Short story (quick and dirty)
The City of Austin’s Water Utility has proposed to build a new water treatment plant within the Balcones Canyonlands Preserve, a set of properties set aside for endangered species conservation. This plant site replaces an earlier planned site which threatened the Bull Creek headwaters and the Jollyville Plateau salamander. Though the efforts toward Bull Creek and the salamander are commendable, the replacement site destroys more than one third of the occupied breeding habitat for the endangered black-capped vireo found in the Balcones Canyonlands Preserve, a Preserve created for this endangered bird and seven other endangered species. Trading the wellbeing of one endangered species for another is gains nothing. The Utility made this proposal without consulting the four advisory bodies set up for this purpose. Both the original Water Treatment Plant #4 (WTP#4) site and the alternative WTP#4 site are unusable.

Long story, beginning with background
Longstanding environmental concerns about a proposed water treatment plant to be built near the headwaters of Bull Creek resulted in an Austin City Council directive to the city’s Water Utility to find a new site for this plant. An additional concern was the Jollyville Plateau salamander, a threatened species with an extremely limited range. Save Our Springs has petitioned the US Fish and Wildlife service to list the salamander as an endangered species. In response, the City of Austin Water Utility proposed a new and equally damaging site – an area within the Balcones Canyonlands Preserve containing the city’s only black-capped vireo breeding colony.

The Balcones Canyonlands Preserve
The BCP or Preserve was created in 1996 under a US Fish and Wildlife Service permit issued jointly to the City of Austin and Travis County. Its purpose was twofold:

(1) providing endangered species mitigation to the City of Austin and Travis County by setting aside habitat for eight endangered species including two birds, the golden-cheeked warbler and the less well known black-capped vireo, and
(2) the conservation of those endangered species.

Lands dedicated to the BCP are owned by its permit holders, Austin and Travis County, as well as a number of other entities including Travis Audubon Society and the Lower Colorado River Authority.

More information on the Preserve:

http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/preserves/bcp.htm

http://www.co.travis.tx.us/tnr/bccp/default.asp

The BCP permit and its plan outline numerous requirements including a total acreage of at least 30,428 acres, 2000 of which are to be managed for the black-capped vireo. Meeting these requirements has met with a range of successes and failures. Now ten years into the 30 year permit period, the acreage total falls short by 2,679 acres though land acquisition is still underway. Golden-cheeked warbler populations were holding up well at last analysis and populations of the six karst (cave-dwelling) species are difficult to assess. The black-capped vireo, however, is declining.

Preserve Management by the Austin Water Utility
The City’s BCP program has a somewhat checkered history. After its start in the Environmental and Conservation Services Department, it moved to City of Austin Parks and Recreation and then in the Austin Water Utility in 2001. Placing the city’s endangered species program into a department managed by engineers was thought to be fiscally prudent. The Utility already managed Water Quality Protections lands (see: http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/water/prop2site.htm) as publicly-owned non-parklands serving a conservation purpose. So the powers that be thought that the Utility must be able to manage the BCP as well. A new division was created within the Utility and both the previous BCP director (biology Ph.D., years of consultant experience) and the Water Quality lands manager (Bachelors in Environmental Science, experience in the Natural Resources Conservation Service aka Soil Conservation) applied. Guess who got the job - the Water Utility’s very own Willy Conrad, Water Quality Land manager. City biologists immediately began looking for jobs.

Fast forward to June 22, 2006
At the June 22, 2006 Austin City Council meeting, the City of Austin Water Utility proposed the building of a new water treatment plant within the boundaries of the Balcones Canyonland Preserve. This proposal came as a complete surprise to the city of Austin Environmental Board, the BCP Coordinating Committee and the Coordinating Committee’s own Citizen’s and Scientific Advisory boards not to mention city and county BCP staff. The environmental community as a whole was completely taken by surprise.
Particularly horrifying was that the new site would destroy the only black-capped vireo breeding habitat on city-owned BCP acreage; this is within the very Preserve created to protect this species! Though the choice of an alternate plant site was intended to preserve the Bull Creek headwaters and a threatened salamander, the Utility managed to find a new site with equally disastrous environmental consequences. The breeding colony of black-capped vireo found here comprises 100% of black-caped vireo breeding territories found on city-owned BCP acreage and more than one third of those found in the BCP as a whole.
The Utility made this proposal to City Council and asked for a first vote without consulting the Environmental Board, Balcones Canyonland Coordinating Committee and its Citizen’s Advisory and Scientific Advisory Boards. Not only were the advisory boards left out, the proposal came as a complete surprise to BCP biological staff at both the city’s Reicher Ranch BCP administrative offices and to Travis County BCP staff. Since the June 22 proposal, all four advisory bodies have asked that the project be delayed so the issue could be studied. Fortunately, the next City Council meeting was cancelled giving the environmental community time to speak to the advisory boards. Despite four recommendations to delay, the item found its way into the July 27 City Council agenda. See http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/council_meetings/public_meeting_agenda.cfm?meetingid=32

 

Item eight was pulled, but item 39 authorizing the “negotiation and execution of an amendment to the professional services agreement with CAROLLO ENGINEERS, P.C., Austin, TX, for preliminary site assessment work on the alternate Water Treatment Plant 4 site and professional preliminary engineering design services for the Water Treatment Plant 4…” passed despite the four advisory bodies’ request for delay.

The sell job “But wait, there’s more!”
Utility staff has repeated asserted that this “take” of endangered vireo habitat if already “fully mitigated” (using Endangered Species Act language). In compensation, however, the good-hearted souls at the Utility have offered the following
(1) Funding for the creation of 400 acres of new black-capped vireo habitat.
Problems: