Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission
Conservation Committee

November 8, 2000

Commission Hearing Room
Texas Parks & Wildlife Department Headquarters Complex
4200 Smith School Road
Austin, TX 78744
                                                             1
 
 
 
     
                  BE IT REMEMBERED...regulatory authority of the
         7  Parks and Wildlife Commission of texas, in the
            commission hearing room of the Texas Parks and Wildlife
         8  Headquarters complex, to wit:
 
         9
            APPEARANCES:
        10  THE PARKS AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION:
 
        11  CONSERVATION COMMITTEE:
            CHAIR:     Carol E. Dinkins
        12             Lee M. Bass
                       Nolan Ryan, (Absent)
        13             Dick Heath, (Absent)
                       Ernest Angelo, Jr.
        14             John Avila, Jr.,
                       Alvin L. Henry
        15             Katharine Armstrong Idsal
                       Mark W. Watson, Jr., (Absent)
        16
 
        17
 
        18
 
        19
            THE TEXAS PARKS AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION:
        20  Andrew H. Sansom, Executive Director, and other
            personnel of the Parks and Wildlife Department
        21
 
        22
 
        23
 
        24
 
        25
 
 
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         1                 CHAIRMAN BASS:  At this point, I'd pass
 
         2  the gavel to the conservation chairman, Ms. Dinkins.
 
         3                 CHAIR DINKINS:  I thank you, Mr.
 
         4  Chairman.
 
         5                 Call the meeting of the conservation
 
         6  committee to order.
 
         7                 I would like to announce that pursuant
 
         8  to the requirements of Chapter 551 of the Government
 
         9  Code, referred to as the Open Meetings Law, an
 
        10  executive session will be held at this time for the
 
        11  purpose of consideration of land transactions.  Thank
 
        12  you, Mr. Chairman.
 
        13                 CHAIR DINKINS:  The agenda of the
 
        14  Conservation Committee, and the first thing we need to
 
        15  do is approve the minutes from the last -- or the
 
        16  previous meeting.  You have a copy of those.
 
        17                 Any corrections?
 
        18                 Hearing none, if there's no objection,
 
        19  we'll let the minutes stand approved as distributed.
 
        20                 Hearing no objection, they will stand
 
        21  approved.
 
        22  AGENDA ITEM NO. 1:  BRIEFING-CHAIRMAN'S CHARGES.
 
        23                 CHAIR DINKINS:  The next item is a
 
        24  briefing on the chairman's charges.
 
        25                 Andy?
 
 
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         1                 MR. SANSOM:  Madam Chair, we're in the
 
         2  final stages of the completion of a statewide study of
 
         3  resources and recreation behaviors and preferences as
 
         4  outlined in the Sunset Commission and the Governor's
 
         5  Task Force report.
 
         6                 Today you will be receiving a briefing
 
         7  on Phase I of that study, which is the demographic
 
         8  research.  We expect that the study will be completed
 
         9  by your January meeting.
 
        10                 The other briefing today that I would
 
        11  like to particularly have you take note of, with
 
        12  respect to the charges, is Dr. McKinney will be giving
 
        13  us a status report on Senate Bill 1 implementation.
 
        14                 CHAIR DINKINS:  Good.
 
        15                 Are we ready to move forward with the
 
        16  first briefing, or do we want to go on and ask Larry to
 
        17  do SB1 for us?
 
        18                 DR. McKINNEY:  It's your call, Madam
 
        19   Chairman.
 
        20                 CHAIR DINKINS:  Yes.  If you would,
 
        21  Larry.
 
        22  AGENDA ITEM NO. 3: BRIEFING -- SB1.
 
        23                 DR. McKINNEY:  Madam Chairman and
 
        24  Members, I'm Larry McKinney, senior director for
 
        25  aquatic resources.
 
 
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         1                 Joining me is Cindy Loeffler, who is
 
         2  head of our water resources team.  She and I are going
 
         3  to tag team this thing. It's just too big for one to
 
         4  handle. And Cindy -- I do want to recognize, and I
 
         5  appreciate -- has really led the department's efforts
 
         6  in this thing, from the very beginning, and has taken
 
         7  on, as you'll see, a monumental job and done -- and
 
         8  done wonderfully for us in bringing things together.
 
         9  It's a big job, and I've appreciated her greatly.
 
        10                 With that introduction, I'm going to
 
        11  let --
 
        12                 Cindy, you're going to take the first
 
        13  part of this, I believe.
 
        14                 MS. LOEFFLER:  Sure.  Okay. Thank you,
 
        15  Larry.
 
        16                 Good afternoon, commission members.  I'm
 
        17  going to give you a quick overview of where we are
 
        18  right now with our Senate Bill 1 activities.  Before we
 
        19  talk about where we are, let's talk about where we've
 
        20  been.
 
        21                 Back, during the 75th session of the
 
        22  Legislature 1997, Senate Bill 1 was drafted and then
 
        23  signed into law by Governor Bush June of 1997.  Of
 
        24  course, one of the biggest changes that SB1 brought to
 
        25  water planning in Texas is the grassroots approach, or
 
 
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         1  the regionalization, of water planning.  So 16 water
 
         2  regions were created, and each of those regions is made
 
         3  up of, at least, 11 different interest groups.  So it
 
         4  took from June of '97 to November of '98 to actually go
 
         5  through the moves of creating those regions and
 
         6  appointing the members.
 
         7                 Also going on at that time were the
 
         8  drafting of the regional planning rules.  Of course,
 
         9  Parks and Wildlife had input into those rules that were
 
        10  adopted in November of '98.
 
        11                 So, since November of '98, up until just
 
        12  this fall, the regional planning groups have been
 
        13  working on putting together their regional water
 
        14  plans.  The public review of those initially-prepared
 
        15  drafts, as they're called, happened during September of
 
        16  this year, September of 2000.  The draft plans, along
 
        17  with the public comments, were submitted to the Water
 
        18  Development Board early October and then copies
 
        19  forwarded onto the department on October 9th.  So you
 
        20  see, in the bottom box there, that we're currently in
 
        21  the middle of our department review of the 16 regional
 
        22  water plans due to be completed later this month.
 
        23                 So this has really been a team effort.
 
        24  Thank you for the recognition that it's something that
 
        25  I've been working on, but, really, this is something
 
 
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         1  that couldn't happen without all these folks that you
 
         2  see.
 
         3                 So the names here are the members of the
 
         4  water resources team, people from four different
 
         5  divisions at Parks and Wildlife: Resource Protection,
 
         6  Inland Fisheries, Coastal Fisheries, and Wildlife
 
         7  Divisions.
 
         8                 But, really, on the front lines of the
 
         9  SB1 planning are the primary non-voting members.  The
 
        10  SB1 Regional Planning Rules call for Parks and Wildlife
 
        11  to have staff at the meetings and supporting the
 
        12  different regions.  So these people that you see,
 
        13  again, from the four different divisions, are
 
        14  non-voting members, primary contacts to the regions,
 
        15  and they're located in the regions, the water planning
 
        16  regions.
 
        17                 One statistic, to let you know how much
 
        18  has really gone into this, 2,656 hours is our estimate
 
        19  of how much time our staff has spent in meetings,
 
        20  preparing for meetings, going to meetings, et cetera.
 
        21  So it's been a lot of work.
 
        22                 Some of the significant activities that
 
        23  we've worked on during the SB1 implementation phase --
 
        24  our role, really, is to provide technical support,
 
        25  provide information pertaining to natural resources,
 
 
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         1  fish and wildlife resources, to the regions.  So a lot
 
         2  of what we've done to help support the water planning
 
         3  effort is to either provide through the form of staff
 
         4  at the meetings, or to provide written resources to the
 
         5  groups to help them in their plans.  So we prepared
 
         6  seven reports for what is called the Priority
 
         7  Groundwater Management Area, the PGMA process.
 
         8                 We also prepared reports that document
 
         9  ecologically significant rivers and streams in the
 
        10  regions.  We were able to complete five of these
 
        11  reports for five of the different regions, and we'll
 
        12  talk about that a little bit more later on.
 
        13                 And then two other studies that are
 
        14  similar in nature, documenting resources in the regions
 
        15  that would be affected by different types of water
 
        16  management strategies.
 
        17                 We've also been involved in several
 
        18  long-term type baseline studies.  You've heard about
 
        19  the freshwater inflow studies for the bays and
 
        20  estuaries.  I'm happy to say that those are nearing
 
        21  completion.  We've also been involved in instream flow
 
        22  studies.  And then looking at water availability, both,
 
        23  groundwater and surface water.
 
        24                 So for the bays and estuaries studies,
 
        25  this effort really kicked off back in 1987, by the
 
 
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         1  mandate in the Water Code to look at the freshwater
 
         2  inflow needs for all the estuaries.  We've gone through
 
         3  and done those, performed those analyses, along with
 
         4  the Texas Water Development Board, for our seven major
 
         5  estuaries.  And so the last one to be completed is
 
         6  Sabine Lake, which will be done January of 2001.  Of
 
         7  course, that information is a key piece of the water
 
         8  planning puzzle the regional water plans have to
 
         9  consider.
 
        10                 Another major effort that the TNRCC is
 
        11  taking the lead on is the water availability modeling
 
        12  project.  When I was here last year, I talked a little
 
        13  bit about this.  What you see with this map is kind of
 
        14  the status of where we are with that modeling project.
 
        15  Parks and Wildlife is a member of the Management
 
        16  Advisory Team on this project, taking part in the
 
        17  selection of the consultants that will be award -- or
 
        18  have been awarded or will be awarded the contracts to
 
        19  actually construct these models.
 
        20                 So the green basins are the basins that
 
        21  are complete.  Everything else will be done by December
 
        22  31, 2001.  And when these models are done, this will
 
        23  give us the tool that we need to actually see what the
 
        24  effect on instream flows, freshwater inflows will be,
 
        25  due to water diversions, reservoir projects, water
 
 
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         1  right permits.
 
         2                 Similar effort that the Texas Water
 
         3  Development Board is spearheading, a newer effort, is
 
         4  looking at groundwater availability.  In Texas, about
 
         5  half of the water that we use comes from groundwater,
 
         6  and so we've had concerns for a while about the effects
 
         7  of pumping on springs, streams, rivers, wetlands, playa
 
         8  lakes, things of that nature.  So having these new
 
         9  groundwater models available to help the
 
        10  decision-makers determine impacts to some of these
 
        11  resources will be a very important tool for us to
 
        12  have.  So this project is due to be completed 2004, and
 
        13  ultimately will link with surface water models.
 
        14                 DR. McKINNEY:  One of the things we
 
        15  wanted to do, in trying to look at these regional
 
        16  plans, is to take a look at exactly what are the major
 
        17  strategies that the groups are going to use.  And so
 
        18  we've taken all 16 of the regional plans, and,
 
        19  basically, based on the Water Development Board's first
 
        20  assessment of what are the major strategies being
 
        21  suggested in each region, we've grouped them as -- in
 
        22  a -- kind of categories that go from least impactful to
 
        23  the environment, to most impactful, and there's two
 
        24  pages of these things, to try to get an idea of what
 
        25  major strategies are being looked at.
 
 
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         1                 So, as you can see here, water
 
         2  conservation is a major strategy in 4 of the 16
 
         3  regions, reuse in 3, desalinization, chloride control,
 
         4  and so forth, down -- down the line.
 
         5                 When you look at the second page,
 
         6  acquifer storage and recovery, brush management, cloud
 
         7  seeding even, and new reservoir construction, it kind
 
         8  of gives you a very first cut, and we're going to talk
 
         9  a little bit more about these briefly, but this is one
 
        10  way to -- as brief as possible, to kind of summarize
 
        11  what we're talking about there.
 
        12                 Basically, what I would say, Members, is
 
        13  that every ecological region in Texas, every ecosystem,
 
        14  every species of wildlife in Texas, is going to be
 
        15  affected by this plan.  It's going to be a major
 
        16  paradigm shift as we go forward and try to implement
 
        17  what is recommended there.
 
        18                 Just to give you a better idea of the
 
        19  scope, we've taken the -- taken the Senate Bill 1 plan
 
        20  and compared it to the last water development plan, or
 
        21  the water -- water plan which we participated in, which
 
        22  we called the Consensus Water Plan, in 1997, just to
 
        23  give you an idea of comparisons.
 
        24                 The 1997 Consensus Water Plan had 343
 
        25  pages in it.  Senate Bill 1 Regional Plans have at
 
 
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         1  least 25,000 pages.  It's a stack of papers about this
 
         2  tall, that our staff is going through right now.
 
         3                 The 1997 Consensus Water Plan
 
         4  contemplated eight reservoirs.  Senate Bill 1 Regional
 
         5  Plan -- and this is difficult to figure out right now.
 
         6  We think there's about 22 reservoirs there.  The Water
 
         7  Development Board has counted 15, and they do a -- they
 
         8  kind of sort it by reservoirs under 5,000-acre feet,
 
         9  but even then, they're not for sure in the plans.  So
 
        10  we're still trying to figure out exactly what they are
 
        11  because they're difficult to discern.  But we tried to
 
        12  identify every reservoir we thought would have an
 
        13  impact on fish and wildlife, so we're going with 22
 
        14  right now, but that -- that number may change, which, I
 
        15  guess, seems to be the -- a common thing for today.
 
        16                 '97 Consensus Water Plan, to implement
 
        17  the entire plan: 4.7 billion.  If all of the SB1
 
        18  Regional Plan was implemented, it would cost $17.7
 
        19  billion.  So we're talking about one of the largest
 
        20  civil works proposal for water ever put forth in
 
        21  Texas.
 
        22                 Just to give you an idea of the sorting
 
        23  and how this sorts out a little bit is the -- where we
 
        24  can best tell where the proposals for construction of
 
        25  reservoirs are part of major river strategies -- that's
 
 
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         1  identified on this -- this map here.
 
         2                 One of the -- one of the activities that
 
         3  our staff participated in as part of this -- part of
 
         4  SB1 was to help identify important streams and rivers,
 
         5  ecologically important streams and rivers, and there's

 
         6  a set of criteria that were adopted in the rules to
 
         7  make that first cut.  And so our staff went through and
 
         8  looked at all the streams and rivers in Texas, under
 
         9  those criteria, and developed a state map which really
 
        10  identified 228 stream segments meeting those -- those
 
        11  criteria.
 
        12                 One region, Region H, in Houston, chose
 
        13  to identify, in their plan, some designation of six of
 
        14  those streams for consideration by the legislature.
 
        15                 Another part of that -- of that SB1,
 
        16  which allowed for the identification of unique --
 
        17  ecologically unique stream segments, was also the
 
        18  designation of unique reservoir sites to be identified,
 
        19  where a reservoir might be built in the future.  There
 
        20  were a total of 46 sites identified, the most of which
 
        21  were in that northeast part or corner of the state, as
 
        22  potential reservoir sites.  Basically, I guess, you
 
        23  could build a dike around that part of the state and
 
        24  fill it up with water, I think.  They want -- they have
 
        25  a lot of reservoir sites there.  But these are sites in
 
 
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         1  the process.  We're going to talk a little more about
 
         2  that in a moment, but that was -- that was, by far, the
 
         3  record.
 
         4                 One thing I do want to recognize, as we
 
         5  go through and spend just a few minutes talking with,
 
         6  is -- is that participation in planning and so forth,
 
         7  and it was a -- it was a difficult task in that we had
 
         8  very clear and direct guidance from the legislators and
 
         9  legislature that this did need to be grassroots effort,
 
        10  that these planning regions need to be -- needed to be
 
        11  from those regions, and that the national resource
 
        12  agencies, Parks and Wildlife and TNRCC and the Water
 
        13  Development Board, need to be very careful in
 
        14  supporting that effort and not -- not, basically, try
 
        15  to run it or oversee it;  let those groups work on
 
        16  their own and we be supportive.  And so we had some
 
        17  difficulty working there and trying to sort that out.
 
        18  When we first started a few years ago, for example, we
 
        19  put together workshops for all the -- all the
 
        20  environmental members of the regions, and others as
 
        21  well;  got a little criticism for that, for doing that
 
        22  kind of thing and not letting them go forward, so we
 
        23  were a little sensitive there.  And so we were -- our
 
        24  ability to work with those regions was fairly uneven.
 
        25  In some regions, our members had difficulty even
 
 
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         1  knowing when the meeting was going to happen and
 
         2  difficulty getting information that was there.  In
 
         3  other cases, they would sit right at the table with the
 
         4  voting members and participated fully.  So it was
 
         5  not -- it was somewhat uneven.
 
         6                 We picked one region out, for example,
 
         7  that we -- we had wished all the regions had been like
 
         8  this, Region H, for example, where they were one of the
 
         9  regions that looked at the ecologically significant
 
        10  streams and identified some.  They put together a
 
        11  special group to look at freshwater inflows and how
 
        12  that needed to fit into their water management scheme,
 
        13  and several other things.  And other regions, you know,
 
        14  did this, to varying degrees, but this certainly was
 
        15  one region that did well.
 
        16                 And part of the problem -- and I think
 
        17  this goes to where we're going to go in the future --
 
        18  is the fact that it's such a monumental job; it's a
 
        19  huge task that they were assigned; they didn't have a
 
        20  lot of funds and time to do it.  And so what they were
 
        21  able -- the regions were able to really get their hands
 
        22  around were to identify what are the water resources in
 
        23  their region; what are their demands;  what are their
 
        24  needs?  And that, really, frankly, was about as far as
 
        25  many of them could take it.  And so their plans really
 
 
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         1  have laid a lot of management strategies on the table,
 
         2  I think, more than they really think that they can do,
 
         3  but they laid them all out there.  And, for the most
 
         4  part, they weren't able to really do what -- I would
 
         5  say, a screening.  They weren't able to develop, like,
 
         6  an environmental screen, to run these strategies
 
         7  through, to see if there were fatal flaws or see
 
         8  what -- which one would -- what strategy would meet
 
         9  their needs but be the least impactful on fish and
 
        10  wildlife.  And that was unfortunate.
 
        11                 We -- for example, toward the end of the
 
        12  process, over the last year, all the state agencies --
 
        13  and we were able to get the federal agencies involved
 
        14  in this as well -- put together several days of
 
        15  meetings which we called "clearing houses," and
 
        16  ordered -- we set them up so that the regions could
 
        17  come and sit down, with all the agencies at one table,
 
        18  lay out the various strategies they were considering,
 
        19  so we could give them some input on what problems they
 
        20  may or may not have in a regulatory process and those
 
        21  types of things.
 
        22                 Well, basically, one region took us up
 
        23  on it.  No one else really did.  There was just not
 
        24  much interest in it and -- probably because there
 
        25  wasn't much time and that type of the thing, but we
 
 
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         1  were certainly disappointed.
 
         2                 And what that means is that these
 
         3  issues -- there's two -- they'll be three avenues in
 
         4  which these issues will be resolved.  One is in that
 
         5  regulatory process, when some or parts of all of these
 
         6  plans are moved forward for real implementation.
 
         7  They're going to have to go through state permitting
 
         8  and federal permitting.  And so one of the things that
 
         9  we had hoped to do before that was to, at least,
 
        10  eliminate some of those problems, but we weren't -- as
 
        11  I was trying to explain, we really weren't able to, so
 
        12  all that's going to be going through that regulatory
 
        13  process, and, unfortunately, some of it is undoubtedly
 
        14  going to go into the federal process, and we're going
 
        15  to have much less of a role in that federal process
 
        16  than we would have in resolving the issues.  That's a
 
        17  concern.
 
        18                 The other avenue -- which I hope that we
 
        19  will be able to work along with the Water Board and
 
        20  others in these regions -- is to try to make sure that,
 
        21  in the next round of Senate Bill 1 planning -- and
 
        22  there will be ongoing rounds, obviously, for some
 
        23  time -- is that, in those rounds, now that we have
 
        24  identified -- we've laid out the sideboards, we've
 
        25  identified the needs and the strategies, that, in this
 
 
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         1  next round of planning, we spend -- we put a lot of
 
         2  effort into this environmental evaluation, start
 
         3  sorting through those strategies, build these screens
 
         4  to sort through these strategies, to see which ones
 
         5  will work and which ones will create problems.  And
 
         6  there are other screens that need to be built, like can
 
         7  you really afford these things, and cost things that
 
         8  they weren't able to as well.
 
         9                 So one thing we'll be trying to
 
        10  emphasize in these next rounds of planning is those
 
        11  kinds of things now, to try to get at that and really
 
        12  get at the answer.
 
        13                 Let me see where I am before I -- I got
 
        14  off on a tangent there a little bit.
 
        15                 So I think that's back into kind of --
 
        16  okay.  If we've -- kind of where we've been and kind of
 
        17  where we were -- and, believe me, this is a snapshot --
 
        18  as I said, there's about 25,000 pages of these
 
        19  documents.  Our staff are looking at them right now,
 
        20  and we'll be moving forward with it.  But just to kind
 
        21  of give you an idea from now -- from this point, where
 
        22  we're going, we'll take a few minutes to kind of give
 
        23  you that timeline.
 
        24                 MS. LOEFFLER:  Okay.  So, as I said
 
        25  earlier, right now, we're in the middle of reviewing
 
 
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         1  these plans.  The deadline to get comments back to me
 
         2  is November 15th.  So that's next week.
 
         3                 We'll be preparing a letter that will go
 
         4  to the Texas Water Development Board that will cover
 
         5  all of our concerns and comments for the 16 regions.
 
         6                 We hope, in December, next month, to
 
         7  prepare something, in writing, that we can submit to
 
         8  you-all, to the commission, to give a little bit more
 
         9  thorough background as to what some of our issues are,
 
        10  some of the things showing up in these plans, so on.
 
        11                 And then, also happening next month, in
 
        12  December, the Texas Water Development Board will be
 
        13  working on the executive summary to the state plan.  So
 
        14  where we've been, focusing our efforts, to date, on
 
        15  preparing these 16 regional plans -- the next big step
 
        16  is to combine those regional plans into a state plan,
 
        17  and we have made it clear that we'd like to provide
 
        18  input and have a piece of that executive summary, if
 
        19  you will.
 
        20                 That executive summary then is due to be
 
        21  complete by February 2001 and then available for
 
        22  legislatures -- legislators.
 
        23                 DR. McKINNEY:  You'll be getting --
 
        24  notice, on the timeline, that we'll be preparing for
 
        25  y'all, in December, a written summary of where we are
 
 
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         1  on those -- on those plans, and continue as best we
 
         2  can, to give you a little more -- more information.
 
         3                 MS. LOEFFLER:  Next summer, June 2001,
 
         4  is when the Texas Water Development Board plans to
 
         5  adopt all of the 16 regional plans.  Whether they'll do
 
         6  it in one meeting or phase it out over several is not
 
         7  clear, but they would like to have that done by the
 
         8  June 2001.  And then, in September of 2001, the state
 
         9  plan will be complete, and then printed and distributed
 
        10  by January 2002, which is the legislative deadline for
 
        11  having the state plan out.
 
        12                 So going on concurrently with trying to
 
        13  keep up with the current regional planning process,
 
        14  we're also looking down the road, as Larry has alluded
 
        15  to, how to improve the next round of regional
 
        16  planning.  This is something that is envisioned to
 
        17  happen on a five-year schedule, so this is just the
 
        18  first time going through this.  And the Water
 
        19  Development Board, in October, was soliciting input
 
        20  from interested parties, including the other agencies,
 
        21  suggestions for how to improve this process, and so we
 
        22  did submit several comments back to the Board, and as
 
        23  Larry has mentioned, we really need to enhance our
 
        24  staff's participation in these regional planning
 
        25  groups.  We really can help with preparation of these
 
 
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         1  plans and help the groups to avoid some of the
 
         2  permitting pitfalls that they're bound to face, either
 
         3  state or federal.  So enhancing our participation is
 
         4  something we suggested doing.
 
         5                 The planning groups themselves have come
 
         6  under fire from some because they tend to be loaded up
 
         7  with water controllers, if you will, water suppliers,
 
         8  water developers, some of the more traditional players
 
         9  in some of the water issues in the state, and, really,
 
        10  less so with folks that are actually affected by some
 
        11  of these decisions.  There's one representative for the
 
        12  public;  there's one representative for the
 
        13  environment, and that's about it.  So we've made some
 
        14  suggestions that, at least, we need to have a
 
        15  representative there, someone who would be affected,
 
        16  their business might be affected, say, outfitters or
 
        17  marina owners or folks like that, that, you know, their
 
        18  bread and butter depends on some of these decisions
 
        19  that are being made.  So we'll see where we get with
 
        20  that.
 
        21                 And then, as Larry has mentioned, the
 
        22  next round of planning needs to do a more thorough job
 
        23  of looking at environmental impacts associated with
 
        24  these strategies.
 
        25                 DR. McKINNEY:  One of the issues that
 
 
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         1  all of the regions have identified as needing more
 
         2  clarification on is the designation of unique rivers
 
         3  and streams and reservoirs, just what that means and
 
         4  what are the implications of it.  And that's something
 
         5  that will be coming up under Senate Bill 1, and that we
 
         6  all -- we will be participating in and trying to
 
         7  clarify as to what it means.  Here's the language
 
         8  itself.  It's pretty simple, and I guess that's a
 
         9  problem when you try to do something fairly simple like
 
        10  that; it really -- it maybe leaves questions open
 
        11  and -- of where you want to go.
 
        12                 And some of the concerns, I think, that
 
        13  have been raised for the stream designation is that,
 
        14  okay, what does this do to property owners adjacent to
 
        15  these rivers and streams, and the private property
 
        16  implications, and those types of things;  what does it
 
        17  do to me?  Because I think there's been a concern from
 
        18  federal designations of scenic rivers and those types
 
        19  of things.  Does it have anything like that?  Well, as
 
        20  you can see, the one thing that -- we tried to address
 
        21  it in a couple of ways:
 
        22                 One, we set up a process such that a
 
        23  recommendation comes out of that planning group which
 
        24  should represent that region.  The Water Development
 
        25  Board has to pass on that.  Then it has to go to the
 
 
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         1  legislature before it can ever happen.  So there's a
 
         2  whole series of steps to get issues -- and it's
 
         3  obviously very -- frankly, very difficult to do -- but
 
         4  a series of steps to get those issues out in front and
 
         5  looked at.
 
         6                 And then the designation itself.
 
         7  Basically, the only thing that it does is a state
 
         8  agency or political subdivision may not obtain a fee
 
         9  title or easement that would destroy those values.
 
        10  That's really what it means.  And that's all that it
 
        11  means.
 
        12                 And so it's been some interesting twists
 
        13  on it.  We've had some conversations with folks, and
 
        14  some, for example, in the private property rights side,
 
        15  where they've actually looked at the language, they
 
        16  say, "Well, you know, if I get this done, it's probably
 
        17  one of the more powerful pieces of protection for my
 
        18  property that I can have.  I mean, I don't even know if
 
        19  condemnation can override this type of thing once it's
 
        20  designated, and a state can't come in and buy it."
 
        21                 Frankly, you know, the same thing on the
 
        22  reservoir side. Maybe even more so on the reservoir
 
        23  side, because I -- as I showed -- as you remember that
 
        24  little flip-out of the map, with the 17 or 18 reservoir
 
        25  sites that are proposed for designation up in northeast
 
 
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         1  Texas.  I suppose if I were a private property owner up
 
         2  there, on one of those dam sites, I'd be pretty
 
         3  concerned that what's the value of my property now that
 
         4  it's been designated as a reservoir site?
 
         5                 So there's all of those issues there
 
         6  that will certainly come into play in the legislature,
 
         7  and we're going to have to address, I mean, as how we
 
         8  go forward.  I don't know exactly where it's going to
 
         9  come out, but it will be -- that will be a topic in
 
        10  session.
 
        11                 The most important issue, and, I think,
 
        12  certainly, of concern to us down the road, and that is
 
        13  in our capacity as an agency to respond as these water
 
        14  management strategies are implemented, through, both,
 
        15  state and federal regulatory processes.  A number of us
 
        16  have, in the past, worked on reservoir proposals and
 
        17  projects through those processes and know how intense
 
        18  they can be.  And, as I've showed you, the two-page
 
        19  summary of the various water strategies that are there,
 
        20  and the fact that everything we do will be impacted by
 
        21  them, we're -- if we're not involved fully, fully
 
        22  engaged in the process -- process of future planning,
 
        23  the regulatory process, and development process -- that
 
        24  goes forward, it's not going to stop.  It's going to
 
        25  be -- it's a moving train and rolling, and we're just
 
 
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         1  going to be brushed aside.  And those impacts on fish
 
         2  and wildlife which are so important to us, you know,
 
         3  will not be adequately considered.
 
         4                 So we're going to have to be working,
 
         5  and our executive director, Mr. Sansom, and I and
 
         6  others have already started and been discussing how
 
         7  can -- how can we make sure that we -- that we put the
 
         8  resources into play to meet that challenge, and it's
 
         9  daunting.  It really is.  And so we -- that's -- as
 
        10  high on our list as we can it is -- how do we do that?
 
        11  How do we, frankly, stay as players in this process to
 
        12  meet our responsibilities?  So that's -- that's on our
 
        13  minds, obviously.
 
        14                 One thing that has helped us and will
 
        15  help us, and that is the work of the Governor's Task
 
        16  Force in taking care of Texas.  There is a section in
 
        17  that report dealing with water that has been reviewed,
 
        18  and I would say that that for us, provides the policy,
 
        19  the background, and framework of which we're going to
 
        20   -- we would propose and to address -- addressing --
 
        21  making sure that fish and wildlife are part of these
 
        22  water decisions, because I think that section, as I've
 
        23  looked back over it in the last several days,
 
        24  captures -- captures, for me and, I think -- for Cindy
 
        25  and I and others that are working it day to day, that's
 
 
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         1  what we should be doing.  That's what we are doing, and
 
         2  what we should do.  I think it's going to be a really
 
         3  important guide to us and others as "Here's how we're
 
         4  coming at this."  And just -- our job is to put the
 
         5  tools to it and implement those policies and
 
         6  recommendations.  If we can do that, we'll be where we
 
         7  need to be.
 
         8                 And I think, with that, Madam Chairman
 
         9  and Members, we certainly are open to -- to questions
 
        10  from you at this time.
 
        11                 CHAIR DINKINS:  Well, thank you for that
 
        12  very excellent briefing, and also for all your hard
 
        13  work on this.  Twenty-three thousand pages sounds like
 
        14  a lot to read in six weeks.
 
        15                 DR. McKINNEY:  Cindy has read them all,
 
        16  I think.
 
        17                 CHAIR DINKINS:  And you're prepared to
 
        18  answer questions on any one?
 
        19                 DR. McKINNEY:  On any one. I would tell
 
        20  you she could probably do it as well as anyone can
 
        21  right now.
 
        22                 CHAIR DINKINS:  Well, good.
 
        23                 MR. SANSOM:  What would you say are the
 
        24  principal issues facing you now?  I mean, summarize the
 
        25  principal issues.
 
 
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         1                 DR. McKINNEY:  I'm sorry --
 
         2                 MR. SANSOM:  In terms of the process,
 
         3  what are the most significant issues or problems facing
 
         4  you right now in SB1 implementation?
 
         5                 DR. McKINNEY:  You mean process-wise,
 
         6  not resource-wise, but how -- participating in the
 
         7  process?
 
         8                 Cindy, kick in at any time.
 
         9                 Our immediate one is:  How we will work
 
        10  with the Water Development Board in their coalition of
 
        11  the regional plans and the state plan?  What would be
 
        12  our role there; what -- do we have the resources even
 
        13  to be helpful to them, to identify issues or concerns?
 
        14  And that would be over this next year -- that will be
 
        15  an important one.
 
        16                 MR. SANSOM:  So there's an issue of
 
        17  capacity?
 
        18                 DR. McKINNEY:  I see this strain coming
 
        19  one or two years down the road -- when it gets to that
 
        20  regulatory process, it's going to be overwhelming, but
 
        21  immediately, in order to lessen that load, in order to
 
        22  make it more realistic, we have to have influence and
 
        23  be able to participate in this first pass-through of
 
        24  taking these regional plans and putting them to state
 
        25  plans.  So if we can be effective there, then we
 
 
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         1  eliminate some pressures for us down the road.  So
 
         2  that's there.
 
         3                 MS. LOEFFLER:  On the issue of
 
         4  transitioning from water right planning to permitting,
 
         5  as Larry says, a year or two down the road, when these
 
         6  plans are rolled up into a state plan, the spouses are
 
         7  actually coming forward for permits, we're going to be
 
         8  swamped, if you pardon the pun.  But we're already
 
         9  seeing some of that go on, I think, in anticipation of
 
        10  the deadline.  If projects are not in the state plan by
 
        11  the time the state plan is due, then they're not
 
        12  eligible for funding, and they're not eligible for
 
        13  surface water right permits.  So we're already seeing
 
        14  that activity pick up substantially, and I think it
 
        15  will pick up even more.  So that will be a challenge.
 
        16                 DR. McKINNEY:  We're finishing up our
 
        17  technical studies in various areas, in rivers and
 
        18  freshwater inflows, and we're on schedule for that, but
 
        19  turning that -- those -- that technical information
 
        20  into policies and actually putting them into play in
 
        21  this will be a big challenge that we'll have to face as
 
        22  well.
 
        23                 Legislatively, there will be -- the one
 
        24  that's kind of rolling up behind us in -- or in front
 
        25  of us, I should say, is a focus on groundwater and how
 
 
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         1  groundwater fits into meeting our demands and those
 
         2  types of things, and that will have an impact on
 
         3  springs and rivers and the whole thing.  And that will
 
         4  rise as an important issue in trying to help there.
 
         5                 I can keep rolling here, but that's --
 
         6  those are the ones I would say.  Those concerns --
 
         7  immediately.
 
         8                 CHAIR DINKINS:  Any questions,
 
         9  comments?
 
        10                 Well, thank you again.  It's always good
 
        11  to hear from you on what you're doing with water.
 
        12  AGENDA ITEM NO. 2: BRIEFING-TEXAS TECH STUDY.
 
        13                 CHAIR DINKINS:  All right.  Let's move
 
        14  to the agenda item that is the briefing on the Texas
 
        15  Tech study.
 
        16                 And, Andy, did you want to introduce
 
        17  this one?  Lydia.  Thanks.
 
        18                 Welcome, Lydia.
 
        19                 MS. SALDANA:  Good afternoon, Chairman,
 
        20  Commissioners.  I'm Lydia Saldana, director of the
 
        21  communications division, and I'm here to brief you on
 
        22  the study "Texas Parks and Wildlife in the 21st
 
        23  Century."
 
        24                 We've contracted with Texas Tech
 
        25  University to conduct a comprehensive research effort.
 
 
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         1  And Tech has put together a -- I guess we can call it a
 
         2  far-flung team.  And, in fact, it's so far flung that
 
         3  we were taking advantage of being all together in the
 
         4  building, so we were working over lunch, and we
 
         5  apologize for being a little late today.
 
         6                 This study is being conducted in two
 
         7  phases.  There's a statewide needs assessment for
 
         8  outdoor recreation and natural and cultural resource
 
         9  conservation, and also a comprehensive public opinion
 
        10  survey that will be the focus of today's presentation.
 
        11                 The work on this is wrapping up right
 
        12  now.  In fact, we were tying up loose ends over the
 
        13  lunch hour, and we'll be expecting final reports on
 
        14  this study in the next few weeks.
 
        15                 We will also be producing an executive
 
        16  summary type document, a printed report, that will be
 
        17  ready, certainly, in time for your next commission
 
        18  meeting in January.
 
        19                 Most of the project team is here, and
 
        20  I'm going to introduce a few of the folks that are
 
        21  here, that would be available to answer questions if
 
        22  you have any.
 
        23                 Dr. Nick Parker -- where is Nick?
 
        24  Dr. Nick Parker, with Texas Tech.  He's the head of the
 
        25  COOP unit.  Also, Dr. Bob Baker, a biologist from Texas
 
 
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         1  Tech, is here with Nick.
 
         2                 Clif Ladd is the subcontractor from
 
         3  Loomis Austin that is working on the outdoor recreation
 
         4  and natural and cultural resource conservation piece.
 
         5                 And Mark Duda is who you'll be hearing
 
         6  from today.  Mark Duda -- if you'd come up and join me,
 
         7  Mark -- is executive director of Responsive Management,
 
         8  which is an organization developed to help fish,
 
         9  wildlife, and natural resource organizations and
 
        10  industry to better understand and work with their
 
        11  constituents and customers.  He has conducted more than
 
        12  300 surveys and 200 focus groups on natural resource
 
        13  and environmental issues.  And I don't know if that
 
        14  number includes this study or not.
 
        15                 Here's Mark.
 
        16                 MR. DUDA:  Add a few hundred on that.
 
        17                 Good afternoon.  How are y'all doing and
 
        18  holding up?  I know everybody got eight hours of sleep
 
        19  last night, so -- I know that I didn't.
 
        20                 Chairman, Commissioners, Director
 
        21  Sansom, thank you very much for letting me address
 
        22  you.  I have several power point slides, so I am going
 
        23  to focus in on that.
 
        24                 Let's begin and see how this works.
 
        25  What I'd like to do is sort of put this study in
 
 
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         1  perspective of some other things that you've heard
 
         2  today.
 
         3                 Generally, we think about fish and
 
         4  wildlife management as containing sort of -- sort of
 
         5  focusing on three different aspects:  Focusing on fish
 
         6  and wildlife populations, fish and wildlife habitats,
 
         7  and people.  And what's interesting, we specialize in
 
         8  understanding people, but when it comes to fish and
 
         9  wildlife populations, when it comes to habitats, we
 
        10  deal with those very scientifically.  We approach those
 
        11  in a very scientific and deliberate manner.
 
        12                 In this project, on the public attitude
 
        13  side of the "Texas Parks and Wildlife for the 21st
 
        14   Century" study, we wanted to bring a very scientific
 
        15  side to understanding the many different publics.
 
        16                 We're Phase I.  It's called The Public
 
        17  Opinion Study, but, in realty, it's public opinion on
 
        18  public opinions study.
 
        19                 The study that we're in the process of
 
        20  finishing up, really, is in two phases:
 
        21                 Focus groups.  We conducted a series of
 
        22  13 focus groups and seven telephone surveys.  It's a
 
        23  very major major study.  It's one of the largest that
 
        24  we've ever done and certainly one of the largest that's
 
        25  ever been done for a state fish and wildlife agency
 
 
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         1  such as Texas Parks and Wildlife.
 
         2                 We connected a series of focus groups,
 
         3  to start off with, with what we call qualitative
 
         4  research.  Before we jumped into the telephone surveys,
 
         5  the quantified surveys, we wanted to start from
 
         6  scratch.  And so we wanted to go out there and talk, in
 
         7  a very open-ended manner, to a variety of constituent
 
         8  groups, to see parks, wildlife, fisheries issues
 
         9  through their eyes.  And so we really went out to talk
 
        10  about things from their perspective.
 
        11                 We talked to several key constituent
 
        12  groups, including hunters, anglers, boaters, daytime
 
        13  park users, overnight park users.  We looked at some
 
        14  major stakeholder groups, through these focus groups.
 
        15  These were formal focus groups conducted in facilities
 
        16  where we had mirrors, one-way mirrors, where several of
 
        17  the people in here were behind the one-way mirror,
 
        18  watching things, so as not to influence the group.
 
        19                 Rural landowners, outdoor
 
        20  recreationists, several other focus groups.  Some
 
        21  different groups within the general population.
 
        22                 We talked to urban residents, suburban
 
        23  residents, a group entirely with Hispanics, and another
 
        24  group entirely with African Americans, looking at
 
        25  issues of natural resources, parks, fisheries issues,
 
 
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         1  from their standpoint.
 
         2                 We conducted seven surveys,
 
         3  scientifically conducted surveys.  One very large study
 
         4  of the general population; one specifically of licensed
 
         5  hunters; one of anglers -- and this included both
 
         6  saltwater and freshwater anglers; of boaters; of park
 
         7  users; of both day and overnight park users; of
 
         8  landowners; that is, we went into the counties, we
 
         9  looked at the county records, we selected people who
 
        10  owned only 640 acres of land or more, and interviewed
 
        11  those individuals, as well as outdoor recreationists,
 
        12  to get a feel for not only what people are doing now in
 
        13  terms of outdoor recreation, but things that, if
 
        14  they're not doing them now, what they would be
 
        15  interested in, and if they're interested in it, what
 
        16  the constraints and the barriers were to them not
 
        17  participating.  So we not only looked at sort of
 
        18  current demand, but latent demand as well.
 
        19                 Let's take a look at the few things that
 
        20  we found in the general population study.  This is only
 
        21  the tip of the iceberg in what we did find.
 
        22                 The first is, we looked at outdoor
 
        23  recreational activities, and that's Texans
 
        24  participating in numerous outdoor activities.  And
 
        25  let's take a look here in terms of the percentage of
 
 
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         1  Texans who are participating in a variety of these
 
         2  issues.
 
         3                 You can see things like visiting a
 
         4  historic site, wildlife viewing within a mile of their
 
         5  home were very popular activities.  Visiting a Texas
 
         6  state park, bird-watching, and then sort of on down the
 
         7  line, to the more specific activities, such as
 
         8  saltwater fishing and hunting.
 
         9                 These numbers, by the way -- you've
 
        10  done numerous studies, over the years, both, Texas A &
 
        11  M, Texas Tech University, as well as the department
 
        12  itself, and a lot of these numbers were almost right on
 
        13  the mark with these other studies.  Where they have
 
        14  differed, we think there are very real differences in
 
        15  either increasing or decreasing participation.
 
        16                 Now, not only is that important in terms
 
        17  of just studying what these people are doing now, but
 
        18  in terms of cross-tabulations, that if we say this
 
        19  group wants this, and this group wants this, we're able
 
        20  to pull out what hunters want, what anglers want, what
 
        21  bird-watchers want, all of those different groups.
 
        22                 One of the most revealing issues, both
 
        23  in the focus groups, as well as the telephone surveys,
 
        24  is the incredible importance of water resources to
 
        25  Texans.  That's probably no surprise to you, but the
 
 
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         1  surveys did show that in a very quantified manner, and
 
         2  I will show you that.
 
         3                 When we talked to the biologists and the
 
         4  people within the department, habitat loss was very
 
         5  important -- this whole idea of fragmentation, looking
 
         6  at Texas as a whole.  Well, one of the things that we
 
         7  found in the focus groups, as well as the surveys, is
 
         8  that Texans really didn't understand this whole idea of
 
         9  habitat loss and habitat fragmentation.  They
 
        10  understood habitat development on a very local issue,
 
        11  but they didn't see it like we see it, as biologists
 
        12  and others within the profession, in terms of the state
 
        13  as a whole, and we're losing this wetlands -- these
 
        14  wetlands here, these forests here.  It was very
 
        15  localized.  And I think that's going to be pretty
 
        16  important in terms of better educating and better
 
        17  communicating with Texans.
 
        18                 But let me show you here.  We started
 
        19  out the general population survey with three very
 
        20  general questions, what we call open-ended questions;
 
        21  that is, we did not provide responses to them in terms
 
        22  of answer sets.  But open-endedly, we asked:  What are
 
        23  the most important outdoor recreation issues facing
 
        24  Texas?  And you can see that even though there was some
 
        25  all over the board, the highest response was in this
 
 
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         1  "don't know" category.
 
         2                 We saw a similar pattern when it came to
 
         3  asking Texans about the most important historic
 
         4  preservation issues.  Again, "don't know"  being almost
 
         5  the number one response, by a long shot.  Maintenance
 
         6  of current historic sites, and a lot of other things.
 
         7                 But that contrasts rather dramatically
 
         8  when we talk about the open-ended question: "What are
 
         9  the most important natural resource or environmental
 
        10  issues facing Texas?"  And you can see, as the focus
 
        11  group showed, in a qualitative way, that water
 
        12  resources really did dominate the discussion, as well
 
        13  as the survey, for that matter.
 
        14                 Take a look at some of those:  Habitat
 
        15  loss/fragmentation at four percent; endangered species
 
        16  protection at three percent.
 
        17                 Now, this doesn't mean that these aren't
 
        18  important to Texans, but these were the top of the mind
 
        19  issues that came to mind.  So you can see the relative
 
        20  importance of water in the top of the mind issues as
 
        21  they relate to water, as opposed to things that we
 
        22  might think are important, such as habitat
 
        23  loss/fragmentation and -- look at population growth.
 
        24  Just numbers there that are important.
 
        25                 One of the other patterns that came out
 
 
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         1  that we saw, is that resource values, natural resource
 
         2  environmental values, certainly were more important
 
         3  than recreational values.  When we looked at those --
 
         4  and I'm going to show you a chart.  When we looked at
 
         5  the importance of all of these, not only environmental
 
         6  issues but different types of recreational issues, that
 
         7  it was pretty clear that natural resource,
 
         8  conservation, protection, and management were certainly
 
         9  on a higher plane.  Those ecological, those existence
 
        10  values, were much more important than those
 
        11  recreational values.  A pattern that came out over and
 
        12  over again.  So that would be sort of our first tier.
 
        13                 The second tier that came out that was
 
        14  pretty important was the sheer importance of what we
 
        15  would call these passive outdoor recreational
 
        16  activities: Having land out there for people to just
 
        17  simply enjoy nature.  A lot of times, when we talk
 
        18  about recreation, we think of managing for hunting, or
 
        19  managing for fishing.  Those are certainly important.
 
        20  But there's this other tier of the Texans just wanted
 
        21  land out there to enjoy the quiet aspects, the
 
        22  naturalistic aspects.  And so that was sort of
 
        23  almost -- really fell out as a second tier.  And let me
 
        24  show you what I mean here.
 
        25                 These were all individual questions that
 
 
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         1  we asked.  We asked, "Is water resources being safe and
 
         2  well protected very important, somewhat important, or
 
         3  not important to you?"  And so we asked numerous
 
         4  questions to Texans in this general population survey,
 
         5  and this is how they fell out.  What we did here is we
 
         6  graphed only the "very importants,"  only the "very
 
         7  importants."  And, again, you can see that water
 
         8  resource as being at the very top, with 93 percent of
 
         9  the general population saying that was very important.
 
        10  That wildlife exists -- and, again, some of these
 
        11  other values almost in a second tier.
 
        12                 And then, moving down, into the third
 
        13  tier of those recreational values, are things like
 
        14  hunting, fishing, boating important to Texans?  You
 
        15  bet.  But more important are these existence values.
 
        16  And, certainly, at the top of the list, from an
 
        17  environmental standpoint, is the water resource issue.
 
        18                 We asked several specific questions
 
        19  during the focus groups.  A number of people said,
 
        20  "Well, Texas Parks and Wildlife does a great job, but
 
        21  they're totally underfunded; they're trying to do a
 
        22  whole lot with a few people; the people that we've seen
 
        23  out there are working all the time."
 
        24                 And so we asked a question, in the
 
        25  general population survey, about would they support or
 
 
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         1  oppose more Texas Parks and Wildlife funding -- and we
 
         2  asked numerous questions, and this one happened to be,
 
         3  "to enhance efforts for managing and conserving fish
 
         4  and wildlife populations?"
 
         5                 "Would you support or oppose more Texas
 
         6  Parks and Wildlife funding to buy additional land?"
 
         7  And, again, pretty amazing numbers there in terms of
 
         8  support.
 
         9                 Now, if Texans are interested in
 
        10  expanding programs for the department, those -- that
 
        11  money is going to need to come from somewhere.  And so,
 
        12  from the focus groups, from a lot of the other
 
        13  literature, including the Texas Parks -- excuse me --
 
        14  the Texas A & M study of a couple of years ago where
 
        15  they recommended additional funding activities, we
 
        16  wanted to test those.  And I'm going to show you a
 
        17  graph that's got a lot on here, but I do want to make
 
        18  the point that Texans support some of those funding
 
        19  sources that were recommended not only from the Texas A
 
        20  & M study, but from the focus groups themselves, but
 
        21  they rejected others.  They made it clear that they
 
        22  wanted increased programs for the department, but they
 
        23  certainly were picky in terms of what they supported
 
        24  and what they opposed.
 
        25                 And so let's take a look.  A lot of them
 
 
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         1  here -- I'm not going to go through those
 
         2  individually.  But I want to show you how they fell
 
         3  out.
 
         4                 This is the "strongly" and the
 
         5  "moderately" support, in terms of each option as a
 
         6  possible funding source.  An incredible 82 percent
 
         7  saying that they supported strongly or moderately
 
         8  unclaimed boat fuel tax refunds; development-type
 
         9  issues being very high; a larger portion of revenue
 
        10  from the sporting goods sales tax, and then on down the
 
        11  line.
 
        12                 And I'm going to show you another graph
 
        13  here.  I want you to know that this information is
 
        14  available.  We looked at a lot of those, on down to
 
        15  some things that probably won't be a reality, such as,
 
        16  maybe, things like a real estate transfer fee of
 
        17  one-tenth of one percent, the one-eighth of one percent
 
        18  sales tax that has, indeed, been successfully used by
 
        19  states like Missouri Department of Conservation and,
 
        20  more recently, Arkansas Game and Fish.
 
        21                 So we have that information now, not
 
        22  only in terms of what programs and what values Texans
 
        23  hold, but, as importantly, whether they would support
 
        24  increase in funding, and, more specifically, getting
 
        25  more specific in terms of those particular and specific
 
 
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         1  funding mechanisms that they, indeed, would support.
 
         2                 Now, all of this, before we got into
 
         3  Texas Park and Wildlife Department, was -- were issues
 
         4  related to natural resource issues, outdoor recreation
 
         5  issues, exclusive of the department.  Exclusive of the
 
         6  department.  So then we started moving into department
 
         7  issues.  We asked several questions in terms of
 
         8  department ratings, which were very, very high.  I did
 
         9  not include those today because they were very high,
 
        10  and I -- it was pretty amazing.
 
        11                 In terms of ability to identify the
 
        12  agency and agency awareness, about 36 percent of Texas
 
        13  residents 18 years old and older were able to
 
        14  specifically and correctly, accurately identify the
 
        15  department as the agency responsible for parks, natural
 
        16  resource management, and wildlife.  About 36 percent.
 
        17  We are cross-tabulating that information now and seeing
 
        18  some major differences in terms of different groups.
 
        19  Your hunters and anglers, certainly, being more likely
 
        20  to identify the agency, while other groups have much
 
        21  less.  In fact, some of the groups we're looking at are
 
        22  at eight and nine percent.  So that awareness certainly
 
        23  goes across the board.
 
        24                 But after that, after we started talking
 
        25  about the department and if they were doing a good job,
 
 
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         1  which they said, indeed, they were, we wanted to know
 
         2  what the activities that were important to Texans
 
         3  were.  Law enforcement, and that was both law
 
         4  enforcement in terms of recreation and habitat; upkeep
 
         5  and maintenance of state parks being at the top of the
 
         6  line.  We presented about 22 different activities that
 
         7  were spread over the range of all of the activities
 
         8  that the department conducted and were involved with.
 
         9  Education, all forms of education, being hunter
 
        10  education, boater, wildlife and environmental
 
        11  education, as well as endangered species management,
 
        12  really being the top priority programs.  And I'll show
 
        13  you a graph on that.
 
        14                 The other thing -- I'm sort of following
 
        15  up on what we talked about before, that managing and
 
        16  preserving places to enjoy and experiencing nature was
 
        17  really an important activity.  And let me show you the
 
        18  numbers on that.  We asked Texas residents 18 years old
 
        19  and over, "Do you think that managing and preserving
 
        20  places to enjoy and experiencing nature is an important
 
        21  or unimportant activity?"  And look at that.  Just an
 
        22  incredible number.
 
        23                 Now, I know you-all haven't seen polls
 
        24  or anything of the such in the past two weeks, being
 
        25  the election and all, so it was -- the timing was
 
 
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         1  uncanny.  I was like, "I have to present a poll a day
 
         2  after the election?"
 
         3                 These are all of the activities that we
 
         4  presented.  Each of these is an individual question.
 
         5  Is this important or unimportant?  And, again, this
 
         6  sort of recapitulates what I was talking about before.
 
         7                 Look at the upkeep and maintenance of
 
         8  state parks, very top of the line, where 84 percent of
 
         9  Texans said that that was a very important activity.
 
        10  And then, down the line, as I talked about -- hunting
 
        11  and fishing laws and regulations, hunter safety;
 
        12  whereas only a few percentage of Texans are actually
 
        13  hunting, the majority thinks that hunter education is
 
        14  very important.  And so there was a lot of things that
 
        15  we learned here.  Threatened and endangered species,
 
        16  and boating safety education, and then on down the
 
        17  line, to all of these other activities. And it's
 
        18  interesting to note that at -- sort of at the bottom,
 
        19  where we've got hunting and boating opportunities, that
 
        20  the education part of it was important.  So what we see
 
        21  here is that recreation, the value of recreation, such
 
        22  as hunting, fishing, boating, are important to a
 
        23  segment who are actually doing it, but the value
 
        24  extends much higher than that.  In fact, I'm going to
 
        25  show you, in a few minutes, the percentage of Texans
 
 
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         1  who do support hunting and fishing activities, which
 
         2  was very high.
 
         3                 We also wanted to know what messages
 
         4  resonated with Texans.  A lot of times, we go out and
 
         5  we give speeches to different groups, and we talk about
 
         6  what we know, in our hearts and our minds, are
 
         7  important to us, and the reasons that we're even here
 
         8  today or the jobs that we do are important, but in the
 
         9  focus groups, we heard a lot of things.  Well, this is
 
        10  why it's important.  This is why it's important.  And
 
        11  so what we did is we took those -- we identified a lot
 
        12  of those issues, and we actually tested them, and we
 
        13  asked Texans, on a scale from one to ten, one being
 
        14  extremely important, if that was a reason -- an
 
        15  important reason to conserve natural and historic
 
        16  resources.  And a clear pattern emerged here, because
 
        17  when you look at the variety of messages that are out
 
        18  there, why we should conserve and manage Texas' fish,
 
        19  wildlife, and parks, we saw that the positive messages
 
        20  resonated much more so than the negative messages; the
 
        21  top two being those top two, that it's important to
 
        22  protect Texas' natural resources for future
 
        23  generations.  I Promise, across the board, of all the
 
        24  different groups, that it's important to protect Texas'
 
        25  natural resources for future generations, like our
 
 
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         1  children and grandchildren.  And then the second most
 
         2  important reason, the reason that resonated the most
 
         3  with Texans, was that a clean environment protects
 
         4  Texans' health.  And we had a lot of other ones in
 
         5  there, but I'm going to flip now to the next one, and I
 
         6  want to start out at the bottom.
 
         7                 The ones that did not resonate as much
 
         8  were sort of more of those negative messages.
 
         9  Things -- messages that we -- sometimes that I use,
 
        10  certainly, when I'm talking to people of the general
 
        11  public, that every two minutes another acre of Texas
 
        12  farm and ranchland becomes a subdivision, a shopping
 
        13  mall, or a road.  Or that Texas, you've heard, ranks
 
        14  48th in per-person spending.  If money isn't spent now
 
        15  to preserve Texas' natural resources, they may
 
        16  disappear forever.  And the pattern here was that those
 
        17  positive messages, those -- the things that --
 
        18  children, grandchildren, the positive values of natural
 
        19  resource protection, resonated much more so than those
 
        20  scare tactics or those negative types of messages.
 
        21  Real interesting because we've never done that before,
 
        22  and a -- and a pattern really did emerge.
 
        23                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  May I ask a
 
        24  question here?
 
        25                 MR. DUDA:  Yes, ma'am.
 
 
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         1                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  I don't see a huge
 
         2  difference between the last two.  I mean, I see a
 
         3  difference, but I don't see anything falling below
 
         4  eight.
 
         5                 MR. DUDA:  Yeah.  Great observation. I'm
 
         6  going to try to get back, if I can --
 
         7                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  And, I mean, it
 
         8  seems to me like everything's important.
 
         9                 MR. DUDA:  Yeah, they're --
 
        10                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  Well, one does. One
 
        11  falls below eight, and that is -- well, every two
 
        12  minutes another acre of Texas farm and ranchland
 
        13  becomes a subdivision, shopping mall, or a road.
 
        14                 I'm trying to figure out, frankly,
 
        15  what -- how do I utilize this information?  Because
 
        16  you'd have to be pretty discerning here, because the
 
        17  differences are really not that great.
 
        18                 MR. DUDA:  Yeah, I --
 
        19                 CHAIRMAN BASS:  These are the least
 
        20  important?
 
        21                 MR. DUDA: --- agree.
 
        22                 CHAIRMAN BASS:  These are the least
 
        23  important?
 
        24                 MR. DUDA:  Yes, sir. Yeah, the bottom
 
        25  ones were the least important.  But they're averages.
 
 
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         1  These are averages of over 2,000 people giving ranges
 
         2  from 1 to 10.  And so what we did is we averaged
 
         3  those.
 
         4                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  I'm puzzled by this
 
         5  a little bit, I guess.  It would seem to be more useful
 
         6  if you had said, "Okay.  You've got to order these in
 
         7  priority, and you've only got five slots."
 
         8                 MR. DUDA:  Yeah.  We actually did do
 
         9  that in the focus groups, in several of the focus
 
        10  groups.  People have a problem with that because --
 
        11  especially over the telephone.  It's almost impossible
 
        12  to do it that way because they get confused; it takes
 
        13  time.  And this is the way we chose to do it.  That may
 
        14  be a better way to do that, but from a statistical
 
        15  standpoint is that there are --
 
        16                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  Is this
 
        17  significant?
 
        18                 MR. DUDA:  Yes, ma'am, some of these --
 
        19  yeah, from -- from the bottom to the top, they are.
 
        20                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  So the bottom being
 
        21  7.45, 9.25, out of a possible range of 10?
 
        22                 MR. DUDA:  Yeah.  With the number of
 
        23  people -- Oops.  I'm trying to go backwards here.
 
        24                 With the number of people that we talked
 
        25  to, those --
 
 
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         1                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  Two thousand?
 
         2                 MR. DUDA:  Yeah, 2,000 and -- I think
 
         3  2,002 or something.
 
         4                 CHAIRMAN BASS:  The average of these two
 
         5  pages differs by about .5.
 
         6                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  Is that
 
         7  significant?
 
         8                 MR. DUDA:  Yeah.  Yeah, I think --
 
         9  Yeah, because they're -- because they're averages;
 
        10  they're not percentages of people.  And what you're
 
        11  doing is you're averaging it because there was a very
 
        12  wide range.  Some of those people on this --
 
        13                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  I'm still missing
 
        14  it, but keep going.
 
        15                 MR. DUDA:  On the bottom one here --
 
        16                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  Move along.
 
        17                 MR. DUDA:  Well, no, but your point is a
 
        18  good one.  Your point is a good one because we had that
 
        19  same thing, and even in the focus groups, it was the
 
        20  same type of a thing, where people were saying, well,
 
        21  that's important, and that's important, and that's
 
        22  important.  And so I think that the first conclusion --
 
        23  I think it's important when you're saying that -- that,
 
        24  overall, when the messages got out to people, that it
 
        25  did increase their awareness and their concern about
 
 
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         1  fish, wildlife, and parks issues.  But we also noticed
 
         2  that some of these resonated slightly more so.  So that
 
         3  even though more of those were up in that seven, eight,
 
         4  nine, ten range, that we, at some point -- if we throw
 
         5  too many messages at people --
 
         6                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  I agree.  I
 
         7  think -- I guess that the differences, from my --
 
         8                 COMMISSIONER ANGELO:  They'll think
 
         9  everything is important.
 
        10                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  Well, one, yeah.
 
        11                 MR. DUDA:  Which -- which is a -- sort
 
        12  of a finding in and of itself.  I mean, I think that
 
        13  that -- that's important, too.  I mean, I think that
 
        14  what --
 
        15                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  Yeah, I think if
 
        16  you ask your question a certain way, it would be
 
        17  difficult for somebody to say it is not important.
 
        18                 MR. DUDA:  Well, we had a lot of people
 
        19  say that some of those were -- were, quote, stupid, and
 
        20  they gave them 1's.  I mean --
 
        21                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  Okay.  These are
 
        22  averages?
 
        23                 MR. DUDA:  Yes.
 
        24                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  You must have had a
 
        25  lot of 10's.
 
 
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         1                 MR. DUDA:  On some of them.  On some of
 
         2  them.  And it did vary.
 
         3                 And another way that, maybe, would be a
 
         4  better way to present that is to -- is to have each of
 
         5  those -- have you see the range on each of those:
 
         6  "It's important for Texas' natural resources for
 
         7  future" -- that we could give you --
 
         8                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  Well, I think --
 
         9                 MR. DUDA: --- from a 1 --
 
        10                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL: --- I could
 
        11  probably figure that out --
 
        12                 MR. DUDA: --- 1 to 10 --
 
        13                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL: --- kind of.  I
 
        14  mean, you know, in my own head.
 
        15                 MR. DUDA:  Uh-huh.
 
        16                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  But it -- it
 
        17  just -- we'll just move on.
 
        18                 MR. DUDA:  Okay.
 
        19                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  And I'll think
 
        20  about it.
 
        21                 MR. DUDA:  Yeah.  But -- but it's a
 
        22  good -- but it's a good observation, the fact that a
 
        23  lot of those did move up.  But also remember that we
 
        24  picked these because these fell out of the groups as
 
        25  being important.  If somebody had another reason in a
 
 
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         1  focus group that what -- that didn't seem to resonate,
 
         2  we didn't ask it, because we sort of culled these to
 
         3  begin with.
 
         4                 The other point that I'd like to make
 
         5  about these is that, with some of the different
 
         6  demographic groups, it did vary as well.
 
         7                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  Is it more
 
         8  startling?
 
         9                 MR. DUDA:  Depends who you talk to.
 
        10                 Okay.  Let's move back.
 
        11                 Are we going in the right direction
 
        12  here?
 
        13                 MS. SALDANA:  Yeah, I think you are.
 
        14                 MR. DUDA:  Okay.  Okay. And then
 
        15  this one is --
 
        16                 MS. SALDANA:  Go back one.
 
        17                 MR. DUDA:  Yeah, let's go back one.
 
        18                 This is the percent -- who reported each
 
        19  activity as very important, in terms of information on
 
        20  the availability of outdoor recreational
 
        21  opportunities.  One of the things that we saw was that
 
        22  Texans wanted information on a lot of different
 
        23  issues.
 
        24                 Okay.  Now, we've got this scale.  We
 
        25  did that.
 
 
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         1                 Okay.  Now, not only do we have this
 
         2  information on a statewide basis -- sometimes the
 
         3  differences -- and I'm kind of nervous to -- to give
 
         4  you this one, to see what the differences are.  But one
 
         5  of the things I wanted to show you here is that there
 
         6  were differences, in terms of regional participation,
 
         7  in terms of attitudes.  This the just an example.  This
 
         8  is the percent who visited a state park in the past 12
 
         9  months.  This is going to be very important because I
 
        10  think that -- that those are pretty big differences,
 
        11  that 37 percent of Texans who live in the prairies and
 
        12  lakes region have visited a state park, compared to,
 
        13  maybe, the Hill County.
 
        14                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  Now, are prairies
 
        15  and lakes being sort of east of Dallas and -- or around
 
        16  the Dallas to --
 
        17                 MS. SALDANA:  It's in the Dallas --
 
        18  that covers the Metropolitan.
 
        19                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  It's the
 
        20  Metropolitan Dallas area?
 
        21                 MS. SALDANA:  Uh-huh.
 
        22                 MR. DUDA:  Yeah.  And in the final
 
        23  report, we will have a map for you on that.
 
        24                 But that's just an example, because
 
        25  everything that we ask, we are doing this by -- by
 
 
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         1  region as well.
 
         2                 Not only are we looking at that on a
 
         3  regional basis, but also in terms of different Texas
 
         4  groups.  We know that the population of Hispanics is
 
         5  growing rapidly, so we want to understand these
 
         6  different groups, and the project is called
 
         7  "Texas Parks and Wildlife for the 21st Century," so we
 
         8  want this information not only now, but to project in
 
         9  the future, in terms of what different groups think.
 
        10  Now, that was the general population study.
 
        11                 We also conducted a study of Texas
 
        12  licensed hunters.  This is just an example of the
 
        13  information and the depth of information that we're
 
        14  collecting.  This is whether or not your hunters were
 
        15  either satisfied or dissatisfied with White-tailed deer
 
        16  hunting in Texas.  And, again, we have that not only
 
        17  for White-tailed deer, but a lot of other species, as
 
        18  well as on a regional basis.  And, again, from a
 
        19  planning prospective -- I can run through these fairly
 
        20  quick, because it's more as an example here -- but that
 
        21  you will have that information on a -- on a regional
 
        22  basis as well.  So it won't be just white-tailed deer
 
        23  satisfaction with your hunters, but on a regional
 
        24  basis.
 
        25                 One of the things that we asked was,
 
 
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         1  "What's important to hunters in terms of Texas Parks
 
         2  and Wildlife Department programs?"  What's very
 
         3  important, at the very top of the list -- which was
 
         4  pretty surprising to me -- was educating non-hunters
 
         5  about hunting, over and above a lot of other issues,
 
         6  the second being acquiring more state-owned land, and
 
         7  on down the line, improving habitat on public land,
 
         8  encouraging landowners to open up access for hunting,
 
         9  hunter education.  And, again, what I've done here is
 
        10  I've only plotted the "much more."
 
        11                 We have also people who want it to
 
        12  remain the same, somewhat more, and much more.  But
 
        13  this is a little bit more discerning.  And then on down
 
        14  the line, in terms of improving access.
 
        15                 And then there's very specific things
 
        16  like hunting with a crossbow, hunting exotic game,
 
        17  waterfowl hunting, were -- were less important to these
 
        18  Texas hunters, licensed hunters.  These are resident
 
        19  hunters, licensed hunters.
 
        20                 The survey on Texas hunters probably
 
        21  took 10 to 15 minutes, a real long study, a lot of
 
        22  information.  That's just the tip of the iceberg.
 
        23                 Let's take a couple look -- minute look
 
        24  at Texas anglers.  This is of licensed Texas anglers.
 
        25  Some absolutely incredible numbers here in terms of
 
 
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         1  satisfaction.  These evaluation studies, sometimes you
 
         2  want to come back and say, well, you need to do this
 
         3  and you need to do this, but sometimes it's a very fair
 
         4  and it's a very real thing to come back and say, you
 
         5  know, a lot of what -- what's going on is being done
 
         6  right.  And these satisfaction levels are just
 
         7  incredible.
 
         8                 I want to look at that on a regional
 
         9  basis, to see if there's any dissatisfaction on a
 
        10  regional basis, or of who -- of whom, but, I mean, the
 
        11  numbers are amazing.  I mean, that, you know, 44
 
        12  percent very satisfied.  Just -- just incredible
 
        13  numbers there.
 
        14                 There were some issues when it comes to
 
        15  boat ramps and some specifics, and we are looking at
 
        16  that on a regional basis as well.  That 14 percent
 
        17  poor, I want to look at that.  Are there differences,
 
        18  in regions, of where they're -- these freshwater
 
        19  anglers are going fishing?  We have information on what
 
        20  they're doing.  They're watching fishing shows on TV;
 
        21  12 percent are going fly-fishing; 7 percent are going
 
        22  to another country.  And so we have all of this
 
        23  information, again, that's going to help us put
 
        24  together a final report in terms of not only anglers,
 
        25  in terms of what they're doing now, but projecting what
 
 
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         1  they're going to do in the future.
 
         2                 In the anglers study -- this is of
 
         3  saltwater anglers -- probably the most amazing and, I
 
         4  think, commendable finding that we found, to you, is
 
         5  this question.  We asked, "In the last five years, do
 
         6  you think the quality of saltwater fishing in Texas has
 
         7  declined, remained the same -- remained about the same,
 
         8  improved, or do you not know?"  And look at that 41
 
         9  percent there.  That is absolutely stunning.  I've done
 
        10  probably 30 studies.  We've done work on this issue,
 
        11  probably, for 40, 45 of the state fish and wildlife
 
        12  agencies, departments of natural resources, and this
 
        13  number is absolutely incredible.  I mean, given the
 
        14  development along the coast, to have almost half,
 
        15  almost half of your randomly-selected saltwater
 
        16  anglers, say that it's improved is absolutely
 
        17  incredible.
 
        18                 Now, unfortunately, those people
 
        19  probably don't come to your commission meetings.  It's
 
        20  probably this 19 percent up here that said it declined,
 
        21  did -- but, again, that's the value of these surveys,
 
        22  is that these are randomly-selected people out there.
 
        23                 Let's take a quick look at Texas
 
        24  boaters.  Just one study there.  Looked at a lot of
 
        25  different things:  What they're doing, what they're
 
 
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         1  interested in, but one of the questions that we asked
 
         2  is, "As a boater, what types of safety issues concern
 
         3  you the most?"  Certainly, reckless and careless
 
         4  operators, alcohol, drug use, was -- was at the -- at
 
         5  the top of the list there.  Again, we not only have
 
         6  this big general population type of -- of issues that
 
         7  are important to Texans, but very, very specific
 
         8  information as well.
 
         9                 We've got Texas outdoor recreationists.
 
        10  This is the latent demand.  We measured not only what
 
        11  people are doing now, but we went through a variety of
 
        12  activities and said, "Are you not at all interested,
 
        13  somewhat interested, or very interested in
 
        14  participating in these activities?"  And these are
 
        15  people who have not participated in these activities in
 
        16  the past two years.  So if we're talking about planning
 
        17  for the future, these types of numbers are going to be
 
        18  very important.
 
        19                 You can see that about 37 percent,
 
        20  almost 40 percent, said -- who have not visited Texas
 
        21  state parks, said they would be very interested in
 
        22  visiting Texas state parks in the next two years.  And
 
        23  then on down the line.  And, again, keeping with that
 
        24  passive type of thing, of visiting a natural area
 
        25  within a mile of their home, of visiting historic
 
 
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         1  sites, of picnicking, and then on down the line.
 
         2  Canoeing and kayaking, 14 percent.  And I've got a few
 
         3  more of these because we asked a lot.  Saltwater
 
         4  fishing, sailing, going hiking, biking.  Rock climbing
 
         5  at six percent;  hunting at nine percent.
 
         6                 So, again, we're going to apply these
 
         7  numbers and try to project, in the future, in terms of
 
         8  trying to meet those latent demand types of -- for
 
         9  recreational activities.
 
        10                 And then, finally, what percent who
 
        11  reported each priority from the recreation
 
        12  standpoint -- that building park and recreational
 
        13  facilities was considered a high priority to -- these
 
        14  are general population Texans.  Increasing access for
 
        15  natural water-based recreation, purchasing natural
 
        16  areas for outdoor recreation, open space, and then
 
        17  wetlands down at the bottom.  Again, this is for
 
        18  recreational aspects.
 
        19                 And then these weren't supposed to be in
 
        20  there, but one of my analysts put them in there.  I
 
        21  thought you'd be interested in.  We asked Texans
 
        22  whether or not they approved or disapproved of legal
 
        23  recreational hunting: 45 percent strongly approving, 25
 
        24  percent somewhat, 14 percent disapproving.  That's a
 
        25  little bit higher than what we've seen.  If you showed
 
 
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         1  me these numbers, if I didn't know they were Texas, I
 
         2  would have said those are numbers from a large urban
 
         3  state.  We do work in New York;  we do work in Florida;
 
         4  we do work in California.  I know you're a large urban
 
         5  state, but I think -- that surprised me a little bit.
 
         6  I didn't think it was that high.  We just ran a
 
         7  campaign, in Virginia, on a constitutional amendment
 
         8  to -- for the right to hunt and fish, and we get
 
         9  numbers, in Virginia -- a lot of other states -- right
 
        10  around 15 percent disapproval.  It's a little bit
 
        11  higher but not -- not much.  That's pretty normal for
 
        12  an urban state.  But it might be important information
 
        13  if anybody ever comes to you and says, "Nobody approves
 
        14  of hunting."  Well, that's not -- that's not quite
 
        15  true.
 
        16                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  What would it be in
 
        17  California, do you think?
 
        18                 MR. DUDA:  I'd probably see 25 to 30
 
        19  percent disapproval.  And that would probably be the
 
        20  highest.  That would probably be as high as I saw.
 
        21  Pennsylvania is about what I've seen as low.
 
        22  Direct --
 
        23                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  And what is
 
        24  Pennsylvania?
 
        25                 MR. DUDA:  About --
 
 
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         1                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  Disapprove?
 
         2                 MR. DUDA:  About 10 or 12 percent.  Good
 
         3  question.
 
         4                 Legal recreational fishing.  I don't
 
         5  know if you know this, but the People for the Ethical
 
         6  Treatment of Animals have started a Stop Fishing
 
         7  campaign.  Don't come to Texas.  Although, we did ask
 
         8  the question on trapping, on legal trapping, and you
 
         9  can see some --
 
        10                (Simultaneous conversation.)
 
        11                 MR. DUDA:  That's right.  Go back -- go
 
        12  back to where you came from.
 
        13                 But legal trapping, a different -- a
 
        14  different issue here.  And as you may know, there were
 
        15  two initiatives on the ballot yesterday in Oregon and
 
        16  Washington, and I've been trying to figure those out,
 
        17  but I've -- I'm trying to get on the Internet here
 
        18  and -- so I'm -- I'm still interested because --
 
        19                 That's all I have.  I -- it took some
 
        20  time.  They gave me 25 minutes.  That's the absolutely
 
        21  tip of the iceberg.  We've got a lot of information on
 
        22  a regional basis as well, and so, as this progresses, I
 
        23  think that, literally, any question that you may have,
 
        24  when it come to Texans and how they relate to what you
 
        25  do, we probably have an answer for it.  So, certainly,
 
 
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         1  go through Andy or Lydia or anybody else, and if you
 
         2  have questions, I bet we can answer them.
 
         3                 I appreciate -- I know, after a very
 
         4  long night, your -- your ability to sit through that
 
         5  so --
 
         6                 CHAIRMAN BASS:  You didn't catch us at
 
         7  our best in terms of doing quantitative.
 
         8                 COMMISSIONER HENRY:  Right.  We would
 
         9  really like to sharp shoot you.
 
        10                 CHAIRMAN BASS:  After lunch and after
 
        11  election night.
 
        12                 One question.  As you say, we've all
 
        13  seen lots of polling data in the -- you know, recently,
 
        14  and one thing that we have seen a lot of is
 
        15  identification of margin of error in the sample size.
 
        16  How do -- how does that relate to this data?
 
        17                 MR. DUDA:  Yeah, what a great question.
 
        18                 On the -- the first one -- I showed you
 
        19  several different studies.  On the first study, the
 
        20  sample size was a little bit over 2,000.  Your sampling
 
        21  error depends on two things: The number of people you
 
        22  talk to, and the distribution of the opinion.  If it's
 
        23  90 percent think this, and 10 percent think that, it's
 
        24  slightly smaller than if it goes 50/50.  But, in
 
        25  general, on the big general population study, it's
 
 
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         1  about plus or minus two percent.  Plus or minus two
 
         2  percent.  On the smaller studies, where we had a sample
 
         3  size of 800, your sample -- your sampling error is -- I
 
         4  don't remember exactly, but I want to say it's plus or
 
         5  minus five percent or so.
 
         6                 Now, when we get down into the regional
 
         7  stuff, it jumps up.  When -- at a hundred, at an end
 
         8  value of a hundred, it's plus or minus ten percent.  So
 
         9  as you go down the line, it does increase.  The big
 
        10  general population study, real nice numbers there.  For
 
        11  the regional stuff, on the smaller ones, like the
 
        12  hunters and the boaters, which we have on a regional
 
        13  basis, it's going to be at plus or minus, probably,
 
        14  about eight, nine percent.
 
        15                 COMMISSIONER ANGELO:  Do you have a
 
        16  demographic breakdown on how the different subgroups
 
        17  reacted to you?
 
        18                 MR. DUDA:  Yes, sir, absolutely.
 
        19                 COMMISSIONER ANGELO:  (Inaudible) or
 
        20  whatever?
 
        21                 MR. DUDA:  Yeah.  And what we did on
 
        22  that is we've been going through that, from age, urban,
 
        23  rural -- I mean, everything.  It's -- it's an enormous
 
        24  amount of data, but if you do have -- and we're going
 
        25  to be presenting a lot of the things that I thought
 
 
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         1  were important, but, certainly, if you have questions,
 
         2  we can run, literally, anything by anything else.  So
 
         3  we --
 
         4                 COMMISSIONER ANGELO:  I might be
 
         5  interested, on some of these, to see how different
 
         6  subgroups reacted to what.
 
         7                 MR. DUDA:  Yes, sir, and that -- that
 
         8  is -- that actually has been written, and we've looked
 
         9  at Hispanics, we've looked at a lot of different
 
        10  groups.  And, as importantly, we're looking at that
 
        11  information -- the quantitative information in relation
 
        12  to the qualitative information, the focus groups, and
 
        13  one of the things that we found that I think is very
 
        14  important, in putting all of this together and my
 
        15  recommendations to you, is this whole idea of diversity
 
        16  with cultural and historic sites.  In our focus group
 
        17  with African Americans, historic sites were very
 
        18  important, but it wasn't White historic sites; they
 
        19  were very interested in African American historic
 
        20  sites.  And in the survey, historic sites, among
 
        21  African Americans, was -- it was either one or two, but
 
        22  that needs to be interpreted in light of this
 
        23  qualitative data.  And that's what we're doing now, is
 
        24  putting all of this together.  And I think you'll get a
 
        25  much better final report as a result of putting that
 
 
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         1  quantified, those hard numbers, together with those
 
         2  soft but -- but very valid opinions from these
 
         3  different groups, all of the different groups that we
 
         4  talked to.
 
         5                 Good question, and we do have that
 
         6  information.
 
         7                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  I -- I've still got
 
         8  a question.
 
         9                 MR. DUDA:  Sure.  That's good.
 
        10                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  How do we get --
 
        11  this would be so helpful.  I mean, it's real easy to go
 
        12  to somebody and say, "Do you think taking care of parks
 
        13  is important?"
 
        14                 "Yeah, yeah, I think that's important."
 
        15                 "Do you want to take care of wildlife?"
 
        16                 "Yeah, I want to take -- I want to do
 
        17  that, too."
 
        18                 But what would be helpful to us, or to
 
        19  me, would be to figure out what -- if a person was
 
        20  forced to divide up the pie, how would they do that?
 
        21                 MR. DUDA:  Uh-huh.
 
        22                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  And this doesn't
 
        23  really tell me that.
 
        24                 MR. DUDA:  Yeah.  I could do that.
 
        25  We -- it -- it's -- those are harder to do, because
 
 
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         1  we've tried those before, and we divide the pie up for
 
         2  a hundred percent, and when my analysts and my
 
         3  statisticians add them up, they equal about 400
 
         4  percent.
 
         5                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  Right.  Right.
 
         6                 MR. DUDA:  I might give that 50 percent
 
         7  and that 70 percent and that 50 percent.  And those
 
         8  are -- those are harder to do, especially with -- you
 
         9  know, we talked to --
 
        10                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  Is there a way --
 
        11                 MR. DUDA: --- 18-year-olds --
 
        12                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL: --- to force people
 
        13  to prioritize?
 
        14                 MR. DUDA:  There is, but -- but I --
 
        15  but, from a qualitative standpoint, I'm going to do
 
        16  that for you in the final report.  I mean, I -- I --
 
        17  things -- clear patterns fell out in this.
 
        18                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  Uh-huh.
 
        19                 MR. DUDA:  And so I've -- over the
 
        20  years, we found that -- that if you ask people certain
 
        21  things, and they -- they moderately support this, but
 
        22  they strongly support this, that those patterns are
 
        23  what are important and -- and much more valid data.
 
        24  And I can -- I -- I'm going to do that for you.  And
 
        25  even with the things in terms of dividing the pie, even
 
 
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         1  from a standpoint -- as one of the original slides that
 
         2  we had there, that ecological/environmental issues were
 
         3  more important than the recreational issues, that fell
 
         4  out as a result of this data, and people might not sort
 
         5  of think about that in terms of the firsthand, "Well,
 
         6  I'll give resource protection 80 percent and outdoor
 
         7  recreation 20 percent," because it just -- people just
 
         8  have a hard time doing that, but it fell out.  The way
 
         9  that we did that is it -- that -- it fell out that way,
 
        10  and it's not surprising, because we've done these
 
        11  before, in nationwide studies and others, and we even
 
        12  saw it in the focus groups.  So they do have a way
 
        13  of -- of separating themselves out.
 
        14                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  Well, it would be
 
        15  kind of nice to ask our citizens to make, at least,
 
        16  some semblance of the same kind of choices we're forced
 
        17  to make in their behalf.  So that when we say, "Well,
 
        18  yes, we want to take care of this thing, but you're
 
        19  going to have to understand that it may be at the
 
        20  expense of this over here, and now that you know that,
 
        21  do you still feel the same way about this over here?"
 
        22                 MR. DUDA:  Right.  No, I understand.
 
        23                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  And I know that's a
 
        24  lot more complicated, but is there any way to kind of
 
        25  move down that path a little bit when you're asking
 
 
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         1  people?
 
         2                 MR. DUDA:  Well, as a -- as a private
 
         3  consultant, I'm always available for --
 
         4                        (Laughter.)
 
         5                 MR. DUDA:  No, but I think I can give
 
         6  you that information.  I have done studies where we
 
         7  force people, but it's usually in terms of -- of
 
         8  quality versus quantity deer management.  And,
 
         9  absolutely, you can do that when it come -- becomes
 
        10  very specific: "Would you not hunt on this land but
 
        11  every three years, or have less of a chance of hunting,
 
        12  if you knew that every four years you might take a
 
        13  trophy buck,"  or something like that, so --
 
        14                 COMMISSIONER ANGELO:  Modified push
 
        15  pulling, huh?
 
        16                 MR. DUDA:  Well, not -- not push
 
        17  pulling, but truly deciding, you know?  Giving people
 
        18  those choices.  Giving people those choices.  And that
 
        19  can be done, but, generally, it will be done on
 
        20  something really, really specific.  And this was such a
 
        21  broad-scale type of a thing that we really had no idea
 
        22  about a lot of what we were getting into.
 
        23                 So, absolutely, it can be done.  I
 
        24  think, in the end, I can -- I can do that for you, and,
 
        25  certainly, pass along a note to Andy and say, you know,
 
 
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         1  "I want Mark's opinion on this, if people had to
 
         2  choose on this."  But we didn't do it here because it's
 
         3  so tough to -- to do that.  But it can be done.  It's a
 
         4  legitimate point.  We've done it before but usually on
 
         5  very, very specific policy issues:  Would you want the
 
         6  dates of your hunting regulations here or here types of
 
         7  things.
 
         8                 COMMISSIONER IDSAL:  Thank you.
 
         9                 MR. DUDA:  Thank you.
 
        10                 CHAIR BASS:  Thank you.
 
        11                 MR. DUDA:  Thanks.
 
        12                 CHAIR DINKINS:  Anything else?
 
        13                 Thanks, Mark.
 
        14                 MR. DUDA:  A lot more to come.
 
        15                 CHAIR DINKINS:  Thanks, Lydia.
 
        16                 MR. DUDA:  And if you don't have -- you

 
        17  know, if you -- we've got the stuff there. We've got
 
        18  mounds of data.  If you have trouble sleeping tonight,
 
        19  take a look at it --
 
        20                 COMMISSIONER ANGELO:  I'm not having
 
        21  trouble sleeping now.
 
        22                 CHAIR DINKINS:  All right. We have only
 
        23  a couple of other items on the agenda for this
 
        24  committee, but we've already covered them in executive
 
        25  session.  I anticipate no objection to passing those
 
 
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         1  since we've already covered them in executive session.
 
         2                 With that, then it concludes the meeting
 
         3  of the conservation committee.
 
         4
 
         5
 
         6
 
         7
 
         8
 
         9
 
        10
 
        11
 
        12
 
        13
 
        14
 
        15
 
        16
 
        17
 
        18
 
        19
 
        20
 
        21
 
        22
 
        23
 
        24
 
        25
 
 
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         1  THE STATE OF TEXAS   )
            COUNTY OF BEXAR      )
         2
 
         3                 I, STACI D. SLAYDEN, a Certified Court
 
         4  Reporter in and for the State of Texas, do hereby
 
         5  certify that the above and foregoing pages constitute a
 
         6  full, true, and correct transcript of the minutes of
 
         7  the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission on November 8,
 
         8  2000, in the Commission hearing room of the Texas Parks
 
         9  and Wildlife Headquarters Complex, Austin, Travis
 
        10  County, Texas. I FURTHER CERTIFY that a stenographic
 
        11  record was made by me at the time of the public meeting
 
        12  and said stenographic notes were thereafter reduced to
 
        13  computerized transcription under my supervision and
 
        14  control.  WITNESS MY HAND this ____ day of
 
        15  ________________________, 2001.
 
        16
 
        17                       ________________________________
 
        18                       STACI D. SLAYDEN, Texas CSR 7290
 
        19                       Expiration Date:  12/2001
 
        20                       7800 IH-10 West, Suite 100
 
        21                       San Antonio, Texas 78230
 
        22                       (210) 377-3017
 
        23
 
        24
 
        25
 
 
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         1
 
         2  _______________________________________
            CAROL E. DINKINS, CHAIR
         3
 
         4
            _______________________________________
         5  LEE M. BASS
 
         6
            _______________________________________
         7  DICK W. HEATH
 
         8
            _______________________________________
         9  NOLAN RYAN
 
        10
            _______________________________________
        11  ERNEST ANGELO, JR.
 
        12
            _______________________________________
        13  JOHN AVILA, JR.
 
        14
            _______________________________________
        15  ALVIN L. HENRY
 
        16
            _______________________________________
        17  KATHARINE ARMSTRONG IDSAL
 
        18
            _______________________________________
        19  MARK E. WATSON, JR.
 
        20
 
        21
 
        22
 
        23
 
        24
 
        25
 
 
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