Hill Country Water Summit

National and state leaders will gather Thursday, Dec. 8 to discuss the state’s water challenges at the Texas Hill Country Water Summit at New Braunfels Civic Center, 375 S. Castell Ave.

Registration is $50/$25 for students and ends Dec. 1.

On the agenda are plans to “dissect” the state’s water challenges, recap the election, preview legislative action planned for the 85th Texas Legislature, plan strategies, and learn from two devastating holiday floods along the Blanco, San Marcos and Guadalupe rivers.

Participants also plan to explore water-management issues addressed in a white-paper agreement between the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority (GBRA) and The Aransas Project (TAP) following years of litigation.

“There are very few opportunities for the public, local officials, and students to find this level of water leadership assembled together to assess and help address the water situation we’re facing,” says Todd Votteler, Ph.D., chairman of the Guadalupe Basin Coalition. “What better time to put water planning at the forefront? We want to be in a better position facing the spring rains of 2017 than we were in 2015 and 2016.”

“This Summit promotes awareness of the precious water resources of the Texas Hill Country and facilitates planning strategies for short-and long-term challenges.”

To register online, click here. To see a copy of the meeting agenda, click here.

Featured participants include leaders from Texas Water Development Board (TWDB), Climatology Office at Texas A&M University, National Weather Service (NWS), U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), San Antonio Water System (SAWS), GBRA, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), TAP, Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, Texas Alliance of Groundwater Districts, and members of the Texas Senate.

Guadalupe Basin Coalition

GBC is a voluntary association of businesses, chambers of commerce, lake associations and governmental entities in counties along the Guadalupe River Basin (including all of its tributaries and springs) that are bonded by a common concern for the economic and environmental sustainability of the Guadalupe River Basin and San Antonio Bay.

Todd Votteler

Todd H. Votteler, Ph.D. is the Executive Manager of Science, Intergovernmental Relations and Policy for GBRA, where he regularly works with the media, state and federal administrative agencies, the Texas Legislature and the U.S. Congress.  He is also the Chairman of GBC. Votteler is a co-founder and the editor-in-chief of the Texas Water Journal.  He is executive director of the Guadalupe-Blanco River Trust, a 501(c)3 land and water trust, and principal of Collaborative Water Resolution LLC, which provides its clients with decades of experience in the resolution of intractable water and environmental conflicts.

Votteler was appointed by Senior U.S. District Court Judge Lucius Bunton as the Federal Special Master for the Endangered Species Act (ESA) litigation, Sierra Club v. San Antonio.  Prior to that, he assisted Federal Court Monitor Joe G. Moore, Jr. during the landmark ESA litigation over the Edwards Aquifer, Sierra Club v. Babbitt.  His previous experience also includes research scientist for the Battelle – Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, in Washington, D.C., and Chairman of the Texas Land Trust Council.

GBRA

GBRA was established by the Texas Legislature in 1933 as a water-conservation and reclamation district. GBRA provides stewardship for water resources within in its 10-county statutory district, which begins near the headwaters of the Guadalupe and Blanco rivers, ends at San Antonio Bay, and includes Kendall, Comal, Hays, Caldwell, Guadalupe, Gonzales, DeWitt, Victoria, Calhoun, and Refugio counties.