And don’t forget about the silent auction – a great place to donate those unwanted Christmas gifts, thin the hog population with a hog hunt or let folks sample your products and services. Contact Sharon Lane (slane@hrm-texas.org) to become a part of the silent auction.

Make your reservations now for the 2007 Annual Meeting, Catching Raindrops, February 9 and 10 in Kerrville. The Holiday Inn Express is holding our block of rooms only until January 13, 2007, so make your reservation today. Call the hotel at 830-895-9500. Be sure to tell them you are with Holistic Resource Management to get the special rate of $69.95 (+tax). And, of course, you may register for the conference by mail (send your check to HRM of TX, 5 Limestone Trail, Wimberley, TX 78676), by phone with your credit card (512-858-2761) or online at www.hrm-texas.org

We have changed the Friday schedule somewhat. The Holistic Management Planned Grazing class will start at 9am and run until 4pm. The Holistic Management Financial Planning class has been cancelled for now but we hope to offer it later in the year when we can give it the time it deserves to be explored fully. We will begin our Friday social and business meeting session at 6pm. We’ll bring the beer, wine, soft drinks and party platters, you bring some great ideas and some enthusiasm for launching another great year of classes, field days and conferences.

The 07 conference, Catching Raindrops, is all about abundant water for Texas. Come participate in a celebration of the best way we know of to attract and hold abundant water—good soil surface management. We have a great lineup of speakers, fun activities and mutual support for all who care about the land and the people of Texas.

There is still room in the trade show! Call Joe Maddox for details 325-3292-2292 or e-mail him at westgift@earthlink.net. These fine folks have already secured one of our 10 booths.

The linchpin is that the two parties have agreed — in principle — to some type of joint management of their water rights and resources. As it is now, each side asserts its own rights and needs, and is quick to challenge the other's, with disputes taken to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. There has been a growing danger of years of expensive, drawn-out court battles.

By emphasizing joint oversight instead of standing on rights, Austin City Manager Toby Futrell said, "We can maximize the water available, not just for us, but for the region. So we get more and the region gets more if we think differently about the water. We're trying to not put this into a courtroom — or the Legislature's lap. We're saying we're going to resolve it among ourselves."

Working out the details in the next few months won't be easy, both sides acknowledge, and the disputes are serious.

One dispute, for example, centers on the city's interest in reusing treated wastewater. The city is entitled to take water from Lake Austin, which is part of the Colorado River, for use in homes and businesses. After it is used, the city spends spends millions cleaning the wastewater and returns it as "effluent" to the river, which carries it to the Gulf of Mexico. But a few years ago, the city said it wanted to return the effluent to the river and then pull out an equivalent amount at some other point downstream — and save millions of dollars in water costs. This alarmed the LCRA, which counts on revenue from water sales and must make sure there's enough water to meet downriver needs for other communities, farmers and aquatic life in coastal areas where the Colorado empties into the Gulf. The issue is pending at the state's environmental commission.

Austin, in contrast, is worried that the LCRA's purchase of downriver water rights several years ago might threaten the city's to Colorado River water. This issue is also pending at the environmental commission. There's irony here, because the city and the LCRA depend upon each other so much. Austin, a rapidly growing city, is a major user of Colorado River water. And the LCRA, which manages 600 miles of the river for flood control, also needs the river water — including the treated wastewater — to meet its customers' needs. Just last week, for example, fully two-thirds of the river water flowing past Bastrop was made up of treated wastewater discharged by Austin.

Joe Beal, general manager of the LCRA, said one model for joint management has operated for 25 years right under the city's and the authority's noses: the Fayette power plant near La Grange, in Fayette County. Two of the plant's three generating units are jointly owned by the city and the LCRA. The LCRA operates the plants, but they are overseen by a joint management committee.

Futrell said she's optimistic about reaching agreement, even as she acknowledges that the hardest negotiations — over details — remain. Two memorandums of understanding — nonbinding, but evidence of solid progress — have been signed. The first, in June, helped define the problems and how to start resolving them. The second, signed just this month, confirms a truce over pending disputes at the environmental commission. The December agreement also says that the two parties will find a way "to jointly manage their individual water rights," including joint water supply planning and management of "raw water supplies as an integrated system." The LCRA, however, would continue to manage the river itself, and each entity would remain responsible for its water and wastewater utility operations.

"What excites me about this," Beal said, "is I genuinely believe, at this time, Toby and the city staff and me and my staff are approaching this in a way that really isn't looking at how one or the other entity wins. It's looking at how the river wins, and how the region wins. That's different from the approach we've taken in the past."

It's a great attitude to start the new year. Austin and LCRA — and the people they serve — stand to gain from their cooperation, not their warfare. The New York Times

AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, December 24, 2006

The water pipes being laid across the Hill Country are called many things by many people: serpents, tentacles and worse.

The truth of the matter is the pipes are pipes, but they do bear a sort of lifeblood for new development. They are Texas-born, of PVC and ductile iron. They draw their water from Lake Austin, just downstream from the Village of

Bee Cave. The big arteries are 24 inches in diameter, and then, farther into the Hill Country, as they spread out like capillaries, they taper to 8 inches in diameter. Water beats through the pipe - all 100 miles or so – as fast as 5 feet per second and at a pressure of 85 pounds per square inch.

They belong to the Lower Colorado River Authority, the agency that harnessed the Colorado River and its enormous power through a series of ambitious dam projects in the 1930s and '40s and gave electricity to much of the Hill Country.

The LCRA's waterlines will remake the Hill Country again and solve some of its bedeviling environmental problems, such as leaky septic tanks and bad drinking water.

But the pipelines are a harbinger of deeper, more troubling environmental issues: of massive traffic and polluted air, of trees chopped down and paved over, of treated sewage water discharged into underground reservoirs, of pesticides leached into creeks from so many beautifully laid lawns, of Hill Country waterways clogged with silt. Drinking water for 50,000 people who rely on well water may be jeopardized, and Barton Springs harmed.Still, where the pipes go, development follows.

People choose to live in the Hill Country because of the good schools, the lower home costs and, more than anything else, the natural allure of the country, of the limitless hills. But with a growing population – one unshackled by the old, natural limits of water availability - it is the clean, wide-open spaces that have become vulnerable.

"There's a natural carrying capacity," said Jon Thompson, the development coordinator for the City of Dripping Springs, referring to a biological term about how much life land can naturally sustain. "You bring in surface water and sewer, you risk the degradation of waterways and of the scenic beauty.

"But if I asked my great-great-great-grandfather about what Austin would look like now," continued Thompson, whose family has lived in the area since the 1840s, "he would say growth is inevitable."

More than 114,700 people will move into a slice of the Hill Country between Texas 71 and U.S. 290 over the next 25 years, according to the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization. Much of that area is over the Barton Springs zone of the Edwards Aquifer. About 45,000 acres -one-third of the total Barton Springs zone - have already been developed as single-family homes and nearly 20,000 as roads or commercial and manufacturing property. More than 30,000 acres have been set aside as open space.

In all, about 143,000 acres of undeveloped land are still at play over the Barton Springs zone, and the next few decades will determine how much of that land becomes paved and how deep the environmental impact runs.

Some developers say they are doing what they can to minimize damage to the landscape they are counting on to open up new profits.

"Some developers approach (the Hill Country) responsibly, sensibly and want to do the right thing," said David Armbrust, a lawyer who frequently represents developers. "Then there are developers who want to maximize profit, density, do whatever they can do."

Those who want to preserve the pristine nature of the region are not taking any chances. They are racing to prevent further development over the aquifer (including in the City of Austin, where voters just approved spending $50 million to buy open space), but the escalating cost of the land and the steady stream of buyers do make the paving of the land seem inevitable.

"So long the question has been, 'What is it we don't want in the Hill Country?' " said Kirk Watson, the newly elected Democratic state senator for most of Travis County, including its westernmost hills. "That leads, I think, too many times to all-or-nothing answers. We should be asking, 'What do we want the Hill Country to be?' What attracts many of us here to begin with is going to attract others, and we have to accommodate and address additional people."

If proposed developments are built out with the help of waterlines, vehicle trips per day in the region will increase rapidly: On U.S. 290 in Oak Hill, for instance, the number is expected to jump from 17,400 in 2004 to 34,000 by 2034.And where there are humans, there's waste. Water utility specialists use about 100 gallons per day per person as a wastewater estimate, and already environmental controversies are rising about where all the treated sewage will go.

There are consequences downstream as well. The river authority says it is duty-bound to offer water to those who want it, but giving Colorado River water to Hill Country consumers means less water for rice farmers in counties near the Gulf Coast.

"The reality is, each new customer in Austin makes water less reliable for agricultural users downstream," said Robert Cullick, a spokesman for the LCRA. "Sooner or later, there won't be water for agricultural use."

Staying on well water is not an attractive option, either. The amount of water being drawn from the Edwards Aquifer is close to the amount that trickled in during the 1950s drought, the one that serves as a benchmark for management of the reservoir.

Piped water is meant to ease the strain on the aquifer, and advocates of subdivision wastewater plants say septics will become something of the past.

The LCRA pipelines were built only after the river authority signed a deal with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to map a route that would affect the smallest number of endangered species.

And water consumers who want to hook onto the pipelines have to take measures to protect wildlife. Hill Country waterline customers have to agree to setbacks from streams and other sensitive environmental features and agree to impervious cover limits in keeping with the Save Our Springs Ordinance. The river authority also gives incentives for low-impact design. And it spent about $1 million on studies and planning groups to make sure surface water quality was not harmed by the project.

But many Hill Country residents who get an LCRA connection still use well water, which is typically cheaper than LCRA water, for vanity ponds and gardening.

"Just because you get LCRA water doesn't mean you're going to turn off your well water," said Christy Muse, who heads the conservation and homeowners group Hill Country Alliance.

Beautiful but brutal

The Hill Country was a "trap" for early settlers, a seeming paradise full of wildflowers, endless trees, and clear and cleaner air, explained Robert Caro in "The Path to Power," the first volume of his biography of President Lyndon Johnson. In reality, the grasses, trees and flowers had taken years to grow in the thin limestone soil.

"The very hills that made the Hill Country so picturesque also made it a country in which it was difficult for soil to hold," Caro wrote. "The grass of the Hill Country, then, was rich only because it had had centuries in which to build up, centuries in which nothing had disturbed it. It was rich only because it was virgin. And it could be virgin only once."

The seemingly bountiful land soon became a land of toil. Women who used to draw the water out of wells grew hunchbacks by middle age, so bent were they from the effort. Until more efficient pumps eased the way for population growth in the past quarter-century, the hard-to-come-by water had kept development down. Even cattle and goats have a tough time grazing here.

And the very same things that made early settlers struggle are presenting a similar set of challenges for the 21st century's suburban pioneers. Thin soil has made, and will continue to make, erosion control a tough proposition as builders pave over the land.

Too often in the Hill Country, silt fences don't actually trap silt, and construction material or plain old dirt tumbles into creeks and streams, choking plants. Lick Creek was practically suffocated several years ago after construction began on the West Cypress Hills subdivision. (The LCRA levied fines against the developer. Neighbors filed a suit, which was recently settled; the developer will clean up the creek and build the rest of the subdivision under rules similar to the City of Austin's.)

Closer to Austin, the quality of water at Barton Springs is already declining; the dregs of a growing suburban population have shown up in its waters: caffeine and pesticides have been detected.

"Barton Springs will not be swimmable in 20 years," warned Raymond Slade, a retired hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. (A scientist with the

City of Austin would not agree with the exact time period but said that grim forecast is not off the mark; experts at the state environmental commission say the claim is a reach.)

On the face of it, there are layers of environmental regulation as thick as the limestone beneath the thin Hill Country soil: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has rules about storm water runoff; the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is charged with protecting the endangered Barton Springs salamander and golden-cheeked warbler and has a hand in reviewing development; the state environmental agency has special rules protecting Edwards Aquifer water quality. And the City of Austin has established tight development rules, such as its SOS ordinance.

But the regulation, like the limestone, is porous. Fish and Wildlife involvement is sporadic. There is no regional limit on impervious cover - the term for obstructions such as roofs or parking lots that prevent rainwater from making its way underground. Counties have little statutory power, and the smaller cities that deal most intimately with development are essentially playing catch-up as they get their rules in order.

Scientists and environmental groups say the only way to truly prevent any pollution of the aquifer, and of Barton Springs, is to stop construction, which won't happen anytime soon. Stream degradation occurs when about 10 percent of a watershed is impervious cover, according to research by the Center for Watershed Protection, a Maryland nonprofit group that encourages planning in watersheds.

Taking responsibility

The LCRA demands that its Hill Country customers play by impervious cover and endangered species protection rules. But along with home construction comes the building of supermarkets and auto repair shops, gas stations and malls, each remaking the landscape.

"We do the interstates; they do the driveways" is how Cullick describes the pipelines and the hookups by developers. The metaphor is apt, because the waterlines are inextricably linked with home construction, the expansion of suburbia and, above all, the transformation of the land.

Those at the forefront of that transformation say developers don't deserve to be painted with a broad brush.

"If someone is opposed to any growth, that no one should move here and everyone should go somewhere else, then I can't help you," said Harry Savio, the head of the Austin Homebuilders Association. "If you believe we should have controlled, restrained, responsible growth, sensitive to the environment, then the home building and construction that has taken place over the last five years is going to be much better than what was done before."

Savio says new rules for storm water detention and vegetative filter strips are keeping the water that runs into area creeks from developments cleaner.

Thompson said the developers are paying attention to the environment that creates the very demand they bank on.

"If we allow growth, anything we do as humans pollutes to one degree or another," Thompson said. "But when you get these developers, almost to the person, they're interested in clean air and clean water. And what they have to be able to do is provide jobs not only for themselves, they create jobs for construction workers."

Economy and demand aside, some of the environmentalists say there's no excuse for polluting the Hill Country, and they are clamoring to get some of the best land before developers do.

The race for land

That's Junie Plummer's job at the City of Austin.

"If you can't visualize 50 years into the future, you shouldn't have your job," said Plummer, who has bought property for the city for 19 years. The borders of some of her old, faded maps stretch only as far as what is now the Circle C subdivision. "Is there a tract of land we don't love? We didn't always buy what was pretty, and we didn't always look at what was breathtaking."

The future of this land is so critical to Austin that it has embarked on a spending spree over the past decade to buy development rights or land outright even outside city limits.

Voters have approved of Austin's strategy. Since 1998, city residents have approved more than $125 million in bond issues for open space, much of it to buy up Hill Country acreage and development rights. In 2005, Travis County voters approved a $62.2 million bond issue for parks and open space.

But those purchases - along with the success of the SOS Ordinance, which limited development over the aquifer - have pushed developers to buy up land farther west of town and into the undeveloped hills.

Thus, the Hill Country, much of it sprawling private ranch land, has become the subject of a fierce race by conservationists to secure the land's development rights before subdivisions sprout up.

Developers are pitching in for some conservation as well. The Real Estate Council of Austin sends hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Hill Country Conservancy, a nonprofit group that buys land and development rights to set aside as open space.

Buying open space is an expensive proposition: Demand has ratcheted up the cost of land in the region to as much as $15,000 an acre in areas around Dripping Springs. Although Congress recently approved an expansion of a tax incentive for conservation easement donations, the state is offering little help with land acquisition.

The stakes are high. At play are money, the character of the land, the cleanliness of the air above it and the clarity of the water below it.

"People in Central Texas love the Hill Country, but are we going to love it to death?" asked Colin Clark, a spokesman for the Save Our Springs Alliance.

asherprice@statesman.com ; 512/445-3643

Lots more stuff to do!

Each year we try to address a topic of interest that ranchers, conservationists, scientists, public land managers and others share in common. This year we decided to tackle the important question of the Next Generation. Whether you live in the city or the country, own a large ranch or a small lot, are involved in agriculture or not, the issue of how to encourage the Next Generation to pick up where we leave off is a daunting and vital one.

For this event, we sought speakers who could not only explain WHY this work is critical to our future, but HOW to do it too. Of course, this includes hearing from members of the Next Generation themselves.

In this Conference we use “fresh eyes” to explore innovative ideas, practices, and relationships that give hope to, and receive inspiration from, the next generation. Creating hope and options for the future is the key to all our efforts. Whether the goal is staying on the land, exploring and understanding nature, or simply ‘going home again,’ the next generation needs new opportunities to achieve their dreams. To accomplish this goal, the Conference will feature ‘take home’ ideas for ranchers, conservationists, and public land managers alike.

We are honored to host famed agrarian and author Wendell Berry on Thursday, January 18 at 7:00 pm during an informal discussion, reading and “conversation” that will include questions from the audience. This benefit event will set the stage for the sharing of ideas and solutions during the next two days.

Other highlights of the conference include: David Kline, farmer, Amish minister, and author; Christine and Taylor Selby, founders of Earth Care International, and some of their young entrepreneurs; Estevan Arellano, author historian and bio-regionalist from Embudo, NM and Miguel Santistevan of the New Mexico Acequia Association.

Issues such as Inheritance and Conservation Easements, Protecting Water Resources for Future Generations, Custom Grazing on Leased Land, Family Dynamics and Generational Transfer and Outdoor Educational Opportunities will be the subjects of some of the concurrent afternoon sessions.

Two pre-conference workshops will focus on the marketing and production of grassfed food.

For a full agenda and registration information, please visit the Quivira website at http://www.quiviracoalition.org/> Best regards,

Courtney White
The Quivira Coalition
1413 Second St. Suite #1
Santa Fe, NM 87505
505-820-2544 ext 1#
executive@quiviracoalition.org

I'd like to invite you to attend the 6th Annual Texas Conference On Organic Production Systems. The goal of this conference is to assist our current and new farmers and ranchers in meeting the growing demand for healthy, local and organic foods. Here in Texas and across the nation folks are becoming more food savvy. They want better tasting, fresh and nutritious foods.

Whether you are currently a farmer or rancher or would like to become one, this conference can help you learn how to become part of the Good Food Movement. With four days of activities we've got something for everyone. We start out with a day of farm tours, then we'll go into two days of the conference, followed by one day with two workshops.

Please make a special note about the food at this conference. We serve breakfast, lunch and dinner prepared with all the best local and organic food Texas has to offer. For the first time, we'll have our own chef in the kitchen to make sure that everything is done just right. We walk the walk!

Take a look and see what you think. We hope you‚ll join us for the conference and then go forth committed to engaging in The Local Food Revolution, Bringing Texas Home!

To go directly to the conference information see the TOFGA website at www.tofga.org.

Sincerely, Steve Bridges - Executive Director

New Farmers Workshop - Growing Organic Vegetables

We held our first New Farmers Workshop at last year's conference. It was so successful we held two more this past fall. As part of our New Farms Initiative, we're going to be holding five NFW's next summer. Our focus at this NFW will be on how to grow a diverse array of organic vegetables for market sales.

From how to amend the soil, transplant production, bed design and on to marketing this workshop is designed to bring you up to speed on a wide variety of topics. William Cureton, aka Captain Compost (photo at left), from Alabama will be there telling us about his intensive vegetable farming. Larry Butler and Carol Ann Sayle from the infamous Boggy Creek Farm will be doing three presentations. Betsy Levy, Regulatory Specialist from the TDA will tell us how become Certified Organic. And more!

Your fee for this workshop also includes breakfast and lunch. Bring your appetite!

Saturday Workshop #2

Growing Organic at Home

Lawn Care
Edible Landscaping
Homegrown Vegetables
Native Plants

January 27th
8:00AM-5:30PM
Organic Home Gardening Workshop

We're holding this workshop at the conference for the first time. To a large degree the growth of organic agriculture in Texas started with folks using organic practices in their home landscapes. We would like to reward you pioneers that started this movement in Texas with your own workshop! And invite others that may be new to gardening to join us and learn how to care for the home landscape with organic methods.

We're really proud of our lineup of speakers and I think you'll be impressed too. We'll tell you how to care for all parts of your home landscape from the lawn to the vegetable garden to your native plants and how to amend the soil to make them all grow better.

Well known author and radio host Howard Garrett , The Dirt Doctor, (photo at left) will keynote both workshops first thing in the morning. Then we'll go into our two workshop presentations. Attendees of both workshops will dine for breakfast and lunch together.

Also presenting witll be John Dromgoole from The Natural Gardener. From the DFW area we've got Lucy Harrell, from Ladies of the Garden and Dottie Woodson, the Tarrant County Extension Horticulturist. And more!

If you want to know how to grow things organically in your own landscape this is going to be a great workshop for you!

Here too, your fee for this workshop also includes breakfast and lunch.

General Conference Information

Hampton Inn - Mesquite at Rodeo Center
1700 Rodeo Drive
Mesquite, Texas 75149

January 24 - 27, 2007

We'll also have other happenings at the conference. A big Exhibitor Show will be going on during the conference on Thursday and Friday. You'll also find a Silent Auction and the TOFGA Bookstore to peruse. We'll also be recording and offering the talks on CD at the conference.

Texas Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association
962 State Highway 71E
Bastrop, Texas 78602
512-303-0816
info@tofga.org

This year, though, the standoff ended — at least for three longtime farmers in this fertile valley, who began collaborating with their former enemies to preserve wildlife and their livelihoods.

The Nature Conservancy, which usually buys land to shield it from development, is renting land from the three farmers on behalf of migrating Western sandpipers, black-bellied plovers, dunlins, marbled godwits and other shorebirds.

From private and public funds, including a grant from the federal Environmental Protection Agency, the farmers, David Hedlin, Gail Thulen and Alan Mesman, will together receive up to $350,000 for three years of labor, expenses and the use of 210 acres, said Kevin Morse, the Skagit Delta project manager for the conservancy.

Each man has committed about 70 acres to this project, which is called Farming for Wildlife. A third of that land will be flooded with a few inches of fresh water in the spring, fall and winter. This will create shallow ponds to entice thousands of birds, some of them on their way to and from the Arctic, to stop and snack on tiny invertebrates and worms as they travel along the Pacific flyway.

More than a dozen shorebird species have declined primarily because of the loss of local wetlands, said Gary Slater, research director at the Ecostudies Institute here and a consultant for the Nature Conservancy. The farmers see the Nature Conservancy’s willingness to pay them as an acknowledgment that they should not be expected to sacrifice their land or their living for wildlife. This approach effectively turns shorebirds into another crop to manage, instead of grounds for a lawsuit.

“The stewardship ethic in this valley is incredibly strong, but it doesn’t trump the bank,” said Mr. Hedlin, 56, who, with his wife, Serena Campbell, grows farmer’s market produce, vegetable seeds, pumpkins, winter wheat and pickling cucumbers on their 400-acre farm.

Mr. Hedlin’s 70-acre Farming for Wildlife parcel has been under water since a heavy November rain breached a dike and flooded the field, in a preview of what environmentalists hope will happen. Edged with wild roses and blackberry bushes, this accidental lake quickly attracted wintering waterfowl like trumpeter swans, coots, and mallard, teal and wigeon ducks. An hour north of Seattle and an hour south of Vancouver, British Columbia, this region’s glorious tulip farms attract hundreds of thousands of tourists each April. Skagit farmers also produce about 80 crops of commercial significance, including seeds used to grow beets, spinach and cabbage around the world, many of the red potatoes eaten in the United States, and vegetables and dairy products sent to farmer’s markets and restaurants in the Pacific Northwest.

Thousands of years of flooding on the Skagit River deposited a rich layer of topsoil in the “magic Skagit,” as Mr. Hedlin calls the valley. European immigrants flocked here starting in the 1860s and built Victorian houses for their families on the board-flat green fields.

They also constructed an elaborate network of earthen dikes to capture land from the saltwater delta and prevent the rivers from flooding their farms. On this managed agricultural landscape, tens of thousand of acres of farmland were once tidal wetlands, Mr. Hedlin said.

Since the mid-1990s, residents have tried to slow development as strip malls and housing subdivisions marched northward from Seattle. Skagit County residents pay extra taxes to buy development rights from farmers, and a charitable group, Skagitonians to Preserve Farmland, warns that “Pavement is forever.”

Many conservationists have also decided that farms are better than pavement, and say they are willing to balance preservation with profitable land use.

Mr. Morse lives here and even volunteered to spend two days last spring selling Mr. Hedlin’s produce at a farmer’s market. “We don’t know anything about farming,” Mr. Morse told the farmers recently over coffee and sandwiches at the Rexville Grocery. “You guys are the stewards of the land. You tell me what to do.”

For this experiment, each farmer’s 70-acre parcel has been planted with a mixture of clover and grass to enrich the soil. While a third of the land will be periodically flooded for birds, a third will be fenced as pasture for dairy cows, and the rest will be mowed and otherwise left alone. Farms here are gradually shifting toward organic production because consumers willingly pay much more for organic food. As another incentive to join Farming for Wildlife, the 210 acres will be available for organic use after three years.

Mr. Mesman will start producing organic milk with his 225 Holstein cows next spring. Mr. Thulen sees a big market for organic potatoes. “In my time, I can see our little valley was farmed very hard,” said Mr. Thulen, whose 2,000-acre farm was begun by his grandfather in 1867. “That pendulum has swung to get the ground healthy again.”

In an ideal world, the Nature Conservancy would love to persuade farmers to add wetlands to their regular crop rotation. To that end, the group’s scientists will analyze soil samples to assess whether shallow flooding might improve soil fertility as much as cow manure and mowed grass do. In a similar project on the Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Northern California, farmers reported better potato yields and fewer nematodes, a harmful worm, on land that had been purposefully flooded. But scientists say this may not apply in the Skagit Valley, where the soil has a higher clay content.

Whether or not they end up with more productive land, the three farmers seem pleased to try something new without financial risk. “If 100 years from now,” Mr. Hedlin said, “there are healthy viable family farms in this valley and waterfowl and wildlife and salmon in the river, then everyone wins.”

The demand for hydrocarbon energy—or energy from crude oil, natural gas and coal—will continue to rise. However, potential sources of energy include biomass sources, such as trees, agricultural crops, animal manure and municipal solid waste, he said.

The publication primarily focuses on converting manure to energy on the farm and the management of co-products resulting from that conversion, Mukhtar said.

Co-author of the publication was Sergio Capareda, assistant professor in the department of biological and agricultural engineering at Texas A&M University.

The free publication (No. 428) may be ordered from the Extension Bookstore Web site at http://tcebookstore.org/. Click on the links for Agriculture and then Livestock to find the publication. It also may be ordered from the Texas Animal Manure Management Issues Web page.

"(Fees for) very similar programs are often $150 to $200," said Paula Swope, member of the Henderson County Horse Committee, which is associated with Texas Cooperative Extension in Henderson County. "We just wanted to meet basic expenses."

The "Mare and Foal Management Program" will be held at Trinity Valley Community College on Jan.27. Belinda Arden, left, and Rebecca Maple, show off a new foal to Arden's twins, Bret and Brianna Arden. Arden and Maple are both members of the Henderson County Horse Committee, which is hosting a mare and foal management course in Athens on Jan. 27. (Courtesy photo by Paula Sue Swope)