Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission
Conservation Committee
August 28, 2002
Commission Hearing RoomTexas Parks & Wildlife Department Headquarters Complex
4200 Smith School Road
Austin, TX 78744
1 6 BE IT REMEMBERED, that heretofore on the 28th day of 7 August, 2002, there come to be heard matters under the 8 regulatory authority of the Parks and Wildlife 9 Commission of Texas, in the Commission Hearing Room of 10 the Texas Parks and Wildlife Headquarters Complex, 11 Austin, Texas, beginning at 9:00 a.m. to wit: 12 13 APPEARANCES: THE TEXAS PARKS AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION: 14 CONSERVATION COMMITTEE: 15 CHAIRMAN: Katharine Armstrong, Austin, Texas 16 Ernest Angelo, Jr., Vice Chairman, Midland, Texas 17 John Avila, Jr., Fort Worth, Texas Joseph B.C. Fitzsimons, San Antonio, Texas, 18 Committee Chair Alvin L. Henry, Houston, Texas 19 Philip Montgomery, Dallas, Texas Donato D. Ramos, Laredo, Texas 20 Kelly W. Rising, M.D., Beaumont, Texas Mark E. Watson, Jr., San Antonio, Texas 21 THE TEXAS PARKS AND WILDLIFE DEPARTMENT: 22 Robert L. Cook, Executive Director, and other personnel of the Parks and Wildlife Department 23 24 25 . 2 1 CHAIRMAN ARMSTRONG: Thank you. We will 2 now convene the conservation committe. The first order 3 of business is the approval of the minutes from the 4 previous meeting. 5 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Motion. 6 CHAIRMAN ARMSTRONG: Do I have a second? 7 Emeritus Bass, Barry Miller from the speaker's office, 8 Dealey Herndon, Al Henry, Phil Montgomery, Donato Ramos, 9 and, of course -- oh, and me. I was on that. 10 I also created a historical -- historical 11 sites advisory group to guide us in some of the charges 12 that were given to us by Sunset. On that advisory group 13 were members of the Texas Historical Commission, 14 citizens, and renowned experts in that field. They have 15 worked closely with staff on that portion of the land 16 and water conservation plan. 17 We have held many, many public meetings. 18 We have gotten counsel and guidance from other advisory 19 groups. And I also want to mention that before we got 20 underway in this significant task, we considered 21 contracting out for the inventory work. And after a lot 22 of consideration, we decided that this was a task that 23 our own staff was more than up to. 24 And I was -- we were correct. Our people 25 have done a fabulous job on what I think is a monumental . 3 1 effort, and one that will last for a long, long time and 2 will be utilized by many folks for a long time. And, 3 anyway, our confidence was not misplaced. You all have 4 done a terrific job. And I'm looking forward to your 5 presentation. 6 MR. BECKCOM: I'm Chris Beckcom. I'm the 7 head of the Master Planning Program in the 8 Infrastructure Division. And the actual task of doing 9 inventory for the statewide plan fell into my shop 10 roughly 14 months ago. So I'm very pleased to have an 11 opportunity to briefly present it to y'all and show you 12 what we've done with it to not only make it available to 13 the agency, but also briefly discuss what all is 14 included inside that inventory. 15 Of course, as you know, the inventory was 16 required as a support database for the Land and Water 17 Resource Conservation Recreation Plan. And also what 18 we've done, we've actually -- we have enabled this data 19 to make it available to our agency. We anticipate it 20 will be on the intranet shortly after this week. I 21 guess the theory is, what good is data if you can't get 22 to it. 23 This is probably one of the most 24 comprehensive park and public lands conservation lands 25 inventories that may have been undertaken in the state. . 4 1 I can confidently say that because the way we approached 2 it. We didn't just do a count of acres per county and 3 get a figure and throw it down. This is actually 4 spatial data. And when I say that, that means 5 everything we've counted and can account for in the 6 state is mapped where it belongs in the state. 7 So with that data, you can overlay any 8 data. You can connect to the ground in Texas, whether 9 it's demographics, planning regions, eco regions, you 10 name it, can then be correlated to all this data set 11 statewide, which is a huge tool for analysis from now 12 into the immediate and near future. 13 Through the inventory, since the task at 14 hand was to inventory every governmental entity, which, 15 again, is monumental, as Chairman Armstrong said. We 16 contacted virtually every Federal Agency, Council of 17 Governments, every River Authority, every city directly 18 with a population over 25,000 to get direct data. We 19 went to the source everywhere we could. We didn't want 20 second or third hand data. We contacted cities. I 21 think I personally contacted about 78 of them myself to 22 get that data and bring it into this data set. 23 What we've done -- this is the opening 24 page. I've got a series of screen captures here for the 25 data set itself just to present how we packaged it up. . 5 1 This is a built-in page, obviously, of how we link to 2 all the different data sets. This is the opening page 3 for the Parks and Wildlife -- I apologize for the 4 smallness of the images. It is quite difficult to see 5 here. On your own screen, it would be much more 6 legible. 7 We've enabled actually the map itself. 8 You can zoom into this. You can pan into it. It's 9 dynamic that you can actually click on a property and a 10 fact sheet will pop up. Something -- well, actually a 11 table of data will pop up to tell you all the 12 information about that site. We've compiled for Parks 13 and Wildlife properties roughly 150 attributes on each 14 property. We actually have mapped 222 properties TWD 15 properties in the system here for all the TWD 16 properties. 17 To ease use of this, data fact sheets 18 were created through a partnership with the natural 19 leaders program. Beau Hardegree and Cory Evans created 20 them. And in their project, they took the data that we 21 generated in the inventory and compiled it into fact 22 sheets. So these fact sheets will be on-line, as well. 23 This is a direct link to those, so you can get to them 24 quickly. You don't have to browse a map of Texas to get 25 to them. And these, of course, can be loaded right into . 6 1 your browser and then printed out. 2 We didn't stop with TPWD lands. We 3 actually have data on all the federal properties in the 4 state. We've mapped 80, I believe is the count on 5 federal properties for authorized or administrative 6 boundaries. But we took it a step further than that. 7 We realized the analysis was going to require more than 8 just administrative boundaries. 9 Often with federal properties, and the 10 national forests are a perfect case in point, that was 11 actually inside the boundary is not actually national 12 forest land. So we took it that next step forward, and 13 we actually -- I do not have it in this image, but it's 14 available. That we can actually show you properties 15 actually owned by the National Forest Service inside of 16 their boundaries. 17 So in the analysis we did, we actually 18 used -- owned and managed acres by those agencies, not 19 always to be seen as a National Forest in Texas in 20 which, you know, half the land inside that boundary may 21 not actually be managed strictly for conservation and/or 22 recreation uses. The same way with other conservation 23 recreation lands. 24 Part of our charge was to map all state 25 lands. So we actually have representative of data sets . 7 1 from the Texas Forest Service for their boundaries. GLO 2 shared their boundaries with us to the extent they 3 could. Of course counties, river authorities, and quite 4 a few non-profit organizations. TNC was very 5 cooperative. Audubon was very cooperative. Katy 6 Prairie shared their data, on and on. So we have quite 7 an extensive data set of non-governmental entities and 8 non-profits that allowed access to their properties or 9 have a keen interest in conservation preservation of 10 natural resources. 11 The one that ate up a lot of our time 12 here is city parks and preserves. Again, we directly 13 contacted every city of 25,000 or larger. Our maps and 14 database includes almost 6,000 individual parks in the 15 state of Texas now for the city layer alone. As you can 16 see on the screen, we do have attributes for those, for 17 who owns them, what city they're in, the size of it, and 18 its designation inside that city. So we know if it's a 19 Greenbelt, if it's a rec center, how they manage it. 20 That way, as well. So we can draw conclusions from 21 that. What's on that property, as far as the actual use 22 of it. Whether it's dedicated Greenbelt or anticipate a 23 high development recreation, you know, ball fields and 24 the like on that. 25 And last, but not least, the natural . 8 1 resources in Texas. Of course, everything gets measured 2 against this for us. Quite a bit of that, at least. 3 What we've done here, we've mapped the natural regions 4 and sub regions in the state. We actually have the eco 5 regions, as well. I did not have them in this demo 6 here, but they are available. All the stream segments 7 in Texas based national hydrogic data set. That data 8 sets from TNRCC and their stream segment definitions, 9 augmented by our resource protection water group for 10 their quality, as well. 11 Again, for all the rivers themselves, all 12 the lakes and bays of Texas, we have here, every new 13 data available to them. Cooperation from the inland 14 fisheries division on their data set -- has been 15 incorporated in. So any data they keep, say, on any 16 lake in Texas is represented in this database. If you 17 clicked on Lake Ray Roberts, you would get their entire 18 data set for that lake. It would appear before you, as 19 well, on this. 20 And in a very quick nutshell, that's the 21 data set and inventory that was used for compliance with 22 SB 305, and also the real meat behind any analysis 23 that's been done for the plan itself. 24 MR. FRANCELL: Thanks, Chris. 25 MR. BECKCOM: Thank you. . 9 1 MR. FRANCELL: Everything we did in this 2 plan kind of hinged on this information. And Chris 3 really wanted to go through it in an interactive way 4 that you could actually see when you click on the site 5 and what comes up. And we were afraid that that might 6 somehow not translate well in here. So if anybody's 7 interested, it will be on our intranet and we can show 8 that to you. It is good information. Chris has helped 9 a whole lot with this plan, but there were plenty of 10 other staff members, division directors that we worked 11 with over the last year and got lots of help. 12 So Emily and I have been the coordinators 13 and editors of this thing and have really gotten lots of 14 input. And thank the staff for their help. This is the 15 second to last step in the process. We're going to have 16 a red line draft to you tomorrow morning that you'll 17 actually adopt. There will be some minor changes, and 18 we'll have that to you in the morning. 19 I'm just going to go through very quickly 20 the bill. The Sunset Bill required that we do this 21 plan. It required that we inventory resources, that we 22 develop a ten-year strategic plan, that the Commission 23 adopt this plan prior to October 15th of this year, and 24 that we use this plan in guiding our decisions on all 25 kinds of issues, like land acquisition, partnerships . 10 1 with private land owners, et cetera. 2 As Chairman Armstrong said, she appointed 3 a committee that's been meeting over the last year. 4 There are many commissioners and others involved. They 5 helped us develop a plan that analyzed the state's 6 needs, identified threats, and established priorities. 7 The outcome of the land conservation side of this is 8 encompassed in this slide using data on threats to land 9 resources. 10 Using data on wildlife management plans 11 and conservation land and using information on 12 biodiversity, we cranked out this final map of where our 13 ecoregion priorities are. The areas in red were the 14 three ecoregions that sort of rose to the top, the Gulf 15 Coast, South Texas, and the Black Land Prairies. And 16 then there's a second tier and then a third tier. This 17 will help us in where we may hire, or efforts for a 18 technical guidance biologist in the future, and all 19 kinds of efforts. 20 We also looked at recreation in the 21 state. You've seen this map before. 75 percent of 22 Texas lives in this bubbled area that sort of follows 23 our major interstates. And only 25 percent of our park 24 land is in that area. The plan recommends that we have 25 an acquisition focus based around where the people are, . 11 1 because trends are showing that visitors to state parks 2 and wildlife management areas are spending less time. 3 They're getting up in the morning, getting there, coming 4 home. At most, spending one night. 5 As the chairman said, we looked also at 6 historic sites in Texas. We had experts evaluate the 7 importance of these sites. Tomorrow I'll go through 8 what the criteria was, but this is the results. The 9 sites that ended up on the bottom end of that list, 10 Acton, Confederate Reunion Grounds. The biggest gaps 11 are in historic sites in Texas and how we can fill 12 those. And another monumental effort of doubling lands 13 under wildlife management plans over the next ten years 14 to 28 million acres. 15 There's a large component in the plan on 16 water. Over the last 12 years, Parks and Wildlife has 17 been identifying the water needs of our bay and estuary 18 system. We actually have that information for our major 19 bay and estuary systems now. And this plan lays out a 20 strategy for completing these studies in the 15 major 21 river basins in Texas, sets a goal of completing that by 22 2012. Getting us the information that we'll need when 23 water planning decisions are made across the state. 24 We set some goals for water, completing 25 these studies, working with the regulatory agencies to . 12 1 get their recommendations implemented, including water 2 recommendations in all wildlife management plans. This 3 is going to benefit Texas in a number of ways. Not only 4 from a habitat perspective, but also the amount of water 5 and the quality of that water running off the land and 6 into our rivers, and ultimately bay and estuaries. 7 We set a goal for maintaining fishing 8 license sales and also hunting license sales at their 9 current levels by recruiting new anglers and new 10 hunters. From a fishing perspective, this is important 11 because they've been our best advocates on water issues 12 in this state. And we need to make sure that their 13 numbers are maintained, that they're strong, and that 14 there are people out there that are paying attention and 15 helping us and supporting us on resource issues. 16 And we talk about reducing and continuing 17 to work on the coastal fishing industry on overfishing 18 and bycatch. Emily is going to talk about the public 19 comment, and then we'll be done. 20 CHAIRMAN ARMITANO: One of the most 21 important things for the strategic land and water 22 planning committee was to get the public involved 23 throughout the whole process. And we started out by 24 printing our -- the draft outline on the web. And we 25 had two constituent meetings in April to get input prior . 13 1 to developing the first draft. 2 The first draft, we put on our web site 3 on June 20th. And then we went around the state and had 4 eight public meetings in Plano, Nacogdoches, Harlingen, 5 El Paso, Abilene, Amarillo, Houston, and Austin on the 6 7th. And nearly 400 people attended. There was a lot 7 of interest, a lot of good comments. And all in all, 8 throughout the whole process, we've received about 1200 9 e-mails, 200 letters, 688 petitions, as of today. 10 The -- specifically, the comments kind of 11 laid out into three themes. We had an overwhelming 12 amount of comments on making the draft plan bolder than 13 the original draft. Specifically, adopting a 55-acre 14 per 1,000 person standard for state parks; adopting a 15 25-acre per 1,000 standard for local parks; making 16 recommendations to acquire water rights; and making the 17 language on purchase of development rights stronger. 18 In addition, we got 179 e-mails, 41 19 letters, numerous phone calls, and a lot of public 20 comments at the meetings on opposition to the -- for 21 divestiture of historic sites and state parks. Mostly, 22 they were about Acton, McKinney Falls, Confederate 23 Reunion Grounds, Lockhart, Starr Mansion, Eagle Mountain 24 Lake, and Big Springs State Park. 25 We got about 50 comments from our . 14 1 technical -- I'm sorry -- technical comments about input 2 on the plan and how to make it better overall from our 3 constituent groups, experts in the field, and our 4 advisory committees, which we relied on a lot for this 5 process. And in response to the -- to the amount of 6 comments that we got, the Strategic Land and Water 7 Planning Committee met again to discuss all of the 8 comments and take all of them into account. We worked 9 with Commissioner Montgomery over the last few weeks to 10 -- who guided the response and the incorporation of 11 those comments into the final draft. 12 Some of the things that we included were, 13 we tried to make the plan bolder by including measurable 14 goals in the -- as a whole section. And we are going to 15 update the plan prior to every legislative -- every 16 other legislative session and review it yearly. And we 17 strengthen strategies from partnerships with private 18 organizations and others. 19 We posted as a final draft last Friday. 20 And we sent copies to all of you. I think you received 21 it. And we will have red line copy tomorrow. And 22 that's it. 23 CHAIRMAN ARMSTRONG: Thank you. Do we 24 have any comments, the Commission? 25 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: I think they . 15 1 did a great job. 2 CHAIRMAN ARMSTRONG: Mr. Henry? 3 COMMISSIONER HENRY: On the public 4 hearing in Houston, I just -- the staff from Jeff, 5 Emily, Bob did a tremendous job handling some very 6 sticky comments. They handled themselves extremely 7 well. And some of the comments were touchy, let's just 8 say. But I just want to commend them on a job well 9 done. 10 CHAIRMAN ARMSTRONG: Commissioner 11 Fitzsimons? 12 COMMISSIONER FITZSIMONS: Ditto. It's -- 13 I was at the Austin meeting. And you did an excellent 14 job. I don't know how you got all this done with all 15 the comments and all the revisions. And every time I'd 16 turn around, there would appear perfect work. And it 17 was very well done. And I want to congratulate you 18 because I know -- I know you've worked very hard. It's 19 obvious from the product. Thank you. 20 CHAIRMAN ARMSTRONG: Mr. Cook? 21 MR COOK: I just -- you know, the 22 accolades here are all appreciated. And the staff is -- 23 the staff is most appreciative of constituents' input. 24 It was important to us because of the -- of the -- 25 really, the significance and value of this plan would . 16 1 not have been as meaningful without it. 2 In addition, the input from this group 3 has been -- has been considerable and is appreciated 4 sincerely. There were decision points at times there. 5 You know, do we talk about this or do we not? And some 6 decisions -- we've made some decisions. And the 7 committee guided us through that process. And I think a 8 document that ends up being -- really speaking to 9 conservation and recreation, which is where we started 10 out. And I certainly appreciate Jeff and Emily's input. 11 And I want to call special attention to 12 Beckom, to Chris's and his group's deal. You know, when 13 we started this, I gave them an impossible assignment. 14 I'll just tell you. Guess what? They did it. We 15 wanted this set of information, this set of data to be 16 useful. Useful to a park manager, useful to the 17 maintenance manager for that region, useful to our WMA 18 people, where they could actually access that 19 information and utilize it in their day-to-day work. 20 Where you can access it. 21 As you have an opportunity to visit these 22 sites and know about these sites and know what's going 23 on, know about the number FTEs there, the repair 24 projects, and maintenance program, whatever it may be. 25 And that information is there. And I'm really proud of . 17 1 the group and the national leaders group that helped put 2 that together. It's pretty impressive. 3 CHAIRMAN ARMSTRONG: Commissioner 4 Montgomery? 5 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Just a couple 6 of quick comments. I've had some experience in the 7 commercial mapping business. And I think the technical 8 side of this is fabulous and really impressive. And 9 I've seen how hard it could be and how difficult it is 10 to put it together, so I appreciate what you've done. 11 And Jeff and Emily, I think you all did a 12 great job pulling it together and being objective 13 arbitrators of the process, which is not simple. And it 14 was challenging and a great testament to your skill and 15 maturity. I do think for us there's -- a lot of 16 backbone that is going to be required over the next 17 couple of years to really implement and oversee the 18 implementation of what's in there. 19 There's a lot of very powerful and 20 profound ideas and reshaping and reorienting that's 21 going to come from this that I know I don't fully 22 appreciate yet, even having sat through the committee 23 process. So I think we all, in voting for it -- 24 resolving to get behind it and stay behind it for a 25 sustained period of time. . 18 1 And in the last thought -- and I know I'm 2 -- if Jeff and them would put up with me in the 3 editorial side of this, it does present a real financial 4 challenge in that it's not funded. We've got a lot of 5 things we're saying we're going to do that aren't funded 6 and that are going to be very difficult to fund through 7 state funds, given the environment -- the fiscal 8 environment the state is in. 9 So that what I think it puts particularly 10 on the Commission is an obligation to really be -- I 11 hate to use the word creative because it sounds 12 superficial, but creative in the sense of creating 13 something new in our leadership and skill application to 14 help fund and find alternative sources of funding for 15 these things that are still consistent with our mission. 16 But the private sector, nonprofit sector, 17 collaborative, and other public entities can take all of 18 that. And we all need to be thinking about that very, 19 very actively, I think, in order to be successful at 20 accomplishing all this. 21 CHAIRMAN ARMSTRONG: Are there any other 22 comments? 23 I would like to make a comment here. I 24 won't say thank you again. I think everyone here has 25 done an excellent job in giving credit where credit is . 19 1 well due. 2 The -- there will be people who look at 3 this plan and will say that it is not ambitious enough. 4 And there will be people who look at this plan and say 5 that it is too ambitious. I think that the plan we laid 6 out here is achievable. I think it's defensible. I 7 think that there is only so much that the Commission can 8 do or that the staff can do. 9 In the end, Texans, if they find the 10 goals in this plan worthy, must express their desires 11 through the legislative process and through the ballot 12 box. We will do everything we can to be creative in the 13 partnerships that we nurture and encourage to realize 14 some of these goals. But in the end, there are not 15 enough tax dollars currently available to fund the goals 16 laid out in this plan. 17 I thank everybody for this very rewarding 18 process that we've been through. I think anybody that's 19 been involved has come away with a new found respect and 20 enthusiasm for this wonderful department and the 21 terrific staff and the admirable goals that I think not 22 only the department has, but indeed the citizens of this 23 state. Thank you, all. 24 The next item is -- where is my sheet, 25 Mr. Cook? On nomination item number three, nomination . 20 1 of oil and gas leases, Harris County, Ronnie Ray. 2 Accounts. Are there any questions? 3 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Yes. Question 4 concerning your last comment. We talked last year at 5 some point about restricting some of these revenues 6 specifically to the development of Sheldon State Park. 7 What happened on that have access to that account, but 8 not any further than that. 9 COMMISSIONER FITZSIMONS: Can you do it 10 or not? Aside for the parks that they're near, but you 11 may want to think about the poor relatives with surface 12 -- 13 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Well, we were 14 thinking somewhat about that. We weren't -- as you 15 recall during that discussion, that wasn't 100 percent 16 dedication. We had some discussion at that time that we 17 wouldn't want to do that. But given the desirability of 18 the development of Sheldon, this would be an ideal way 19 to at least start it. 20 CHAIRMAN ARMSTRONG: Commissioner Henry 21 -- how about this? Why don't we go and find out what 22 the minutes say and come back and take this issue up 23 after lunch? We will go ahead and break for executive 24 session and take up this matter after lunch, after we've 25 gotten our facts straight. Is that -- then we will . 21 1 adjourn. Is that correct? Recess. We will go -- we 2 will recess for executive session. 3 (RECESS.) 4 CHAIRMAN ARMSTRONG: Good afternoon. The 5 first order of business, I would like to -- reconvene 6 the conservation committee or correct staff having 7 checked the record, Commissioner Henry is correct that 8 he believed -- the meeting a year ago, that the proceeds 9 from the nomination oil and gas lease for Sheldon Lake 10 were to be detained by Sheldon. That's correct. And I 11 direct to staff to add that to the motion that we'll 12 bring back up tomorrow. With that, I adjourn the 13 conservation committee. And we will begin the public 14 hearing. 15 (HEARING ADJOURNED) 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 . 22 1 REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE 2 STATE OF TEXAS ) 3 COUNTY OF TRAVIS ) 4 5 I, SHANA R. WISE, a Certified Court Reporter in and 6 for the State of Texas, do hereby certify that the 7 foregoing pages constitute a full, true, and correct 8 transcript of the minutes of the Texas Parks and 9 Wildlife Commission on August 28, 2002 in the Commission 10 Hearing Room of the Texas Parks and Wildlife 11 Headquarters Complex, Austin, Travis County, Texas. 12 I FURTHER CERTIFY that the proceedings of said 13 public meeting were reported by me and accurately 14 reduced to typewriting under my supervision and control. 15 WITNESS MY HAND this the 21st day of October, 2002. 16 17 18 SHANA R. WISE, CSR NO. 6642 Expiration Date: 12-31-02 19 7800 IH 10 West Suite 100 20 San Antonio, Texas 78230 (210) 377-3027 21 22 EBS NO. 133345 23 24 25