The Magazine of the American Landowner is an essential guide for investors, landowners, and those interested in buying or selling land. The award-winning quarterly is known for its annual survey of America's largest landowners, The Land Report 100.
Issue link: https://landreport.epubxp.com/i/822507
74 The LandReport | S P R I N G 2 0 1 7 LANDREPORT.COM documented river otters along the creek. As black bears, a threatened species in Texas, struggle to repopulate the post oak savannah and the pineywoods, increasingly rare hard- wood bottomland, like that along Bois d'Arc Creek, will be crucial to their recovery. Texas has already lost around 70 percent of its hardwood bottomland to impoundments and other land alterations. As resilient as these bottomlands are, they will not survive inundation. The fertility – energy built up and stored over thousands of years – will be released into the reservoir to power an aquatic food chain that may, for a decade or two, provide good fishing and duck hunting before falling into decline. Likewise, construction of a new reservoir will, for a time, unleash economic energy that may power a local economy. What form this new economy will take and how the natural wealth will be redistributed remains to be seen. At the same time, a significant portion of the current economy and tax base built on ranching, logging, farming, and rural real estate will be drowned, as will the social capital of long-established culture and memory. Whether these changes amount to a net good depends on perspective. "Whenever you change these woods, and change this area, you change the culture forever," Graves says. "It's not a sophisticated culture, but my heart and soul are here. In my opinion, the culture is just as irreplaceable as the forest and creek." Y et water planners must plan. The popu- lation of fast-growing Dallas–Fort Worth is expected to double by 2070. Water use will increase dramatically. Elderly Dallas residents remember the 1954–56 "drought of record," a time of unreliable tap water, when scalding water from an emergency 3,000-foot well saved the suburb of Garland from a danger- ous shortage. No one charged with ensuring the state's future water supply wants a short- age traced back to their watch. In response to the lengthy drought, the Legislature created the Texas Water Develop- ment Board (TWDB), and voters approved a constitutional amendment authorizing issuance of $200 million in bonds to fund water development. For its first 40 years, TWDB's water planning was a top-down affair. Agencies took a broad view of water needs and proposed solutions, primarily reservoirs. In 1950, Texas had 66 major reservoirs. By 1998, there were 203. In 1997, after a yearlong drought, the 75th Legislature passed Senate Bill 1, which designated 16 regional groups to plan for the state's water needs over the next 50 years. Plans are updated on a five-year basis and submitted to the board for approval and inclusion in the State Water Plan. In theory, this approach fosters grassroots water planning. Each regional group is com- posed of 23 members who are supposed to represent the region's stakeholders: agricul- ture, business, water development, industry, Egrets rest along the creek. Intact wetlands such as the Bois d'Arc Creek corridor are increasingly rare throughout the southern United States.