Comments from the Chair
Lone Star Chapter honors Meredith McGuire
The Lone Star Chapter (LSC) annually seeks to “recognize the great work of inspiring environmental activists and innovators from around our state with awards to show our appreciation. Our award categories inspire nominations to honor not only Sierra Club volunteers and staff, but also other individuals and organizations who have done so much to defend, improve, and celebrate the Texas environment.”
Traditionally these are announced at an in-person celebration in Austin that also serves as an important Chapter fund raiser. The Covid pandemic wreaked havoc on those plans, initially moving the date from April to July, and finally to a virtual Zoom meeting event held October 3. I have been remiss in not until now congratulating our own long time activist MEREDITH McGUIRE as 2020 recipient of the Ken Kramer Living Waters Award, “created to honor Ken Kramer's thirty years of service as the Director of the Lone Star Chapter and his special dedication to the issues of water quality and water conservation”.
Our LSC Chair Andy Balinsky wrote: “This award is to be given to an individual who has contributed significantly to the preservation or restoration of water quality or to implementing strategies for water conservation beneficial to people and the environment in Texas. This is for your work on Vista Ridge as well as your work on correcting unfair SAWS rate structures.” MM has championed water conservation and environmental justice in San Antonio and we all owe her a great deal of thanks for her tremendous efforts and dedication.
Charter amendments will reform our public utilities
We are members of SAWS Accountability Act coalition and Our Power Coalition seeking to reform our publicly owned water and energy utilities. We have collected thousands of signatures to put City Charter Amendments on the ballot for voters to decide on these reform proposals. Covid restrictions have made canvassing difficult.
CPS is running expensive advertising campaigns to “SPRUCE” up their image and preserve their dirty Spruce coal plants. SAWS Board just approved lobbying the Legislature to be able to sell Edwards Aquifer water outside of the Edwards Aquifer Authority boundaries, taking our cheap water away and replacing it with expensive Vista Ridge water.
CPS had a “Public Input Session” Nov 16th (preceded by one on Feb 18, 2019, so infrequently do they seek input) at which a parade of business people lined up to sing their praises, in contrast to comments from me and other environmental and social justice activists criticizing their lack of action in addressing Climate Change, closing the Spruce coal plants, addressing rate inequities, and ending disconnection policies, and their general resistance to public input. Meanwhile City Government keeps moving petition receipt deadlines to prevent our coalitions from filing...
Vote for your next Sierra Club leaders
Please look for your annual Chapter and Group electronic ballots. Chapter/Group elections will run from December 17th to January 7th for Lone Star Chapter and Alamo Group (joint ballot) Executive Committees (ExCOMs). The Chapter will be emailing all members it can, and sending postcards to those it can't email, with the link to your ballot.
Sierra Club is rare among major environmental organizations. We are volunteer based and have elected leaders. Your votes are vital! Electronic voting saves us thousands of dollars in postal costs. Please make it work!!
Presidential election promises respite from war on environment
The election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will bring a halt to the current administration’s relentless across the board attacks on our environment. It may take years to rebuild staff, morale and professional expertise at agencies like the EPA, Interior, Bureau of Land Management, Agriculture, etc. It will take years to reverse some of the policy changes that even as I write are still being pushed through--removing hundred year old migratory bird protections being one small but important example.
Nationally and internationally we can expect positive reengagement of our country with serious Climate Change Action. Not a minute too soon. Latest studies call for 50% carbon emission reductions by 2030.
Texas elections disappoint
LSC and Group efforts to elect candidates friendly to our environment largely failed, a huge disappointment for all. We will face another Republican-led Texas House in January.
Attacks on local city government control will no doubt be renewed, our city tree ordinance being attacked virtually every session for a decade or more. Our own Richard Alles has been instrumental in trudging to Austin every session to defend this ordinance that gives protection to our large trees from developers that prefer to scrape the landscape bare instead of designing to accommodate the important features of the site.
The Republican State House will also be in charge of once a decade redistricting, and the Supreme Court has given them free rein to gerrymander to their hearts content. So we can expect no improvements in our voting representation.
City elections will be upon us soon
Our Mayor and City Council will be up for election May 3, 2021. This is the election we hope to have utility charter amendments on the ballot, to “put the public back in our publicly owned utilities.”
Our Group Political Committee will begin work again in early February to evaluate and endorse candidates. Volunteers are welcome to assist with these evaluations!
Our Conservation Committee is key
Our most important local committees are our ExCom, our Political Committee (PolCom) and our Conservation Committee (ConCom). The ConCom is the main group of volunteers addressing the full range of our local environmental issues.
Whether your special interest is in mobility, sprawl, air quality, endangered species, parks and open spaces, energy, water, climate change, nuclear waste etc.--this is the committee where you can express your concerns, share your knowledge and ideas, and work for positive change in our city and the extended region of our Group, from the Hill Country to east of Seguin, and north to New Braunfels and south in the Eagle Ford shale area. January will bring a new year of opportunity and challenge, and new volunteers are needed.
Outings leaders needed
Our Group has been forced to suspend youth and adult outing programs throughout 2020. We need new leaders to help prepare for activities when Covid restrictions abate.
The Youth programs are especially in need as some leaders have moved on, been forced to retire for various reasons etc. Both these programs are essential to our outreach in the community, to member development, to our support of diversity, equity and inclusion, to our sharing of the joys of the outdoors and the need for their protection, etc. Please call or write to volunteer.
Please share some time with your local environmentalists. You will not regret your efforts and you will meet good people.
by Terry Burns, M.D., Alamo Group ChairLake Mead National Recreation Area
There are some unusual hiking opportunities at Lake Mead NRA with views much different from other parks in the western deserts. The pictures below (February 2016) are a few on the northwestern side of the park, off Northshore Road, which runs parallel to and northwest of the lake. Here's the park website and the maps page. The striking red rock is Aztec sandstone; here is the park's geology web page. The color is due to iron oxides.
The Colorado River runs into Lake Mead at the southeast corner. The Virgin River joins at the north end, originating at the southwest corner of the Colorado Plateau, as mentioned in an article in this newsletter November 2020.
From one of the peaks I did get a good view of the lake, which is just east of Las Vegas. Not to say it was a nice view, with a serious bathtub ring due to water level decline. Looking at the lake all I could think about was the water used for irrigation in Las Vegas; there I saw green lawns and a golf course likewise. And there are the “Venetian” canals at the Venetian Hotel. The lake was created by Hoover Dam, which was finished in 1935.
Colin Fletcher hiked and rafted from the source of the Colorado to it's mouth, covered in his 1997 book River. As Fletcher discussed, the Colorado is dry at it's mouth at the north end of the Gulf of California, due to water removed along it's route through the US, of which Las Vegas is the most obvious example.
One nice thing about Las Vegas is that Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area is just west, with a bunch of trails and a campground off a loop road. It features some popular sandstone climbing routes.
This area is on the east side of the Mojave Desert. The Sonoran Desert lies not far south. Most of Nevada is included in the Great Basin Desert. Death Valley is 150 miles west, Mojave National Preserve is 100 miles south, and the west end of Grand Canyon National Park is 50 miles east. Here's a good resource on deserts of the southwestern US.
An excellent resource for planning my hikes at Lake Mead NRA was BirdAndHike.com. I would like to go back; there is a pile of moderate hikes I didn't do.
Outings: The Call of the Wild
Visit the Alamo Sierra Club Outings page on Meetup for detailed information about all of our upcoming Sierra Club Outings.
The Alamo Sierran Newsletter
Richard Alles, Editor
Published by The Alamo Group of the Sierra Club, P.O. Box 6443, San Antonio, TX 78209, AlamoSierraClub.org.
The Alamo Group is one of 13 regional groups within the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club.
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