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Conservation group targets Highland Lakes headwaters for preservation

South Llano River

The Llano River is one of the primary tributaries of the Colorado River watershed, which supplies hundreds of thousands of Texas residents with drinking water. A new conservation effort aims to protect thousands of acres of land across the headwaters of critical watersheds. Staff photo by Dakota Morrissiey

The Hill Country Conservancy has secured $23.2 million in federal grant money for land conservation in Central Texas, and some of that money will be used to protect the watersheds of the Colorado and Llano rivers. Both rivers are primary sources of the Highland Lakes, which supply water to the vast majority of residents in Burnet, Llano, and Travis counties.

This is the single-largest federal award explicitly for conservation easements in the Texas Hill Country.

“The incredibly fast-paced growth in development throughout the Texas Hill Country has created a critical need for land conservation that is simply too big for any single organization to address with the urgency required,” Hill Country Conservancy CEO Kathy Miller wrote in a media release announcing the grant. “This funding will allow our coalition to be more strategic and proactive in protecting high-impact properties that deliver the most bang for the buck in protecting the region’s endangered species, iconic spring-fed streams and pools, and critical aquifer systems that provide water to communities and farmers from Central Texas to the Gulf of Mexico.”

The grant was secured by the conservancy and a coalition of 27 other regional organizations dedicated to the Hill Country’s preservation. Money came from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Regional Conservation Partnership Program

The Hill Country Headwaters Conservation Initiative plan is to strategically acquire land and protect land that has an outsized impact on regional water supplies with a goal of preserving 7,500 acres in rural areas across the Texas Hill Country.

Along with the Colorado and Llano river headwaters, the grant will also fund protections for the watersheds of the Guadalupe, San Gabriel, and Lampasas rivers.

dakota@thepicayune.com