August 2014 - Texas Conservation Alliance

Texas Conservation Alliance
Conservation Progress
August 2014
BTA’s Neches River Rally
Celebrates New Paddling
Trail September 6
Saturday
September 20
We’ll hear from
Fisheries Center
1:00 - 4:00 pm
Director Allen
Forshage, tour
See you there!
wetlands with the
director of the
Trinity River Audubon Center,
Ben Jones, and TCA’s intern,
Jarratt Willis, and learn how
TCA’s many projects fit
together to protect
rivers, forests, and
other wildlife habitats.
CLCK HERE FOR DIRECTIONS
TO THE FRESHWATER FISHERIES CENTER
►
TCA Promotes Alternatives to Cedar Ridge Reservoir
Join the Big Thicket Association
for its 1st Annual Neches River
Rally on September 6 and
celebrate the newest State
Paddling Trail, Cooks Lake to
Scatterman Paddling Trail. The
new trail, a looped-style 4-mile
adventure along the lower Neches
Valley, features beautiful cypress
and tupelo forests.
Register today at 409-790-5399
or www.BigThicket.org.
The
Te x a s
Paddling Trails
program offers
public inland
and
coastal
paddling trails throughout the
state. These designated areas are
ideal outdoor day-trips, with
mapped areas, wildlife viewing
spots, fishing locations, and trails
for kayakers of any skill level.
TCA-generated news stories on KTXS-TV, KXVA-TV, and in the
Abilene Reporter News pointed out some of the problems with The program features more than
building a reservoir proposed by Abilene for water supply. The 3,700 designated streams, 15
proposed Cedar Ridge Reservoir would cost $285 million.
major rivers, and 3,300+ miles of
coastal
paddling
TCA commissioned a hydrologist to study the evaporative losses trails.
TCA
is
from the project. He found that, if built, the new reservoir would promoting several
lose an average of about 16,000 acre-feet per year (AFY) to new trails on the
evaporation, about 26% of the water flowing into the lake.
Neches River.
“There are lower-cost options for developing the same water,” TCA’s Janice Bezanson told
reporters. “Water could be pumped from the Clear Fork of the Brazos, where
the new reservoir is proposed, and stored in an existing water supply lake
called Hubbard Creek. Or it could be brought from Possum Kingdom
Reservoir, which is downstream of the proposed Cedar Ridge site.”
Janice praised Abilene for a new water recycling facility the City is
developing, saying recycling is the way to go, not building a new reservoir.
Click here to watch a 3-minute video by KTXS-12
EPA has Proposed Two Important Rules; TCA Members Urged to Comment
The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed two new rules that directly impact TCA’s core
mission of protecting native wildlife habitats. One rule would restore protections to millions of
acres of wetlands in the U.S.; the other would gradually phase in new standards on carbon
emissions from power plants. TCA members have until mid-October to voice their
support for the rules - information below for commenting.
Restoration of Protections
for Certain Wetlands
Limits on Carbon Emissions
from Power Plants
The Environmental Protection Agency has
proposed a rule that would restore protections to
crucial wetland areas whose status has been in
doubt since a 2008 Supreme Court ruling. The
ruling left unclear whether wetlands such as playa
lakes, coastal marshes, oxbow lakes, and
intermittent streams could continue to enjoy the
protections they had been afforded for 35 years
under Clean Water Act of 1972.
The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing
a limit on carbon emissions from coal-fired power
plants, which account for 40% of the country’s
carbon pollution. The proposed limits are the
result of a years-long collaborative process with
input from states, members of Congress, industry,
public health advocates, wildlife interests, and
many others.
EPA’s plan builds on actions already being taken
by states, cities, and businesses to create a flexible
scenario for states with differing needs and
resources.
States will have until 2016, with
extension to 2018, to submit a plan. The standards
will be phased in beginning in 2020.
The Clean Water Act is the primary law to protect
the waters of the country. Since 2008, the court
rulings and administrative rules have put in legal
limbo 75% of Texas streams, from which more
than 11 million Texans obtain their drinking water.
Most of these wetlands were technically given
protection, but because of confusion about the Climate change is impacting wildlife migration
rules, that protection simply wasn’t happening.
patterns, changing the nesting habits of birds,
encouraging invasive plant species, and altering
The new rule would follow the congressional the habitats depended on by wildlife. The state
intent of the Clean Water Act, returning the same climatologist says the weather patterns of Texas’
protection to all waters that feed into waters that decade-long drought have been seen before, but
are protected and all waters within floodplains.
this time the impacts of those patterns are greater
because temperatures are higher.
Texas
Significantly, it continues to exclude man-made agriculture and forestry are already impacted.
ditches and ponds, and irrigation systems, and it
gives exemptions for normal farming, ranching, TCA submitted testimony in support of the
and forestry activities. Eliminating the confusion emissions limits. The limits will spur growth in
will help landowners, industries, and others know renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar,
what they can and cannot do.
both growth industries in Texas.
Texas Conservation Alliance strongly supports the Polls show that 65% of Americans support limits
EPA’s proposed Waters of the US rule and urges on industrial carbon emissions. Show your support
you to make favorable comments to the EPA.
by submitting comments at the links below.
Comments Due by OCTOBER 20
Docket # EPA-HQ-2011-08
Comments due by OCTOBER 16
Docket # OAR-2013-0602
Send an email to ow-docket@epa.gov
Or, submit comments online (link below)
Send an email to A-and-R-Docket@epa.gov
Or, submit comments online (link below)
Click on this link to comment on
the Clean Water Act for U.S. Waters
Cick on this link to comment on
Carbon Pollution Guidelines
August 2014
TCAtexas.org
Conservation Easement Protects
Longleaf Pine
TPWD and Partners Protect 17,000-Acre
Unique Ecosystem
The Texas Forest Service and the Nature
Conservancy have completed a conservation
easement protecting 4,785 acres in the Longleaf
Ridge area of East Texas, using funding from the
federal Forest Legacy program.
The new
easement is located north of Jasper on land
managed by Campbell Global.
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD)
partnered with the TPW Foundation, The
Nature Conservancy and The Conservation
Fund to acquire the 17,351-acre Powderhorn
Ranch in Calhoun County, to protect its
remarkably unspoiled coastal land, forests of
coastal live oak, and intact wetlands.
The Forest Legacy Program, which is overseen by
the U.S. Forest Service, provided $1.8 million to
purchase the easement. The Nature Conservancy
provided $570,000 in matching funds.
Much of the $50 million price tag comes from
the Gulf Environmental Benefit Fund, a $2.5
billion fund created with money BP and
Transocean agreed to pay in plea agreements
following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
The Powderhorn is the largest land acquisition
made using the Gulf fund and the largest dollar
amount ever raised for a conservation land
purchase in the state.
Longleaf Ridge is recognized by public and private
organizations for its outstanding diversity and
scenery. It is one of the few places in Texas with
significant stands of longleaf pine and features
spring-fed creeks, hilltop views, pitcher-plant bogs
and Catahoula barrens rock outcrops.
Longleaf pine produces such valuable timber that
lumber from virgin trees is still salvaged from old
buildings and reused. Early settlers to East Texas
described those giant trees, which grew in open,
park-like stands that people could walk through
comfortably. Most original longleaf forests were
logged a century ago, then replanted in other
species such as loblolly pine. Less than two
percent of its original extent in Texas is
left today.
The easement will allow Campbell Global
to continue harvesting timber, but
will prohibit subdivision and
development. Campbell plans
to continue restoring and
maintaining longleaf forest
and other rare plant
communities.
TCA’s founder Ned Fritz
p o p u l a r ize d th e n a m e
“Longleaf Ridge” and called
attention to its unique scenic
features and natural diversity. At
TCA’s urging, national forest land in the vicinity
has been designated the Longleaf Ridge Special
Management Area.
TCA is the State Affiliate of the National Wildlife Federation
The purchase comes after a decades-long effort
to protect the tract from looming development.
TPWD plans to create a state park and wildlife
management area for public use.
Most of Powderhorn is prairie/savanna, with
native grasses such as bluestem, punctuated
with slightly elevated areas holding coastal live
oak mottes. The tract features scores
of temporary and permanent
freshwater wetlands, 5.5 miles
of frontage on Matagorda Bay,
almost 6 miles of shoreline on
Powderhorn Lake and several
bayous.
Brackish and salt
water marshes provide habitat
for coastal marine species,
including shrimp, redfish, and blue
crabs, the main food source for
wintering whooping cranes.
Live Oak Trees
and Wetlands at
Powderhorn
Ranch
"It has been one of those
Holy Grails of coastal
conservation," Carter Smith,
executive director of Texas
Parks and Wildlife Department, said of the 27
-square-mile tract between Port Lavaca and Port
O'Connor. “The abundance of wildlife and
natural areas offers great potential to provide
high-quality outdoor recreation for Texans.”
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