, the construction runoff, and the runoff from a heavily used parking area. The concept of an Aquatic Conservation Center is admirable, but building it close to the water is not an sensible plan. The area is also deeply imbedded with archeological artifacts that would require major and expensive archeological excavations and studies, so cautious pre-planning needs to be done before decisions are made.

There is just so much paving being done lately near the San Marcos River and Spring Lake, by the City, County, private entities, and the University, that this subject needs to be discussed at the annual Membership Meeting, to formulate a way of dealing with these threats to water quality, before any more damage is done.

RIVER FLOW LEVEL COMPARISONS

The flow of the San Marcos River is surprisingly close, at this printing date of January 15, 1998, to the flow on October 5, 1997 when our last newsletter was printed. The flow level today is 181 cubic feet per second (cfs), compared to 180 cfs in October. This is below normal for this time of year. To date, El Nino weather patterns have not brought flooding to Central Texas, but the chance of that happening is still causing concern. If you live near the river, always be alert and ready for high water coming quickly, even when the rainfall near San Marcos is slight. Heavy rains north of Blanco can bring flooding to the San Marcos River 10 to 12 hours later, and can surprise downstream residents on a sunny day!

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