PARK PROTECTION AND IMPROVEMENT
20 January 2006
Westcave Preserve
Round Mountain, Texas
SPECIAL PRESENTATION 1: Westcave Preserve
Molly Stevens, executive director of Westcave Preserve, began her presentation on Westcave Preserve with a brief history of the Preserve. In its early days it had been open to entry without permission, and was badly littered and damaged by visitors. John Watson bought the property to protect it and possibly develop it as a shared home site among friends.
Eventually he realized that it was too extraordinary to remain private, and sold his interest to the Westcave Preserve non-profit group. In 1974, the Nature Conservancy of Texas hired John Ahrns to restore and protect the Preserve. Mr. Ahrns lived in a double-wide mobile home, which he shared with a visitor center, for close to 30 years. The entire Preserve was operated on an annual budget of only $30,000. Still, by 1982, the NGO realized that it could not afford the purchase, and sold the land to the Lower Colorado River Authority, receiving a 99-year leasehold in return for 1 dollar.
In early 2000, the Westcave Preserve board decided to build a visitors center to support a more elaborate program for more students and adults. $2 million was raised for a center and headquarters. An additional $250,000 was given by a neighbor to build a new house for Mr. Ahrns.
Molly Stevens arrived in the fall of 2005 from a long stint as managing and development director of the Texas office for Environmental Defense. At first, she thought that the change from policy work at ED to preserve protection and interpretation at Westcave would be a big shift. Quickly though she realized that experiences in nature shape people’s attitudes about the environment, and influence their beliefs about good policy. In short, valuing nature improves policies. She’s now in the business of “birthing environmentalists”.
Ms. Stevens then turned to describing the Preserve, noting that it included sections from two different eco-regions: the dry and hot savannah of the Edwards Plateau that was found in the uplands of the Preserve, and the cooler and more humid ecosystem found in the sheltered canyon and grotto. In the first, you might find live oaks and ash junipers, in the second, towering bald cypress and delicate maidenhair fern.
While the Preserve is hosting a board retreat on January 21 to discuss its long-term plans, she expected that it would continue to focus on sustaining its ecological treasure and educational resource, and working toward conservation and environmental awareness. Currently, the Preserve hosts visits from 5000 school children per year, giving them 4-hour presentations on water, green building, and canyon habitat and life. In addition, the Preserve welcomes 2000 families that come each year. Sometimes the students bring their families: Ms. Stevens remembers the time when the Preserve staff hosted a Spanish-speaking school group and worried that the students might not have understood the program entirely, but were relieved when one of the Hispanic students returned soon after with his entire family, insistent on showing them what he had seen.
The Preserve is broadening its outreach, with new programs in geology, astronomy (they now host star-gazing nights with the Austin Astronomical Society), math in nature (for example, seeing Fibonacci series in seeds, shells, and flowers), and solar studies (using the visitor center to track the equinox and solstice, etc.). In fact, the Warren Skaaren Environmental Learning Center is a key tool now for the Preserve’s outreach, providing an indoor and outdoor classroom, as well as an example of green building, with rainwater harvesting and passive and active solar features.
Currently, the Preserve operates with 5 staff members on a $300,000 per year budget, half of which is raised from foundations (including the Austin Community Foundation, Earth Share of Texas, Meadows Foundation, and others), 20% from individuals, and 15% from government. Visitation is intentionally not a big source of support, since the Preserve tries to keep entry fees low to attract a diverse set of visitors who must already pay for a long trip from Austin or San Antonio or further.
Looking forward, Ms. Stevens foresees several things. First, a key change in their support makeup will occur soon, by the end of 2006, when the LCRA withdraws its financial support. Second, she believes that the Preserve needs to raise its budget to $1 million per year to make full use of the site’s potential. They also would like to buy or otherwise protect some 40 acres that surround the lip of the box canyon, as well as offer a summer camp for at-risk youth (in conjunction with the Shield Ranch) and become more involved in policy efforts to work with neighbors to protect the Pedernales basin.
Questions and answers:
Q: Please describe the relationship with the LCRA.
A: Ms. Stevens confirmed that the LCRA owns the Preserve land, and has 77 years to go on the 100-year lease of the land back to the Preserve. LCRA also provides about $150,000 in operating support to the Preserve.
Q: Please describe regional land protection efforts near Westcave.
A: Ms. Stevens said that a recent Travis County bond election had provided enough money to buy 4000 acres in nearby ranchland, including the Pogue Hollow and Riemers Ranch. Still, though, western Travis County is estimated to be the fastest growing area in the country, and so development is a serious threat.
Q: What is Westcave Preserve's link with the county operation at the Hamilton Pool preserve?
A: Ms Stevens said that it has long been a close connection, particularly during the years when John Ahrns’ daughter ran the Pool preserve.
Q: Please describe water conservation efforts at the Westcave Preserve.
A: Ms Stevens said that they are helping develop a coalition among local landowners to outline best land management practices, to designate a scenic river segment along the Pedernales, and to collaborate with Texas State University on Pedernales water quality and flows.
SPECIAL PRESENTATION 2: American Youthworks E-Corps
Caroline Sabin introduced our next speaker, Park Smith, director of the E-Corps program at American Youthworks. Mr. Smith came to American Youthworks 11 years ago, almost immediately after college, with a biology degree and an interest in helping disadvantaged youth. American Youthworks is an Austin-based NGO that has several programs for educating at-risk kids: a charter high school, Casa Verde builders, a health center, and the Environmental “E” Corps.
Mr. Smith leads E-Corps, which uses funding from the federal government’s Americorps, project fees from clients, and public donations to restore habitat, build trails, organize community gardens, and teach about environmental themes. The E-Corps is made up of 4 crews, 1 of which, the “diploma” group, attends school for ½ their time, and spends the remaining ½ outdoors on land projects. The other 3 crews spend the entirety of their time outdoors working on projects for the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, Texas Parks and Wildlife and county and city parks departments. The typical age of the crew members is between 17 and 25.
The habitat restoration work includes 40 projects to date, including cedar removal, erosion control, removal of invasives, collecting and transplanting natives, and restoring prairies. Much of this is done in new parklands, especially lands set aside for endangered species and watershed protection, where inadequate money is available for a full-time, in-house management crew.
Public land improvement tasks have included constructing information kiosks, benches, archways and gates, docks, and shade covers, as well as planting of trees, removal of trash, and general efforts for beautification. Community garden work stresses sustainability, and tries to encourage crew members to take this sustainability message home, by planting a fruit tree at their house. The E Corps also works on environmental education through such things as watershed models, where they can show the effects of an oil spill on creeks and rivers.
In general, Mr. Smith and E-Corps work for “transformational education”, opening paths to change for their students, allowing them to have a good balance in mind, body and spirit, or, in the words of Mahatma Gandhi to “be the change you wish to see in the world”.
Questions and answers:
Q: Is the E-Corps summer program still offered?
A: Mr. Smith said not. Ms Parrish added that she had run an E-Corps crew and it had been challenging but very rewarding.
Q: Rumors have been heard about possible federal cutbacks. Are they true?
A: Mr. Smith confirmed that the U.S. government is cutting funding for their Americorps-related programs by 60%. Fortunately, however, much of the slack is being taken up by county and local fee-for-service contracts. This contracted work helps counties and municipalities with habitat management, fire break construction, invasive plant control, and so on.
Q: What sort of people go through the E-Corps program?
A: Mr. Smith explained that they were typically drop-outs from high school who had difficulty taking notes and sitting in large classes, but who respond well to the tactile and auditory inputs and outdoor physical labor that E-Corps can offer. E-Corps also attracted older students, typically high school graduates looking for a year of experience in natural resource management, job contacts, and stipends for level-4 trade school, college, or graduate school ($4700 for a year’s work). The gender balance is almost exactly 50/50 male/female. Roughly 40% of the crews are minorities, mostly Hispanic.
Q: Please tell about the American Youthworks high schools.
A: Mr. Smith said that there are two: one downtown, and another at the intersection of IH-35 and Ben White / US 71. Both are charter schools offering high school degrees or GEDs for those over 21 years old. Together they serve 400 kids.
Q: How do the schools recruit their students?
A: Mr. Smith said that teachers and counselors at conventional grade schools refer them. Ms Purvis also asked if the 50/50 gender balance was intentional, and Mr. Smith said that it was. He added that responsibilities are also shared pretty evenly: one Casa Verde building crew leader is a three-year veteran and female.
Speaking of building, Mr. Smith then went into more detail about the Casa Verde green-building program at American Youthworks. The program has erected 120 homes over the past 10 years, selling them at reasonable prices to young 1st-time homebuyers, some of whom are actually Casa Verde alumni. 75 of these new homes have been built in tough neighborhoods with serious crack drug problems, where they have helped turn around and clean up the neighborhoods. The homes are highly energy-efficient, saving 30-40% in energy use over traditional housing, and earning 4 or 5 stars in the green building rating system. The Casa Verde program has become a national model for the YouthBuilt network.
Q: Please describe the organization and staffing of American Youthworks.
A: Mr. Smith said that American Youthworks is a non-profit led by its executive director, Richard Halpin and its program director, Dick Pierce, with help from a staff of 75. The Americorps program is a division of American Youthworks and employs 25 staff, though it likely needs 30.
Q: What is Mr. Smith’s background?
A: He said that he grew up in the relatively small town of Stephenville, and often enjoyed visiting a creek near his home, and leased land in the country outside of town.
Q: Were the kids in Mr. Smith’s program at-risk?
A: He said that they were, and often carried with them fears about the natural world, knowing that careful kids avoided creeks where crack users and paraphernalia were usually found.
Molly Stevens recommended that we read a new book by Richard Louv, entitled, “Last Child in the Woods”, that describes a syndrome named, “Nature-Deficit Disorder”, in which today’s generation is the first in human history to be raised in such isolation from the outdoor world.
Q: Does American Youthworks offer instruction in traditional subjects like Math and English?
A: Mr. Smith said that it does, in a 4-hour block during each school day.
Q: Could Mr. Smith describe the work that the E-Corps did at Westcave?
A: He explained that the LCRA introduced them to the managers at Westcave after being impressed by a wheelchair trail that they’d built at another LCRA property, McKinney Roughs, by carrying 16 tractor-trailer loads of crushed granite by wheelbarrow to spread along the narrow path. They used the same careful approach at Westcave, bringing in trail stones hand-by-hand, using on-site design that protected natural seeps and erosion-prone gullies, yet used nice decorative touches, like embedding leaves in concrete pours. John Ahrns confirmed that the 60 E-Corps members did a great job of staying on the trail, and protecting the Preserve from damage during construction. In fact, the E-Corps crew was so proud of the trail and the Preserve that they brought the whole American Youthworks school out to see the results.
Q: It was impressive to see how the E-Corps had managed to motivate kids, to see that the leaders were careful to ask for a vote and to get buy-in at each stage of a project. Photos and designs of a catchment basin that the Natural Resources Conservation Service and the E-Corps had collaborated on at the Acacia Preserve were good signs of the results.
A: Mr. Smith was grateful for the comments about the Acacia Preserve project, and said that the E-Corps is motivating to both the disadvantaged street kids and the privileged college-educated students, where each draw inspiration from the other.
Q: What are the attrition rates in the E-Corps?
A: Mr. Smith said that they typically retained about 80% of the recruits each year, and had even reached a rate of 86% in 2005. This is much higher than most programs for disadvantaged kids, which lose 50% each year.
Q: Could Mr. Smith please distinguish E-Corps from the Student Conservation Association?
A: He said that the SCA places college students singly in summer jobs at national and state parks. They don’t usually work with county or city parks, nor with high school age kids, nor with full-year commitments. He did note that the SCA is evolving and was now working on regional parks in the Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Q: Is the E-Corps was similar to the Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930s?
A: Mr. Smith said that there was a strong similarity, and that the E-Corps crews had a strong rapport with CCC veterans at recent reunions.
Q: What was Chad Wilbur's experience with E-Corps?
A: He said that he was a graduate in anthropology and music from the University of North Texas in Denton, and after graduation had completed one year with the crew, working on trail projects in the Davis Mountains, near Huntsville, and in Spicewood Valley outside of Austin. He’d also volunteered for hurricane Rita cleanup in Orange. He explained that they typically camp in parks and cook for themselves during their projects, but sometimes, as in Orange, get fed by others, such as churches or the Red Cross.
Q: W hat is the budget for hiring an E-Corps crew?
A: Mr. Smith said that they allot about $700 per day to cover the time, food, tool repair and insurance for a team leader and crew of 8. The overall budget for American Youthworks is $2 million per year. Raising money for administration and food has been difficult, since most agencies just want to pay for the immediate services that they get.
Q: There have been tales of an Americorps partnership with Home Depot. What is the status of that?
A: Mr. Smith said that Home Depot had once helped with building material costs, but had since dropped out.
SPECIAL PRESENTATION 3: Texas Coalition for Conservation
George Bristol, executive director of the Texas Coalition for Conservation, started his presentation by noting our debt to the CCC, a group much like E-Corps, which had built the infrastructure in 22 of Texas’ state parks during the 1930s. Mr. Bristol had participated in a similar park work-crew that the University of Texas organized in the early 1960s, sending 60 kids to Glacier National Park each summer (the UT Glacier crew is now down to less than 10% that size).
Mr. Bristol also recalled his first visit to Westcave in 1954, when he and friends rode out from Austin by bike. It was a different time then, when children could walk, hunt and fish on private lands without much restriction. Now that’s very difficult, giving greater priority to having public lands that all can share.
Mr. Bristol then reported on progress in getting additional state funding for public parks. He said that the 2005 legislation, House Bill 1292, had come very close to passing and providing significant new and guaranteed funding for state parks, but had lost out in the competition with school finance, and due to poor leadership among House representatives.
While disappointed, Mr. Bristol has decided to make another 2-year attempt to pass this legislation, for six reasons: 1) the attempt by Texas Parks and Wildlife (TPW) to sell Big Bend Ranch State Park; 2) the failure of the Legislative Budget Board to get even $2 million in emergency funding for TPW; 3) state park closures; 4) TPW staff lay-offs; 5) broad newspaper editorial board support for TPW funding (not just in local papers near threatened parks, but across the state); 6) the belated recognition by some state representatives that the park situation was so dire.
One of the more persuasive arguments for the legislation is the economic benefit from parks in the state. A Texas A&M study of 80 state parks indicated that $1.25 billion in economic activity was generated from those 80 parks. Extrapolated to the full roster of 120 state parks, that amounts to $1.8 billion in benefits for the Texas economy.
A second argument for parks is the broad public support for full park funding. Public opinion polls have consistently shown that 60+% of Texans back park funding.
A third reason for park funding is that the TPW has been very entrepreunerial in raising its own funds internally, raising $49 million per year from annual passes, entry fees and other sources.
While TPW’s “Fund 9” support, dedicated funding from hunting, fishing, and motor boat fees, and matched by federal moneys, is quite safe, its “Fund 64” source is frequently raided by the Legislature for other, non-park purposes. Mr. Bristol estimates that Texas Parks & Wildlife runs a $4 to $7 million deficit each year (ignoring, for the moment, the large deferred maintenance backlog - $21 million for park bathroom work alone).
To secure that extra $4 to $7 million, Mr. Bristol recommends that the $32 million cap on the hunting and sporting goods tax be eliminated, and if anything, turned into a floor. He reminds skeptics that Senator Montford, the tax author, had actually expected that the tax would be escalated with cost-of-living increases, and if that had happened, $149 million would have been available for TPW each year, not just the current $32 million. All in all, TPW is not asking for a lot: about $50 million per year total, or about 0.07% of the Texas state budget.
Questions and answers:
Q: Has there been good attendance and interest from the public for the effort to raise support for TPW and its parks.
A: Mr. Bristol said yes, that a recent meeting had drawn over 400 irate citizens worried about closure of their local park.
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