Travis County Commissioners Court
November 20, 2007
Item 4
Number 4 is to consider and take appropriate action on revisions, including public access, to the balcones canyonlands preserve land management plan for 2007. Status report.
>> judge, last week the mayor and I had our coordinating meeting where we delayed or postponed any sort of action regarding this particular issue. Every one knows that what is before us is the desire, probably a pretty overwhelming desire, for public access into the preserve properties I think that I知 pretty soon going to ask ted sif to come to the mike because I would like for him to explain from the citizens committee regarding what ted feels like is really technically being asked, because I think that there is some confusion in the county or throughout the county with regards to public access. Technically, I mean, what is being asked at this stage. Ted, would you mind coming up. Did you get information sent to all of the Commissioners court yesterday with all of the information that you were trying to provide? Or was it manly through my office to Commissioner eckhardt's office, because she had written something that she wanted you to respond to.
>> right. No, I did not submit and I didn't think it was my authority to send out drafts of potential public access resolution language, policy statement resolution language, that both Commissioner daughterty and then Commissioner eckhardt had been working on over the last few days. But I知 happy if it's the court's desire, judge's desire, to explain the intent that was the genesis of those policy statement resolutions. As the chair of the b cp citizen advisory committee, I have been, I guess, the convener or facilitator in part with county and city staff of a public input process that is now way into its second area. We established a swightand we had multiple public hearings, one of which is the one you all had last week and is, I guess, to some extent, continuing right now, to solicit public testimony with regard to the public's desire for public access to bcp, balcones canyonlands preserve land. There's more than 300 written public comments that are part of the draft land management plan that Commissioner Daugherty in his capacity of the committee has. One version of all of the public input is a policy statement that the mayor and Commissioner Daugherty were going to consider at their last coordinating committee meeting about a week to ten days ago. The coordinating committee chose not to consider that language but rather send it to staff and legal counsel for their review. When staff and legal counsel did begin at least their review, I contacted all of the relevant staff I could on the city and county's part to share with them that the intent of that those policy resolutions was not to cause any public access requests to require a bcp permit or plan amendment. If an amendment were required by any public access proposal, they were the Commissioners court and city council would certainly be required to vote on whether or not to propose that amendment . Without an amendment the coordinating committee has the authority to make its comments part of the land management plan the updated land management plan record, including policy statement kind of comments. So, I appropriate that was relatively clear. I値l be happy to answer any questions about it or go on to something else.
>> ted, specifically, I think what I gather out of this is that the citizens advisory committee is really requesting that there be a plan put together by next September, where there would be identification of the trail and how the public access could be permitted. I mean, isn't that specific, more than asking for you all, the coordinating board, to take a vote on implementing public access. Quite frankly, with a pretty wide range of public access. I think that most of us know that there are a majority, or a large part of people of this community, that want much more public access to the preserve land than what presently exists. But I think that from what I have gathered from you and having, you know, been involved with this for how long have you been involved with it, ted sm.
>> since the earlier '90s.
>> that you all understand that there probably needs to be some sort of a trail plan, if you will, where you work with both city and county staff, and hopefully can come together on, that is something that you would rike to present to the coordinating boardrb and obviously, as you all found out about three weeks ago, I think that this court is very interested in being able to weigh in to exactly what we might, you know, be expecting the citizens, you know, and what they really want. But isn't that really what you all are asking, is for there to be a plan put together?
>> yes. The essence of the policy statement simply requested a a master planning process be begun for particularly passive uses of bcp land. That process of necessity would ultimately be a tract by tract plan. Obviously, the only tracts relevant to public access would be the ones where the city or county owns them or the legal right to have potential public access.
>> the policy statement, at least the initial draft by the mayor and Commissioner Daugherty had December 1 deadline to report back to the coordinating committee. The additional language that I commend Commissioner eckhardt in developing, I think moves this effort to one that wouldn't require any permit amendment. I just, I know you are way behind on your current meeting schedule, but I know there are several other people here to comment on this. I just appreciate the Commissioners court's attention to this, appreciate particularly your representative, Commissioner Daugherty, on the coordinating committee, and I would encourage you to give him any advice you can have. I would also share with you it's not required at all that you take a particular vote on this matter. He is your designated representive to the coordinating committee.
>> can I ask, kevin, you rose, or john, could you weigh in on where you think we are right now with regards to, are you in favor, do you think that it's a good idea with trying to put together a plan, I mean, a trail plan by next September?
>> Commissioner, let me respond to that in a couple of ways. The land management plan working group, which was composed of representatives from the city and county and rest of the bcp partners, began working on the land management plan in 2004, and has spent more than three years now working to develop a plan that we felt met the terms and conditions of the federal permit and the guidance that we received from fish and wildlife service since the permit was issued. The current draft of the land management plan, which was what was brought to the coordinating committee, does actually provide a process which would allow individual groups or stakeholder groups or citizen's groups to propose specific types of access. Perhaps that's somewhat different in nature than specific stakeholder group that mr. S istf is proposing. But we feel that the plan that has been presented does in fact provide a pathway to both assure compliance with our federal permit terms and obligations as well as assure that the permit holders that the us fish and wildlife service con first with those findings before any activities take place that might jeopardize our permit. I don't know that I can speak for all of staff, but my professional opinion is that we have actually provided a permit that provides that opportunity. If the court directs us to go back and consider alternate pathways to encourage that dialogue, I think we would certainry take that direction from the court.
>> judge, I realize, and I think rose, you probably concurment I don't want to put words in your might.
>> Commissioner, john white, environmental officer. I think the staff's position and involvement throughout has been pretty clear ner the last has resulted in an impeace in the decision make making of the coordinating committee. The committee had a couple of outcomes, as I understand, I was not in attendance last week. One was to seek legal advice, the other to seek advice from staff including communication with the fish and wildlife service. The staff will continue to look at options using technical approach as well as getting advice from fish and wildlife and any legal advice that might help frame the issue better for us. I think at this point kevin is correct. If we are deathed to do something different, we will explore how best to do that. I guess what we are waiting for is clarification of that pathway at this point.
>> judge, I mean, clearly here is the issue. I don't know where the mayor is on this because quite frankly, he and I haven't taken a vote. I thought that we were sort of poised to do something the week before last with this. We did have a legal question that we went into executive session to ask, and I think that probably misty cotton has probably been in touch with john hilly over this. My issue is that I am looking for a way to have more public access on these properties than what we have right now. Personally, that is what I知 looking for. I also understand that there are that there's us fish and wildlife, really, basically, that has to sign off on what we are able to do. I know that we had a meeting this past week with fish, although my sense is that fish is a little reticent at this stage, I mean because, quite frankly, I think that somebody may need to get a higher-up opinion as to, you know, what would be permissible versus, you know, what wouldn't. And so, I am really struggling with, especially after seeing, or at least my read of the court with wanting to have some input, you know, into this process, even though I am the appointment from the Commissioners court to sit on the coordinating board committee. I will work every way possible to allow more access to the preserve than we have right now. That doesn't mean that it doesn't frighten me and scare me a little to recognize what that access might create, might cause for us. I mean, because I will tell you that it generally gets to money. Just about everything that I deal with somehow to --somehow gets to budget. I think the community here, if you all represented the entire public we would probably go, great, go out and do it because we can trust everybody in this court because we know how much time and effort all of you all come and put into this thing. We also know you all may not be the barometer. We do know what happens in the parks and how difficult it is for us to get our arms around the kind of things that freighten the living difficulten--dickens out of us. We are going to be compromised with that. I think we have got to find a way to work to where there is acceptance from the users and the scientists that say we have to have some buy in here from both parts. Judge, I don't really know, and this may be, again , one of those legal questions that we have to go into executive session over to find out exactly what the mayor and Commissioner Daugherty can do. Sit something that you just go, hey, when push comes to shove, you go take the vote and come back and let us know. I mean, I know that one of the questions that we probably, and we probably will need to ask at least a legal question in executive session before, and I don't space that we are necessarily going to take action today on this because, quite frankly, we have another coordinating board committee meeting next Wednesday, judge and we also may be getting some word by that time, at least on the local level, what our us fish and wildlife representative has opinion-wise. I mean, is that something, ted, that you are thinking that we might get some sort of indication from how they might feel?
>> my understanding from staff is that there's been a meeting, and I presume they expect, they have asked questions and will hopefully receive some answers before the 28th. I would just take a moment to give you the citizens and advisory committee's response to the current draft land management plan. While the mechanism that kevin described is one that is not opposed by citizens, we do have 15, 17 years of real world history with regard to public access which has been very, very limited. The mechanism that is in the draft management plan, assessed by the folks here in this room and many, many other, is that it would be more restrictive than the city's water quality protection lands standards that many of us have worked with over the last seven years to get two trails of less than, approximately, five miles over the last seven years. This mechanism in the draft management plan, while not being opposed, is simply trying to be enhanced by these policy statement resolutions. So in addition to a mechanism that provides any stakeholder group to propose a trail for public access process on a particular tract of land, it also drects staff to be engaged with stakeholders on a master planning process off the next year. They are not inconsistent. They are complementary. We think it would completely shift the discussion from one that is add ver sar, or at least viewed as antagonistic, to one that would be cooperative. At least until we get to the next year and look at what the plan has produced.
>> you think that the citizens advisory committee and that the citizens would totally be supportive if they knew we were going to effectively spend the next ten to 12 months on really devicing a trail plan, that that would satisfy the citizens?
>> with that kind of policy resolution you have created a table around which people can talk rather than the current mechanism, with all respect to staff who have done a fabulous and very difficult job of getting you a draft, the current mechanism is viewed as a plaque box into which proposals would be submitted, and there are multiple dozens of was where the response from staff can be no.
>> what we would have, if we were to do that, is whatever we have right now is what we would have for the next ten to twelve months until we came up with whatever the plan would be. Correct?
>> correct.
>> okay.
>> john, are you prepared to give us legal advice today?
>> I can.
>> okay. Let me ask this. So is what is proposed intended to restrict public access that was grandfathers for city of Austin?
>> no.
>> some of the e-mails that I致e gotten seem to think that we were restricting access to city parks that had been allowed historically. I thought I had been told earlier that was not the case.
>> there was fear of that. And I talked to willie. I mean, willie is pretty much our secretary, number one, but he is, you know, the manager of the city properties. And I think willie is in agreement that from the city standpoint, whatever we have right now, we will continue to use it as, I mean, now, if somebody has some different opinion, I mean, ted, do you have a different opinion about that?
>> sheila holbrooke wright is the head of friends of turkey creek. There is one tract that is an example of the city grandfather tracts. There are county tracts too like happened--hamilton pool. There is some fear generated by language in the draft plan that there would be restrictions imposed and that is why we have had at least one clus in our policy statement that makes it clear that there wouldn't be any new restrictions.
>> they are in significant opposition to that clause in the policy same that you just, for clarification, mr. Sif and I went back and forth on e-mails last night playing with language. Is there any significant opposition?
>> we just salute all types of land, motor just city owned.
>> I mean specifically that all public access that exists on grandfathers tracts shall continue. Has there been any conversation, is there any opposition within tnr or city of Austin park staff to that statement? To clarify what is apparently muddy water.
>> sheila holbrooke, turkey creek. Parks board, both the bored and staff, have supported continued use of turkey creek with dogs on the tract. The language that ted mentioned, there is a sentence that specifically removes that use in the proposed plan--. Were you to adopt a statement, that would be cured.
>> can you give me a city.
>> sure. If you look at tier 3, the perks that deals with ema long. Sorry, tier 3, ema long park, there is a land tract plan, page 4 , section 2.6, public access, fourth sentence down.
>> okay, tier 3, ema long, and it's page?
>> four. Section 2.6 of public access, fourth sentence. It's also referenced on page 1 of that same section.
>> what does it say?
>> actually, if you want, I have the language.
>> court, this is just an example. Staff, I want to repeat, has done an incredible job, as kevin said, almost well into three years now. But on the city side there's been a particular concern about whether or not public access as it currently exists should continue on the turkey creek trail. And while even very knowledgeable staff can say what they just d there's language there that has caused considerable concern.
>> I remember this now. Regarding only designated parking areas.
>> yeah I think the designated parking area is not analogous to a 2.7 mile trail and that would remove us from the rail. There are some other references scattered within the plan that also reflect that but that is where the generalized focus is, where they just prohibit dogs entirely.
>> what is your response to that?
>> let me point out. Tier 3 land management plans specific to each individual tract were authored solely by the agencies responsible for those tracts.
>> that is only city of Austin.
>> that is a city of Austin property. The language there is from the city of Austin. Frankly, county staff has not weighed in on that issue whatsoever because that is not a property that we manage or have any influence over whatsoever.
>> okay. That is really an issue with the city of Austin and clarifying their language in regard to the properties that they manage.
>> but understand what the citizen challenge is. We are asked to give comment on the whole draft land management plan not respective to who owns the tracts. You have got a representative, one of two, on the coordinating committee that is the body that makes this final vote. So we are trying to develop a policy statement, and we would add to that clause about grandfathered tract that it's not exclusive to city grandfathered tracts since there are some county grandfathered tracts, hamilton pool, that the uses that were guaranteed in the original hcp simply be continued. And we're happy that continue staff is totally supportive of that.
>> the only other point I want to make is that the policy statement that's been drafted would clarify that language. To the extent that the county is part of, one of the two parties to the permitlve we think it's important that while it appears that the city is supportive it's important to have the county also affirming that grandfathered uses would continue to have those uses. We think that's an important policy outside of just turkey creek.
>> let me say again, I think that the intent, after having had the conversation last week, not to be verbatim, but that the city, you know, would be supportive of continuing what is presently being used. And if that is something that, given the fact that the mayor and I can only, you know, teal with each other through about 14 different people, I mean, versus just ourselves , unless we are doing it right there in front of en, which is fine with me, but I am certainly willing to work with the mayor and everything that he and I have discussed where we legally can discuss it. I don't think that there's an issue with that. But we need, I realize that some of you people that are very nervous about that, we need to get you all calm and then need to see if we can work on this trail plan, especially if we can get buy in, you know, on this. To me that is how we move the ball forward. I mean, and I certainly am willing to work on that, judge. I mean, I think that the maver and i, at least this next meeting, if I will say something to the secretary, if I need to agenda izesomething to get something on here for clarification sake, we certainly have the time to agendaize that. And I would want us to move there. That is not in the form of any kind of motion but I would like for y'all to know what my intentions would be and if there's any problem with the court, y'all let me know.
>> in terms of steps would , what would take place?
>> we are going to meet next Wednesday morning at ten o'clock for another coordinating board committee meeting , andly get some agenda language so that we can clarify and make certain that the grandfathering effect that people want to make sure of that that is not going to be taken away. In we can find agreement on moving forward with this trail plan that we have effectively said in the next ten to twelve months, this is what we are going to be working with with staff, clarify that and then if ted is telling me that this is where we need to move, I think that it is clear that we have got to do something with public access. I mean, beyond what we have now. But we also know that there are some, probably going to be some limitations and there's going to have to be some deal making and some an understanding from fish that, you know, after all, this entire thing is predicated on the preservation of the habitat. And I致e talked to, I don't know that I致e talked to anybody, even the people that are wanting public access, that they don't understand that this trumps everything. Quite frankly, if we quet in and develop some trails in the preserve and we see some sort of degradation of counts and whatever, hey, all is off. Go back because we know that the permit is in jeopardy. And this community, even though we know that there are probably 500,000 people plus in this community that if you ask them what bccp stood for they probably would think it's another maim for russia. I mean, doesn't that look like something that that country used to be called? And so, given that that is the case, we need some work on this. I知 very cognizant of our staff and my staff is great with keeping my apprised of everything. I want everybody to understand what I am trying to work towards in a man that are we can can do it legally, judge. And quite frankly, I don't know that we need to get the court in a crossfire. Of course, we'll find out one of those things when we get to talk to legal. I mean, I guess probably after lunch.
>> Commissioner?
>> okay.
>> I壇 like to just ask staff to provide us with an analysis, I guess, as far as how much money, I知 not talking about federal I知 talking about Travis County dollars, have we ended up putting in where we are as far as acquisition, all the other things that we have done for this preserve. Money-wise, over the course of where we are today. I know it might be kind of arduous, but I think it's good to have that information. I know it's not here, at leads I haven't run across it. But I think it's good information to have as far as how much money folks have put on the table over the course of the years as far as this preserve is concerned. Just Travis County dollars, though.
>> rose farmer, natural resources with Travis County. I don't remember off the top of my head, and I think that we could get that written information to you with how much is the county's portion of this. I would say the community's portion, both the city of Austin and Travis County's portion, over the eleven years this permit has been issued is probably upwards of a hundred million that the community has put into acquiring land for the preserve. So it's a significant amount that the county and the city have put together to complete this preserve.
>> and Commissioner, I think it's very important to remember that that investment is to preserve mitigation preserve territory. Which enables the development of everything else. Without that mitigation, the other development does not happen. Except through very long and tedious process involving federal permitting.
>> any way possible we could separate Travis County dollars from everybody else's drarce? --dollars? I壇 like to see it broke down. I know there are other dollars that have been put into this pot over the years, however, I want to say basically Travis County separate from Austin. Austin is good to have. They will be partnering and stuff.
>> we have that and can send it over later today.
>> it would be good to see it broke down. Somebody asked me, you know, da da da da, and just go ahead and give some answers. I壇 like to have it and see the investment that we have. Thank you.
>> anybody here to give brief comments on the process that we seem about to agree on? If so, please come forward. If you give us your full name, we'd be happy to receiv brief comments.
>> thank you.
>> judge Biscoe, Commissioners, I知 david steed, chair of the scientific advisory committee to the coordinating committee. We is as a committee, there's five members, have worked under the premise that any further access into preserves, tracts , would require an amendment to the permit because the permit specifically excludes mown anne--mountain biking, pets and horses. Also, there is no authorization for any take from any cause from inside the preserve tracts. Zero. Because this habitat is provided in mitigation for everything that's been outside. Now, the best scientific information on that subject right now is still in draft and further analysis because of the complexities involved in changes in the contract. But the work was done fort hood. We don't expect the final report to be available until sometime next year. Hopefully earlier, lat least in the first quarter. But we are not confident that is going to happen. But preliminary analysis of those data from that work done in fort hood shows that trails used by hikers and bikers, there is over 30 percent, like 36, 35, 36 percent reduction in nest productivity on golden cheek warbler nests adjacentant the trails compared to those remote from trails. 30 percent reduction in nest productivity. That is a tay --a take on every third nest. And that is based on the level of activity on fort hood trails on the order of nag --magnitude on anything less than the tract grandfathered. Further more, the permit says grandfathering on those tracts is at the 1992 level. Everybody knows that the 1992 level has certainly been surpassed. In fact, the city's data on the saint edwards tract reflects over ten percent increase between 2005 and 2006. Now, we have provided on prior occasion, and cliff lade-mailed this morning or yesterday to all the Commissioners some information, including our position paper on access that we prepared and provided to both city and county in may of 2006. I don't have a single copy of that here but each of you has a duplicate of it in your e-mails.
>> we were sent that yesterday, you say?
>> he sent that late yesterday, probably after five o'clock.
>> okay. That is from cliff ladd?
>> cliff lad dncious, a member of our scientific advisory committee.
>> thank you.
>> I値l be happy to try the answer any further questions.
>> david, let me ask you.
>> yes, sir.
>> out of the 29,000 acres that we have in the preserve presently, surely there are areas in the preserve, these preserve areas , where you do not have habitat. Isn't there? If you were to take canyon vista and what I think people want, if we can go out and come up with trails in some of this preserve land that is not near habitat but it allows you to use preserve land, is there a reason? Scientifically that we couldn't do that? It seems to me that is what we are looking for. People say why don't you go use a park. If you live 620 and the canyon ridge area, your county park, you probably can find some county parks relatively close, but if you have all these people that live in that area and they say, what is that large tract of rand over there, what--land over there? What is in there boogie bear? Why can't you see people going in and out. Unfortunately, you see some people going in that shouldn't be going in. Are there someplaces that you can find--let me explain a staff concern. That is in order to meet the terms and obligations of the permit and for fish and wildlife service to credit us the mitigation, we have to affirm that the acreage within the preserve is habitat. So identifying areas inside the preserve that are not habitat will necessitate that we acquire additional lands, therefore pushing the completion deadline to the preserve farther away.
>> we may be in that. I guess as a staff, I壇 like for you to talk to me about that. Let me tell you, we are aways away from it now because we are looking at 60 to a hundred million to acquire the next acres. That is more money than we have spent collect definitely today. Thank goodness, the only reason we have 29 thouse,000 acres is because of the rtc, because the banking industry almost fell apart. That, by the way, Commissioner Davis, is the reason why the city of Austin is a little hard to pull along whenever it comes to get to the table and help us find this other 2500 acres because they have been, I think that they have contributed about 16,000 of the 29,000 acres, which is the reason why city usually says we're through in acquisition. And that makes us nervous because we know the heaviy lifting is 2500 acres, is really the issue. I guess, I mean, kevin, I hear what you are saying. But I would like to think that we could go to fish and say, okay, granted, if we have to buy or secure more land, then okay, tell us what that is what we have to do. But if we have some of these preserves and we can in a year's time say okay, can you go through, can you find a trail that that is the only trail that you can use, and you can use it for these purposes, surely you're bound to be able to find places in these preserve lands that you could do that with. I mean.
>> Commissioner, there may be patches of abandoned pasture or meadows that one could say that's not necessarily habitat, but on the other hand, I know from personal experience in my own work that frequently you encounter a golden cheek that really likes to go out in the pasture and call from the lone tree out there. That is not unusual at all. So that not habitat that surrounds that lone tree, well, in the view of that one bird, it is. It's not up for us to decide what is his habitat. The birds are making that decision. Really. Those places, anyway, are in patches and wouldn't lend themselves to the linear type corridor that a trail would necessitate.
>> as far as we know, fish and wildlife has accepted the grand fathering that has taken place to date?
>> they haven't raised any issue to my knowledge about any level of activity going on there now that may be above the '92 level. But if we go in to talk to them about this, where is that discussion going to lead to?
>> so they have sort of quietly accepted it, which is not the same as authorizing it, basically.
>> that is my belief.
>> okay. Does the scientific advisory committee meet with the citizens advisory committee from time to time to discuss--
>> we have from time to time attended their meetings, yes.
>> those meetings have gone
>> [pro-u] productively?
>> there's only one time that we attempted to convene a meeting in common.
>> okay.
>> and hosted it in that fashion. That did not lead to resolution of anything. I値l hold the recommendation I was about to make.
>> it did clarify some strong differences.
>> okay.
>> you know, we can't distort the science. Some people in this presentations may in their inexperience ter met --interpret things one way or another. The chart that everybody has always seen repeatedly that shows the very steep line of the number of birds in the territories and the plots owned and along the posts and everything else. Well, we finally took it upon ourselves to do an analysis of the data that were used in that chart, which come from the annual reports of city and county. And if you, statistically it's inappropriate to take a subset of data and come pair that subset to the average of all the data, and that is exactly what all that chart does. Now, the average is suppressed by several tracts that have the research plots in them that are not very good habitat and have not seen, because they probably cannot accommodate an increase in number of birds using those areas. So some places appear, this is not based on analysis for this purpose, but they appear to be probably at carrying capacity. Otherwise we have seen the populations there go up too because of the bird being displaced from all the development property outside the preserves.
>> okay. What about bull creek?
>> judge, let me say something. I have only got about five, I don't think we going to make a decision today.
>> okay.
>> very briefly, judge, skip cameron, president of the bull creek foundation, ll in lit d. Ans y g til stct ha lg trecse a onze oty, weavt . Prosp defor over ten years. On u.s. Fish and wildlife gnff tkeeps coming up in every testimony that I hear from dias, the way I read the bcp plan, the 10 a permit, all of the documents, and you can re them, fish does not have approval authority. They are an oversight agency. Th acquire. It to mage bcp
>> so we don't have to do it.
>> that management responsibility that you were given as a city and county allows you to manage with any management style you would like.
>> that authority borrows from fish. We borrows that authority omou gr rr. Mag plans.
>> so that developers when they were putting down homes would not have to go to fish themselves.
>> outside of the 29,000acres currenist. Th was the deal that was made. What I知 saying to you is that the tic--technicality of fish having to approve letter of the plan is not in any of the language that I have ever read. I college you to have your legal department go show that to you. When they do, please provide it to me. The second thing , so that means that Gerald and will have the to do that.
>> depending on what that decision is, if it is overbroad, fish has the right to pull our permit because we are no longer ntraual lationipthats correct. If you go and 10 a permits worldwide, you will find that fish has three things that they can do. The one they do the most of, they write a fendly letter saying we think you are in violation of permit requirements in your own habitat conservation plans, please do this and this and this, and you can repl they ev, they don't thinso. The thirtht some lawyers and sue the permities. Have they? I don't think so.
>> a fourth thing, a private entity can sue fish and wildlifeyes.
>> or Travis County.
>> that's correctfor failing to live up to ac th decide and fish does not have the right to approve anything but they can certainly weigh in if they feel there is an issue that needs to be dealt with. I think that is the difference between management and come --compliance and approval authority which I keep hearing differently than I think exists today. The other thing that is important to reiterate one more time for you, is that the science is clear, folks. It's not been presented to you by the scientists and the advisory committee. It's been presented to you by the citizens who have taken the time to the analyze all the reports scientists do and present it to you in a way that makes it very clear that human activity and birds are very compatible with each other and have been for decadeswhy do we have mitigation land to offset the destruction of habitat. That.
>> that is a very good question.
>> there you go. I have my answer.
>> it is possible that theory may not be true.
>> you have saying you think the endangered species act should be eradicated.
>> I am not.
>> that is what it sounds like.
>> we do know if you take one acre and put concrete over it and tear all the trees down, there aren't trees to build nests in. That is fairly simple to understands. But you can take my house, which didn't take up the whole lot, took out a few of the new growth cedar, left the old growth, left the oak trees that are mature, and now I have put in native plants and flowers that bring in all kind of extra wildlife that wasn't there beforethat would be great if--
>> that would be great if that was the case throughout all of western. What you are arguing for is a continued rural use to maintain compatibility between human beings and birds.
>> ip am not.
>> hold oni am on one quarter acre.
>> let him if finish because we have a couple other speakers.
>> okay.
>> all right him finish.
>> one thing I want you to understands. The brochure that I handed out to you is a living example, a living example of how public private partnering, which is what we are asking for within the bcp, can provide many good things. The water quality protection land we have adopted as a volunteer group has taken very little city time and effort to be involved with us on that. We have done all of the work. We have raised all the money required for materials used in the project, and we have aucatip trail. And at the time we were doing that, we actually created habitat that warblers came in to enjoy while we were doing it. This is a perfect example of taking marginal no warbler habitat and improve it off a number of years with people uses that is actually bringing the warblers into that tract. So at some point in time, we may be able to offer you of those remaining acres to the bcp. Water quality protection land has been turned into habitat for the species with people uses could possibly be added to the acreage that makes the 30,000 completion. So consider that as an opportunity, not a hindrance, to furtherance of the species. I think it's very important that we consider what people volunteering their time can do, and that is all the citizens have asked for in the citizens input to this plan. Thank you very much.
>> thank you, sir.
>> I wanted to comment on two of the issues raised by an earlier speaker. If you look at the presentation I provided to you earlier. Friends of turkey creek. I want to highlight a couple of key points. On slide number 2 there is a definition of a grandfather property and it is defined as dedicated park land or preserve prior to the creation of the bccp that were brought into the presive with uses allowed to continue at specific levels. My point in bringing that up is judge Biscoe, you asked about the issue of the grandfathered uses. Was that part of the permit. It is indeed. If you look at the interlocal agreement a predecessor of the permit, those acres are identified. The number and those uses are there. Also, flip to if you will onto page number 3 of the presentation. The issue of grandfathering, were these uses considered, dogs on turkey carrying were in fact noted in the habitat conservation plan as an ongoing recreational use at ema long. It is clear that was part of the permit. To the extent you would like the matrix I would be glad to provide but I did give you the pages so you can see for yourself. Flip then to page 5 of the presentation. When we originally, this issue came up, we were originally told that it was fish and wildlife service that banned dogs in turkey creek and they were the reason behind this. In your packet you have an excerpt from the complete e-mail in your package from fish and wildlife service which has the following, which provided the following statement. The service does not have a policy or position on dogs in the balcones canyonlands preserve. It would be hard to square that with the idea that it is somehow banned in our permit if they would come back with that statement. They were very clear. I provided you the full text of that e-mail in your packet. I don't think there is a question that our permit would be pulled or that dogs or prohibited. That is not what fish and wildlife came back with. Finally I want to point out two other issues that I think are important that we didn't have the opportunity to talk about. There's been a discussion about potential threats to the warbler. When you go back and actually look at the land management plan that staff has put together they if I want those animals that have been identified as potential threats. This is on slide 6. Browsing and grazing undulent stnrks, feral hogsand predators which do not include dogs, katz and dogs, yes, but not dogs--katz, yes, but not dogs. I find a stretch in the presentation preceding me to say dogs are a threat although notlieded by staff in their discussion and clearly fish and wildlife does not have a prohi base against them. I ask you to keep that in mind.
>> thank you.
>> may I distribute some papers to you?
>> yes, sir. Thank you.
>> my name is rick pearson. I k a birder and have put myself in debt traveling the world to see birds. I am a member of the friends of turkey creek. I am a science teacher saint stevens school where I teach about this habitat. I appreciate your consideration, your considering the language that would keep turkey creek an open place for people and their dogs. What I presented to you is the data that has come out of the bccp. This is the data that they give to fish and wildlife to show how they are doing. If we look at this, I壇 like to look at this briefly. The black lines in all these graphs represent ema long where turkey creek is located and the red line represents the annual average. In the first graph the territory density, the turkey greek is far above the average and is way at the top of all the data. Now, I would acknowledge that the pressures on the species, the loss of other habitat can increase the territory density. And that is a good point about this data. However, we are comparing to the average of the territories, the trend in the territories goes up more slowly. We look at the second graph, productivity, this seems to be the crux of the issue because were the people hiking there and with their dogs chasing the warblers away from their nests making it more difficult for them to provide for their young, then the nest productivity should be down there. If we look at this graph we see the nest productivity follows right along the average. We at friends of turkey creek would be very curious to have more data from the bcp so that we can identify the things that cause some of the other tracts to vary so wildly while turkey creek seems to be very stable. Third graph really relates to, I知 showing you all of these so there's none of what they present to the fish and wildlife service has been left out. This one, the number of territories producing in a certain area, this would mirror the first graph that showed the density of nests on the territory. I don't feel a need to look at that except to note that turkey creek is doing very well there. The last, again, this would have to do with if the people and their dogs were chasing the birds off their analysis --their nests and making it more difficult for their young to fledge successfully off a nest, if you look at the first five years ema long spent two of the five years underneath the average and the last four years has been above or at the average. We think the data speaks for itself. If you with looking agent the effect of the people upon the birds here at turkey creek at ema long, it's very minimal if at all. The last slide is the distribution of the nests at turkey creek. You can see the trail is marked with a dotted line and all of the colored dots around the graph are golden-cheeked warbler nests, and there is no apparent connection between the location of the nests and the location of the trail. Trail seems to have no affect upon the location of the nest. A recent study by a researcher named reeby found a slight positive relationship between the location of nests and the location of trails in other words, very slightly increased number of nests near the trails. She did also say that this was probably statistically insignificant. I知 not claiming that the trails are helping the birds here, but it is a stretch to say that the trails, I think, are hurting the birds. I really appreciate your time. If any of you have questions, I知 happy to answer them to the best of my ability.
>> you are making a case to leave the grandfathered open space, open access at ema long in place.
>> yes, sir. And this may have advance --relevance to some of the other requests but I知 speaking in particular about ema wrongznrb--ema longyes, proceed.
>> my name is judy long cart. I知 a resident, tax n the wstr holder parership for additional public access to bcp tsinal 00 itcan be e st itment in gran infundraising specifically dedicated to trail ewards if you add vae ur sweat equity it represents about six times our operating budget. Public access on this water quality protection tract. Our memorandum of agreement with the city of Austin was signed to establish roles and responsibilities for the parties engaged and implementing public access. A human mpont is the educational signage and we believe with care the model can be modified to fit the land management plan of the bcp. Just to give a little more information on what the water quality protection tract trail standards are, I read in the 1999 bcp plan that there were requirements for trails. One would leave woodland canopies intact. It cannot fragment wood land interiors and should be designed to minimize erosion. Regarding the canopy, the trail corridors for hiking and biking fehigh.does not effect the cano. Trail tread where people use the trail is only 12-18 inches wide. Regarding fragmenting, in the water quality protection land trail design plans, these are determined by the land managers using the best science available to focus users to areas that have the least impact and direct them away from protected cultural or natural resources. Suitable trail design for bcp property might be a loop that stays closer to the perimeter or adjacentant to existing canopy openings. Regarding erosion, the water quality protection land trails are kind and built utilizing interaction elmountain biking association trail building concepts which limits erosion by keeping water off the trail and users on the trail. The other issue I wanted to touch briefly on is the restricttive language restricting certain users over others, passive recreation versus active recreation. The bond language, this is a quote from the bcp website, it says momentum increased towards completion of the hcp in 1992 when the citizens of Austin voted to approve bonds totaling 2 2 million to be spent in the acquisition ig and improvement of land to protect water quality conserve endangered speese us and providing open space for passive public use. Passive public use was later defined to be nature viewing, contemplation, hiking and walking. The definition was provided in 2006 much later by the bccp scientific advisory committee. It's not a standard definition. There is no standard for what is passive and activity recreation. I did a belief google search on passive recreation and started with the website for the u.s. Fish and wildlife service. In that, in their online documents, anyway, they have no definition in their online documents. There are many references to passive recreation but no definition. Some of the other constituencies throughout the country, for instance jefferson county open space division defines it as recreation without field, more generally trail based, hiking, mountain biking, horse back riding, wildlife viewing and picnicking. I won't read all of these. University of michigan natural resources environment, passive recreation refers to nonconsumetive uses such as wildlife observation, walking, biking, canoeing.
>> I believe we see your point.
>> okay. Thank you. Can I just quote one other thing?
>> quickly, please.
>> okay. This is from a compiled summary of scientific studies by e m b a. A body of empirical scientific scuds now indicates that mountain biking is no more damaging than other forms of recreation including hiking. Thus managers who prohibit bicycle use while allowing other activities such as hiking or horse riding based on impacts to trails, soils, wildlife or vegetation are acting without sound scientific backing.
>> okay.
>> that's all I have. Thank you.
>> my question for the bikers would be this, and please answer me later and not today. By e-mail or letter or phone call.
>> okay.
>> this comes from a, if you were a mountain biker, what would you prefer. If there is the possible harm to the bcp, but I thought I needed additional biking trails, what if, how would I feel over react if the city and county got together and decided to generate additional biking trails. Not necessarily in the bcp but here in Austin and Travis County. Why wouldn't my purpose be equally served that way? Not that we have a pool of money there, but it dawned on me that we are the city and county. I don't know how many miles we are talking about, but it does seem to me that if they need to be in certain areas, certain joe graphic --geographic areas, we may be able to accomplish that by putting in appropriate hike bike trails which would include mountain biking, right? Maybe now by e-mail.
>> okay.
>> brief final comments.
>> yes, sir, thank you, judge. Much continues to be made comparing the turkey creek trail bird territories with the average across the other research plots. I didn't want to bore you further with the details of our analyses primarily conducted by dr. Steven wind hagger on the site. We paired those observations on like tracts, lesser quality habitat, intermediate and the highest quality habitat. Turkey creek trail is not the highest quality habitat. If you look individually at the escalation of territories on one other, then there is one line that is steeper and goes higher than the turkey creek trail. But when those data are properly paired and analyzed, there is no significance either relating to the presence of a territory or not with respect to the presence of a trail. So that is no surprise because those data -- not collected for the purpose of flalizings the impact of trails. They were collected under the protocol for population estimates, that is long-standing from the literature, over 30 years everybody maps territories so they are not just doing incidental sitings of a bird passing through. If you document that it was actually holding a territory, then it gets you a better sense of how many birds you really have there. But the better sense is, are they nesting, are they producing young. And it comes to month surprise that the observers see more nests close to trails because that's the easiest place to walk. If you go traipsing through the woods you have got to be dodging understory and your vision, your range of sight is not as good as doing observations from the trail. Also , those data are not collected by the same person from year to year. And since the finding of nests and observing of females is coincidental to the real observation purpose, the data collection purpose, that really is a function of the skill of the observer from year to year who is doing observations on thep respective tracts. Thank you.
>> okay. We always hate to cut you off but we have had to do it three times this morning. We have a lot to do this afternoon, including get legal advice on this matter. It will be back on the court's agenda real soon if for no other reason than to receive some report from the coordinating committee. We will find out this afternoon exactly what authority the Commissioners court and council have and the members of the coordinating board. Right? With that, thank you very much. Move that we recess until 1:45.
>> second.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Last Modified:
Wednesday, November 21, 2007, 18:30 AM