Keeping natural treasure natural

By JACK DOUGLAS JR. - Star-Telegram staff writer - Sun, Aug. 12, 2007

Photo by John Graddy
For a while there, it looked as if an oasis in the middle of the Texas Hill Country -- a water playground for kids swinging on a rope from a cypress tree -- would turn into a residential development crammed with homes and pavement, closed off to the people who shared their youth there.

That is when the residents of the small town of Wimberley banded together, eventually calling themselves the Friends of Blue Hole, and managed to buy 126 acres of lush land near the town square, outmaneuvering developers who had planned to build several hundred homes around an iconic Texas swimming hole.

Instead of another row of driveways and mailboxes, Wimberley residents now have the Blue Hole Regional Park, with near-future plans -- laid out by the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center -- for nature trails, "primitive" camping sites, tennis courts and soccer fields.

For kids 12 and under and seniors 60 and over, $2.50 will pay for a dip in the beautiful Blue Hole, the price being $5 for everyone else. Season passes go for $10.

"Saving the Blue Hole is one of the greatest legacies we could leave future Texans," former Gov. Ann Richards said.

Dorothy Cook, store manager at the Gingerbread House in Wimberley, agreed. The banks of Cypress Creek and its spring-fed swimming hole must remain open for the "average, normal person, the hardworking person" who remembers the Blue Hole from his or her carefree youth as a place to go after school, a cool spot for that first smooch with a sweetheart.

"It's a neat place to go play," Cook said. "It should be for everyone."

Since the 1920s, the tree-shaded stretch of Cypress Creek, including the Blue Hole, had been a place to sneak away to. But by 2003, word was spreading that a developer was going to buy the property, which a business partnership in Austin owned.

Instead, Peter Way, a Houston businessman and part-time Wimberley resident, agreed to buy the Blue Hole and hold it until Wimberley civic leaders could raise enough money to purchase it.

That happened in 2005, thanks to $1.9 million in federal park funds administered through the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, $700,000 in Hays County bond funds, $200,000 from the Lower Colorado River Authority, a $143,000 loan from a land conservation group and $700,000 in private donations.

"It really was, for a community of this size, an extraordinary effort to protect an extraordinary piece of property," said Don Ferguson, city administrator for Wimberley, 15 miles west of San Marcos, between Austin and San Antonio.

Way said he agreed to take a loss in investment opportunities and sell the Blue Hole for the amount he paid for it -- just over $3 million -- to keep yet another "high-density residential development" from scarring the Hill Country. A new neighborhood may also have depleted the water source for Wimberley's 3,000 residents who, Way said, had for too long been "sneaking into the Blue Hole."

Way said that after decades of swinging from a rope on a cypress tree, then belly-flopping into the cool clear water, the locals deserved to finally own the place.

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Waste transformation generates interest - using waste products to fuel energy in North Texas

By ELIZABETH SOUDER - The Dallas Morning News - Wednesday, June 27, 2007

North Texas is beginning to be fueled by its own filth.

Companies are building several new facilities to turn waste, manure and even smellier stuff into fuel for power plants.

Waste Management Inc. recently fired up a small power generator that runs off the methane produced by its landfill in Ferris, just south of Dallas. The company plans to spend $400 million to add generators to 60 landfills across the country.

MONA REEDER/DMN The Waste Management landfill near Ferris is dotted with gas lines that pop up to vent methane. The gas fuels four generators, pumping out enough electricity to power about 5,000 homes. And Environmental Power Corp. built a plant near Stephenville to turn manure and animal fats into methane. The facility pumps the gas into pipelines and sells it to the Lower Colorado River Authority as power plant fuel.

"The higher the cost of current energy sources, the higher natural gas prices and electricity prices, the more viable the renewable energy sources become," said Russel Smith, executive director of the Texas Renewable Energy Industries Association.

He added that public demand for cleaner energy also spurs such investment.

The only disappointment for environmental advocates is that such plants are small. Each can supply enough electricity for a few thousand households – hardly enough to feed Texas' growing appetite for power.

Eighty-four of Waste Management's 281 U.S. landfills already fuel power plants. Eight landfills in Texas have generators, including one in Lewisville.

And investing in such plants has become a lot more attractive recently as electricity prices rise and regulators require power companies to accumulate renewable energy credits.

Federal tax benefits sweeten the economics.

Now, the country's largest garbage collector plans to install power plants on every landfill it operates with enough methane to run a generator. Sites in Fort Worth and Austin are slated for power plants.

And the company wants to offer its services to other landfill operators to install and run power plants at their sites, too.

The Ferris landfill looks like a grassy hill with a few black pipes sticking out. Those are gas wells that draw off methane produced by the decades-old garbage under ground.

Waste Management must tap the gas and burn it off, or the landfill belches methane. In the past, the company just burned off the gas.

"They're a good investment. It's a cliché, but it's the right thing to do, and it makes use of a fuel that's otherwise flared," said Paul Pabor, vice president of renewable energy for the Houston company.

Now, the methane fuels four yellow Caterpillar generators, each about the size of a compact car. They pump out enough electricity to power about 5,000 homes.

"It used to be a dump," said Kano Galindo, a district manager who oversees the plant. But don't use that term around him, he said; he admires the shiny generators.

The manure and animal-fat processing center near Stephenville isn't quite so squeaky clean or fragrant as the landfill. When the smell of manure wafts past, it's actually a relief from the stench of the animal parts, or "material," as the executives say.

Just like the landfill operator, Microgy, a unit of New Hampshire's Environmental Power Corp., gets its fuel for free.

The plant, which used to be a composting site, takes in manure and materials from dairies and food processing plants.

The waste naturally emits methane when it decomposes. Microgy's eight digesters use microorganisms to hasten that process.

The $13 million plant can churn out up to 635,000 million British thermal units of gas a year. That's enough gas to power around 10,000 homes.

Environmental Power is eyeing another potential revenue stream. By burning the potent greenhouse gas as a fuel, rather than venting it, the facility can qualify for greenhouse gas offset credits.

If the U.S. limits such emissions, those credits could be in high demand.

"We believe that could be equal to or even greater than our gas" business, said Richard Kessel, chief executive of Environmental Power.
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