Hello Cypress Creek Stakeholders and Friends,
We hope you have all been well and handling the Texas heat. Since our last newsletter, the Wimberley Valley has been impacted by unprecedented water quantity and water quality concerns. The images of a dry creek bed as you look downstream from the RR12 bridge in downtown Wimberley stand in stark contrast to the historically clear, flowing waters Cypress Creek is known for. Throughout the valley, groundwater levels (and spring flows) are lower than we experienced in 2011. Swimming has been suspended indefinitely at Jacob's Well and Blue Hole. The recent rains have been a nice relief from the heat but insufficient to alter the current paradigm. What are the short-term and long-term consequences of this drought, and what will we do to address them? Of course, our work and the work of our many valued partners continues. Read on to learn more.
We continued our Speaker and Workshop series back in February with an event inspiring the improvement of interpretation of environmental education through mindfulness enhancing activities. The planning phases for our next event have been ongoing as we research which workshop topics are best applicable to the watershed, stay tuned for an announcement! Recordings of our stakeholder meeting from February are available for viewing at any time on our website.
Robin Gary, Managing Director of the Wimberley Valley Watershed Association, presented critical insights on the impacts of our current drought to the Woodcreek City Council in August. You can view her presentation here.
In July, The Meadows Center submitted an application for $592,677 (includes $237,070 in matching funds) to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to continue implementation of the Cypress Creek Watershed Protection Plan. The highlight of this application is a transition of major project components to the Wimberley Valley Watershed Association in an effort to foster more local leadership and stakeholder engagement. The Cypress Creek Project Team would like to thank our many partners for their letters of support and continued engagement in these funding efforts. We expect a decision from TCEQ in the fall.
Our regular water quality monitoring events have continued as scheduled and you can view the results from our latest sampling events on our website here. We are currently working on the intensive study on lower Cypress Creek targeting E. coli bacteria and optical brighteners.
More information on this study and preliminary results can be found below.
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