Spring 2020
Hello Plum Creek Watershed Partnership Stakeholders and Friends,
We hope that you are doing well during these trying times. The Plum Creek Watershed Partnership is still hard at work improving and maintaining the water quality in Plum Creek with the completion of the Caldwell County Justice Center Low Impact Development Project, the beginning of the Caldwell County Feral Hog Bounty, the start of riparian restoration efforts along Town Branch, and the initial stages of creating the Plum Creek Nature Trail.
It has been an unexpected Spring for many of us with the cancellation of so many planned events. We will be closely monitoring the situation with COVID-19 as we move into the summer months. Due to social distancing practices, our Spring activities have been postponed. We will miss seeing you at our events, but we're still open online 24/7, where service remains uninterrupted. You can also find us on our social media platforms to keep updated.
We are all in this together. We will continue to monitor the COVID-19 situation and will follow guidance from public health officials and government agencies, so we can continue to support our customers and communities as needed. For more information about COVD-19 and what you can do to keep healthy and safe, visit the Centers for Disease Control at
cdc.gov
or your local health department's website.
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35th Annual Great Texas River Cleanup a Great Success!
Thank you to everyone that joined us at Plum Creek in Kyle for the 35th Annual Great Texas River Cleanup on March 7th! About 600 volunteers came out to pick up trash and debris in and along the Upper San Marcos River to Stokes Park, the river’s tributaries Cottonwood, Purgatory, Sink, Sessom, Willow and Plum Creeks, and the Blanco River. The totals are above!
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City of Kyle Begins Work on The Plum Creek Nature Trail
The Plum Creek Trail, when developed, will stretch from the City of Uhland (on the east) to the Blanco River (on the west). The City of Kyle is acquiring land to build a "spine" trail along the bank of Plum Creek with access and trail-heads to many of the city's neighborhoods.
"Kyle PARD Staff and Parks Board has been planning this trail since 1999, so please be patient with the process. We hope to have the portions of the trail, trail-heads, maps, signs, parking, restrooms and other trail features available for use by 2025."
Support the Plum Creek Trail by using it as its built and encouraging funding to keep developing it.
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Caldwell County Feral Hog Bounty Postponed Until June
The Caldwell County feral hog bounty will resume July 3rd - August 5th. During that period, individuals can bring in feral hog tails and/or certified buying station receipts to Smith Supply Co., 1830 Colorado Street, Lockhart, between the hours of 12pm-3pm. Tails and/or receipts must be from feral hogs harvested in Caldwell County.
Participants will be required to complete a W-9 and a participation form, which can be obtained at Smith Supply or from the
Central Texas Feral Hog Task Force Website
. The property owner’s name and contact information where the hogs were harvested are required on the form.
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June 3 -
A Texas Watershed Steward workshop on water quality related to Plum Creek will be held from 8:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. on Jun. 3.
The workshop will be held at the Luling Foundation Agriculture Demonstration Farm, 523 S Mulberry Avenue in Luling. Texas Watershed Stewards will be presented by program staff from Texas A&M AgriLife Extension in cooperation with the Plum Creek Watershed Partnership.
“This workshop is designed to help watershed residents learn about their water resources and how they may become involved in local watershed protection and management activities,” said Michael Kuitu, AgriLife Extension program specialist and coordinator for the Texas Watershed Steward program, College Station. “The workshop is free and open to anyone interested in improving water quality in the region.”
Attendees of the workshop will receive a copy of the Texas Watershed Steward Handbook and a certificate of completion. The Texas Watershed Steward program offers four hours of continuing education for the following professional disciplines: soil and water management for certified crop advisers; professional engineers; AICP certified planners (4 CM & 1.5 law); certified teachers; professional geoscientists; certified landscape architects; certified floodplain managers; and each of the following Texas Commission on Environmental Quality occupational licensees: wastewater system operators, public water system operators, on-site sewage facility installers, and landscape irrigators. In addition, three general continuing education units are offered for Texas Department of Agriculture pesticide license holders, and two credits are offered for nutrient management specialists.
Funding for this effort is provided through a federal Clean Water Act §319(h) Nonpoint Source Grant administered by the Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
For more information on the Texas Watershed Steward program, and to preregister, go to the website or contact Michael Kuitu at 979-862-4457,
mkuitu@tamu.edu
; or Wayne Morse at 512-398-3122, wayne.morse@ag.tamu.edu.
For information on watershed protection efforts for the Plum Creek watershed, contact Stephen Risinger at 830-557-7358, srisinger@plumcreekwatershed.org.
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July 25
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Local volunteers are banding together to tackle litter in Plum Creek, as part of the
Keep Texas Waterways Clean
program. The Plum Creek Watershed Partnership will conduct a cleanup with the help of 100 volunteers on July 25th, 2020.
Please join us at 9 am, July 25th at The Lockhart City Park Pavilion for the Plum Creek Pickup! The Plum Creek Pickup will include 2 locations along Plum Creek and its tributaries in an effort to keep Texas waterways clean!
For more information on waterway cleanups happening throughout the state, visit
www.ktb.org
.
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Amid ongoing problems with water pollution and flooding, cities across Texas are turning to nature-based infrastructure. San Antonio and Austin lead the way, followed closely by Harris County, according to a
new report
by Environment Texas Research and Policy Center, which ranks local governments across Texas on how well their stormwater policy incorporates nature-based infrastructure, like rain gardens and green roofs.
The U.S. Senate approved a bipartisan measure today compelling the Pentagon to stop using PFAS-containing firefighting foams by 2024. Both chambers of Congress have now approved the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which the President is expected to sign into law before the end of the year. Negotiators notably omitted provisions to address PFAS pollution under Superfund and the Clean Water Act, both of which passed unanimously in the House bill.
An email sent last week alerting the Texas Railroad Commission about the incident, a Kinder Morgan official reported that between the evening of March 28 and the evening of March 30, when drilling was shut down, “an estimated 36,000 gallons were released underground into the bedrock formation.”
Attorneys acting on behalf of the Trinity Edwards Springs Protection Association (TESPA) Wednesday issued a notice of intent to sue the Permian Highway Pipeline LLC (PHP) and its managing partner, Kinder Morgan.The lawsuit is over contamination of an underground source of drinking water as a result of PHP construction operations in Blanco County on March 28, 2020.The notice of intent identifies a class 1A carcinogen on the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for the drilling mud that contaminated the aquifer and the water supply of area homeowners.
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Learn about Nonpoint Source (NPS) Pollution
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We all live in a watershed — the area that drains to a common waterway, such as a stream, lake, estuary, wetland, aquifer or even the ocean — and our individual actions can directly affect it.
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Funding for the development and support of the Plum Creek Watershed Protection Plan is through a Clean Water Act grant provided by the Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
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