Ranching Practices Research Findings

March 18, 2008 9:30am – 4:30 pm – Ozona, TX

Join us at the Ozona Chamber of Commerce meeting room at 9:30am on Tuesday, March 18 for a day of fascinating discoveries in the realm of how our decisions and actions regarding our land can influence communities; from the tiny world of the soil food web through larger and larger ecosystems, all the way to the greater whole of global climates.

After welcomes and introductions, Dr. Dick Richardson sets the stage for seeing climate change as an opportunity with a short talk entitled “Ecosystem Problems and Mistaken Identity.” Professor and Director, School of Biological Sciences, Section of Integrative Biology, University of Texas at Austin, Dr. Richardson holds a Ph.D. in crop and soil science, genetics, and experimental statistics.

We have many people telling us that we have PROBLEMS, such as “CO2 excess” and “greenhouse gases” that scientific analysis predicts will interference with climatic stability and atmospheric conditions. However, there is another way to see this situation. In fact, “problems” can be misidentified OPPORTUNITIES that have value and useful functions.

Do we tend to see our glass as half empty or half full? Holistic Management is a way to find the opportunities for improving our quality of life by such an analysis. We search for ways that the contents can do more for us than simply using it for one purpose. One way is to redefine a “problem” as an “opportunity.” Another way is to see that a particular enterprise that has “costs” or “wastes” also has features that turn these negative aspects into positive reuse as “resources” that support production in other enterprises. This is “stacking benefits” by creative management. The presenters in this mini-conference show how this can be done in general, and has been done at the West Ranch.

Dr. Pat Richardson will explain the recently completed producer grant for Southern SARE (Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education), conducted on Ozona’s David West Station, Holistic Management International. The project is entitled “Addressing Cedar Infestations Sustainably—Using Animal Impact to Increase Forage Production and Improve Soil Health.”

The “problem” - Throughout the U.S., the issue of noxious or “problem” plants continues to grow, affecting thousands of acres of productive agricultural land. In Texas, one of the key species affecting ranchers, particularly limited resource ranchers who are further compromised by limited profit margins, is cedar (redberry and liveberry juniper). These ranchers then have increased expenses trying to eradicate cedar through burning, bulldozing, and/or herbicides. These treatments not only decrease profits, they lead to compromised soil health, reduced retention of soil water and decreased biodiversity.

The “opportunity” - Ranchers consider cedar, like other “problem” plants, to be in competition with more desirable forage species. Thus, many focus on removing the problem plants rather than improving soil health. Our project focused on improving soil health, increasing the bulk of desirable forage species, and reducing the establishment of new cedar trees. It did not involve removing existing cedars. On the West Ranch (Ozona, Texas), the research team has selected a test area on which we have asked the question, “Can planned grazing improve soil health, increase forage production, and/or reduce the establishment of new cedars, when compared to an adjacent control area?”

Dr. Pat is a research fellow at University of Texas, Austin and has served as research team leader on this project. She will describe our research methods. As part of the research, she has a most unique video to show us that includes live footage of the soil mesofauna creatures interacting in their natural habitat.

Dr. Richard Teague will present the results of the experiments in this project on the West Ranch, as well as other research he has been conducting on several ranches to discover how land management affects water infiltration in the soil. Richard is a research scientist with Texas AgriLife Research (formerly known as Texas Agricultural Experiment Station). He has conducted extensive research in the areas of developing sustainable rangeland management strategies. His philosophy is that research and service must provide the linkage that enables managers to base decisions for sustainable land use on the principles of ecosystem function. Dr. Teague’s findings can be studied in great detail at vernon.tamu.edu/IRM/rangecol/WRT.RangeEcology.htm

Malcolm Beck, acclaimed naturalist, will present evidence that good land management sequesters carbon at the soil level, as well as creating healthy ecosystem processes that can contribute to slowing harmful climate change. Malcolm Beck is the founder of Garden-Ville and known throughout the country as a leading authority and practitioner in the field of organic growing. Widely sought-after as an entertaining speaker, Beck's home-spun approach to farming, gardening and research is based on the belief that if you work with nature, nature will reward your efforts. Malcolm’s findings can be discovered on his website, www.malcolmbeck.com

After a simple lunch (included), Joe and Peggy Maddox will describe management practices on the West Ranch, where cattle and hair sheep are used as land reclamation tools, as well as income producing enterprises. We break at 2pm for the group to carpool (optional) about 45 minutes to the West Ranch. Joe Maddox will continue his talk about planned grazing principles; show planned grazing charts and monitoring results. The group will go to one of the water points where Joe will explain how they move the cattle by opening different gates and answer any questions about fencing. Carpools will head back to Ozona about 4:30pm.

Fees to attend this event are $15 for HMI-Texas members and $20 for non-members. Register online at http://hrm-texas.org or with Jeanie Dreinhofer (jdreinhofer@hrm-texas.org or 325-348-3014).

Holistic Management Financial Planning Class

April 10, 10:30am to 5pm at Homestead Heritage Farm, Elm Mott, TX

Would you like to get a handle on your finances and time? Learn how to prioritize your expenses and time management so you live the life you want.

Holistic Management® Financial Planning is much more than budgeting. It helps you learn how to say NO to things or people who don't improve your quality of life and YES to a value-centered life. This course will help you take the stress out of financial planning as you learn techniques on how to prioritize expenses, increase income and profit, and keep on track. This course is for anyone who would like more time and money to improve their life, their community, and the land. No experience with Holistic Management necessary.

Dr. Ann Adams, Certified Educator from Holistic Management International, comes to us from Albuquerque to teach this advanced class that you have been asking for. Cost of the class is $75 for HMI-Texas members / $90 for non-members, $135/$165 couple’s price. Register by April 1, online at http://hrm-texas.org or with Jeanie Dreinhofer (jdreinhofer@hrm-texas.org or 325-348-3014).

Holistic Management –What it can do for You

April 10, 1 to 5pm at Homestead Heritage Farm, Elm Mott, TX

A four hour session led by Peggy Maddox, Certified Educator from HMI West Ranch in Ozona, Texas, will focus on Holistic Management and its benefits for you and your family. Participants will learn how Holistic Management deals with social, economic and environmental challenges simultaneously.

Listen, experience, and learn how to get control of your life and make decisions in a sustainable way. Cost of the class is $45 for HMI-Texas members / $55 for non-members, $80/100 couples. Register by April 1, online at http://hrm-texas.org or with Jeanie Dreinhofer (jdreinhofer@hrm-texas.org or 325-348-3014).

Value Added Living—In Community, HRM Annual Meeting

April 11-12 at Homestead Heritage Farm, Elm Mott, TX.
Conference hotel: The Fairfield Inn & Suites—Waco North.
Special rate $99 good till March 10. Call 254-412-2535 for reservations.

Did you ever think a farming community from the early 1900’s had it right? Strong values of family and community working together in peace and harmony to grow the healthiest food and honor the Earth and the Creator with handiwork so lovingly honed it makes you gasp. Homestead Heritage Farm is living this ideal of a sustainable community of sustainable family farms held together by what they call “traditional values” and faith in the Divine order shaping their lives.
We have asked this community to host us for our 2008 Annual Meeting so we can see this holism in action, learn how values can lead to a Quality of Life, to Forms of Production and a Sustainable Resource Base that side-steps many aspects of our modern American culture seen as not congruent with these values. In addition we will be introduced to some of the lost arts of sustainable agrarian life.

Thursday workshops in Holistic Management Financial Planning and What Holistic Management Can Do for You, provide the setting and the understanding of holism. The Thursday evening social, 6 to 7:30pm at the Fairfield Inn & Suites, Waco North offers our yearly networking and connecting opportunity for members and others interested in the mutual support of this not-for-profit organization.

Friday offers an exploration of the role of community, values and agrarian skills in sustainability. Homestead Heritage Farm’s Butch Tindell will give the foundations of the community and present some real life examples of holism within the community and within individuals.

We will form small groups to take each of 4 different tours of this most amazing farm made up of little family farms in a sustaining community. Tours include: a walking tour of the working demonstration homestead; a horse-drawn hayride tour of the upper land with a stop at the scenic overlook of the Brazos River bottom where they farm with horses; a craft village tour of the woodworking/furniture shop, pottery shop, blacksmith shop, restored barn (circa 1760) which serves as a retail shop for our handmade crafts, deli and bakery and the restored gristmill (circa 1750); and a tour of the restored historical buildings, explaining the history and the historical construction methods of each building.

Lunch and supper on Friday and lunch on Saturday are included will be created onsite with home grown grass-fed meats and other goodies. There will be time for shopping in the craft store before supper.

After supper Friday evening Holistic Management International’s Executive Director Peter Holter will take our concepts of community global with stories of holistically managed communities, farms and ranches all over the world. Some use modern technologies to create sustainability and others use traditionally low-tech methods. You will feel connected to a worldwide movement to create healthier lands for a sustainable future.

Saturday morning is a time to come together as the HRM community. We will have our annual business meeting, elect new directors, hear the plans for the future and participate in envisioning our path for the years to come.

After lunch small groups will re-form to choose four different short classes in some of the introduced to some of the lost arts of sustainable agrarian life such as: beekeeping, orchards and vineyards, cheese-making, spinning & weaving and home schooling. We will adjourn about 4pm.

Costs for the 2-day program, including 3 meals, are: $140 for HMI-Texas members / $160 for non-members, $260/$300 couples. Register by April 1, online at http://hrm-texas.org or with Jeanie Dreinhofer (jdreinhofer@hrm-texas.org or 325-348-3014).

Kids on the Land

Interested in working with children? Join us for the second offering of Kids on the Land. Develop our future resource base--KIDS! Get your hands dirty! Become a LINK (Learning In Nature with Kids) and share Holistic Management with Kids on the Land!

This valuable field experience at the West Ranch, in Ozona Texas, begins with two days preparing the field experience instructional delivery, and 4 fun-filled days with students. A practitioners’ guide for taking Kids on the Land to other places is being developed.

Peggy Maddox, Director of Education at the West Ranch, is seeking interested individuals, especially those passionate about working with kids. Room, board, and some travel stipend provided. Please call soon, as space is limited. Date is May 2-8. With an additional opportunity May 14-15. Contact Peggy at 325-392-2292 or westgift@hughes.net. Here is a link to an article about the experience from last summer:

Windmills Anyone?

After a catered barbecue lunch from Big Boys Barbecue of Sweetwater, our host, Kathy Dickson will tell us the colorful history of this wonderful land on the headwaters spring of sweet water. The land has been in her family for many generations. Kathy will show us her landscaping with native plants and native rocks, her late husband Temple Dickson’s amazing meandering rock walls, his cedar mulching process and the cattle operation of about 450 mama cows. Don’t miss this opportunity to experience the presence of the big wind turbines on this peaceful ranch and ask Greg and Kathy all your burning questions.

Fees to attend are $25 for HMI-Texas members, $35 for others. Register by June 16 http://hrm-texas.org or with Jeanie Dreinhofer (jdreinhofer@hrm-texas.org or 325-348-3014).

We've been very busy and you will be noticing a lot of exciting new developments for Holistic Management here in Texas. You will see a new name, a new logo and a new look. However the most important things won't change. We will still be getting the word out about Holistic Management in Texas and supporting our members every way we can. In fact it is the realization that we need to reach more people and provide more information and support that has led us to partner with Holistic Management International. Together we can build a synergy and brand consistency that will strengthen the Holistic Management message in Texas. The end result will be more land that is healthy with families that are reaching their goals and a sustainable future for everyone who eats food, drinks water or breathes air.

Achieving these results will take all of us doing our part to have the impact that is so urgently needed. The most important action for each of us is to put into practice the principles of Holistic Management. This helps us to make decisions that move us toward our own holisticgoals. The next step is to help get the word out about Holistic Management. You can do this by talking to your friends and neighbors about HM and inviting them to our field days and events. Another way is to help us as an organization reach more people and have more events and classes, is by joining at a higher membership level, making a donation, hosting a field day or volunteering for a committee. With all of us pulling together, the future will be great.

A group of folks that have put their money on the line for that future are those that have provided the seed money for the Holistic Management International - Texas Foundation. At the recent Bear Creek event we honored Clint Josey and donated money to see the organization continue in the future. We received a total of $5,870. Our president, John Hackley along with his Richards Ranch led the way with a total of $5,000 donation. THANK YOU, John!! The rest was round out with donations from Jo Albright, Peggy Cole, Kathy Dickson, Guy Glosson, Peggy and Joe Maddox, Merridee McClatchy, Judith and Michael McGeary, Wally and Doris Olson, Rust Reid, Nancy C. Smith and Ben West. A big thanks to all of you!

With the intention to Advance the integration of science, policy and public dialogue related to instream flow and improve the ability of diverse stakeholders to cooperatively solve instream flow problems in the U.S. and Canada, The Instream Flow Council and Texas Parks and Wildlife are hosting the conference and 3 workshops.

Conference participants can expect to:

* Build personal skills related to collaborative decision-making through a workshop with world-renowned collaborative trainer, Larry Susskind.
* Learn about creative and interdisciplinary tools and approaches to instream flow problem-solving from across the United States and Canada.
* Explore the latest developments in instream flow science, policy and public dialogue in the U.S. and Canada
* Participate in one of three pre-conference workshops on October 6th.
* Contribute experiences to defining, developing and implementing collaborative strategies to improve instream flow problem-solving in the U.S. and Canada.
* Take home inspiration, tools, personal contacts and references to address instream flow issues locally.

For more info www.instreamflowcouncil.org/flow2008/index.htm

Sustainability has become synonymous with good land stewardship. Often, sustainability is referred to in the context of ecological resilience alone. But, more broadly, it is comprised of five elements: ecological, economic, social, cultural, and aesthetic.

Sand County Foundation has presented its Leopold Conservation Award annually since 2003 to private landowners who exemplify land stewardship and who are leaders in their communities. Initially presented in Texas and Colorado, these awards are now also made in several other states.

The award recipients are resilient, resourceful, and innovative managers who are remarkably in tune with their land, which provides high quality habitats. Together, they represent some of the best, brightest, and most conservation oriented landowners in the country. They think about sustainability in terms of passing their land in good condition to the next generation of their families. Their stories are insightful and inspiring.

In partnership with the Department of Ecosystem Science & Management at Texas A&M University, Sand County Foundation will bring these landowners together on October 24, 2008 to tell their stories in the first of a series of landowner symposia. The one day symposium will be attended by 50 to 80 landowners and agency personnel and will be open to up to 150 students.

For more info www.generationsontheland.com

Attendance has been falling at America's national parks since 1987. Blame videophilia, says a Nature Conservancy report.

Videophilia is the love of electronic media. Those screens may be showing Internet, video games, movies or just plain TV. Young Americans are so glued to video that many rarely venture into the natural world outside. That troubles environmentalists, who see a growing estrangement from nature in high-tech societies. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the new study reported a similar trend in Japan and Spain.

Of course, adults can be videophilic, too. I recall a recent splendid Sunday afternoon: Rather than skip into the golden sunlight, I stayed home to check e-mail and search for airfares to nowhere in particular. Then I watched a movie on TV. At least I knew what I was missing.

That may not be the case for many of today's children, who have rarely experienced quality time with trees, rocks and frogs.

Author Richard Louv sees this as a sickness and has a name for it: "nature deficit disorder."

"Today, kids can tell you anything about the Amazon rain forest," Louv told me, "but not the last time they saw the leaves move."

Contact with nature does wonders for children, according to the Center for Environmental Health. It helps ease attention-deficit disorder, aids cognitive development, enhances creativity and reduces stress.

Louv thinks that video games shouldn't take all the rap for nature-deficit disorder. Parents don't encourage leisurely exploration of undeveloped landscapes. Some feel it wastes precious time. "They're afraid that if they don't get the kids in Suzuki violin lessons they won't get into Harvard," said Louv, who wrote a book on nature-poor upbringings, Last Child in the Woods.

Many parents also have a primal fear that a child in the wild will be kidnapped or otherwise victimized by adults. Such cases are very rare, but the cable channels grab them and play the stories over and over suggesting an epidemic of crime against children. As a result, Louv says, entire generations are being raised under "protective house arrest."

Environmentalists worry that the loss of direct contact with the natural world will eventually weaken Americans' commitments to conservation and biodiversity.

"Studies show almost to a person," Louv says, "that people with an environmental consciousness had a transcendent experience when they were kids."

What do you mean by "nature"? I had to ask.

Answer: Nature can be Yellowstone National Park, but also a clump of trees at the end of a cul-de-sac ˜ an example of what ecologists call "nearby nature." To a biologist's eyes the clump might not look like much, but to the child, it can seem a universe.

Louv also faults the environmental movement for this turning away from nature. Preschoolers are handed books about recycling and see the environment as a joyless thing. For older students, constant talk about global warming and loss of habitat is programming kids to associate nature with Armageddon.

Eventually, children should learn about the environmental threats, but first they must develop a firsthand love of nature. They have to simply go outdoors, listen to the wind, smell the wildflowers and look under rocks.

Louv urges fearful parents to go with their kids into natural surroundings. (The experience reduces their stress, too). And they should support the Scouts, nature centers and other organizations that help children get outside. Playing a National Geographic special on whales to the kids in the back seat does not constitute a complete environmental education. Parents should take the kids for a walk in a park.

Nature-deficit disorder may be a growing malady but, fortunately, one that can be easily cured.

By Andrea Lorenz, Austin American-Statesman, February 17, 2008

HUTTO It's barely light outside when Ron Hanson shovels cottonseed into the bed of a '66 Ford truck on his land northwest of Hutto.

He doesn't hurry, even though his cows are audibly hungry and the day's chores fit on a list that always gets longer, never shorter. On the farm road nearby, sport-utility vehicles and cars outnumber trucks like his. Where there was once empty land beyond the property tree line near Hanson's cattle pens, there are now houses. A Home Depot and an asphalt parking lot cover soil where Hanson once grew cotton.

Hanson, 54, dreams of owning a bigger spread, but he doesn't move. This particular piece of land means more to him than the millions he'd make from a sale. At one time, his family worked 1,400 acres; his grandfather once made money selling cows' milk to a cheese factory in Round Rock, his dad planted sorghum, and Hanson later switched to corn.

That was before developers discovered Hutto.

Like others in Williamson County, Hanson faces a dilemma: sell his property and make a nice profit or stay and watch the world around him change. Hanson grew up in a Hutto with fewer than 1,000 people. Until a few years ago, he knew almost every one of them. The city has burgeoned to about 17,000 people, with most newcomers living in suburban neighborhoods on former farmland.

Hanson's land is in the city's prime growth corridor along Limmer Loop, a road that cut his land in two. He has vowed to remain, along with his wife and his parents, who live on the property in the home where he grew up, next to the trees that he, his father and grandfather each planted as kids.

The family even sold part of the treasured land to the Home Depot developers so they could remain on the last 200 acres a feat that would have been impossible without the land sale proceeds as a cushion during tough years. Small farms are tough businesses to sustain, as they're susceptible to changes in the weather and seed and oil prices, not to mention that the selling price of their product depends on a larger force: the commodities market.

Hanson doesn't like to think about what will happen when the last holdouts in Hutto sell, as his neighbors to the east and southwest have.

"It'll be sad," he said somberly, the most emotion he allows himself. "I'm going to go feed my cows."

Many of Hanson's 50 or so cows will bear calves soon. (The cottonseed is for protein.) He'll deliver last year's calves to an auction house in Taylor the next day. He cranks up the Ford that his dad bought new in 1965 to use as a service truck. It was the first truck Hanson drove, and he's too attached to let it go.

Prices on the rise

The price of rural land surrounding large cities in Texas has increased over the years, making the prospect of selling attractive to landowners.

"There are some farmers, I think, that are tired of farming, and they're ready for someone to make them an offer," said Seth Terry, Central Texas agriculture program coordinator of the Texas Farm Bureau.

For owners like Hanson who want to work the land, farming doesn't bring in the revenue that development does.

"From a pure numbers standpoint, it makes perfect sense to sell out and move from the urban area," said Charles Gilliland, a research economist at Texas A&M University.

Rural land across the state has gone up in value, Gilliland said, but the area around Austin has gone up more.

Gilliland's research doesn't break down sales by county, but his center at Texas A&M University keeps figures for seven counties: Travis, Williamson, Hays, Bastrop, Caldwell, Lee and Milam.

In those counties, the median price of an acre increased from $1,866 in 2000 to $4,000 in 2006.

Those prices are far below the cost of land in Hutto, where an acre can go for $20,000 for residential use and as much as $870,000 for commercial land, local real estate broker Mike Fowler said.

Buyers' motivation is partly responsible for driving up the price, Gilliland said. The Texas rural real estate market is dominated right now by people wanting either an investment or a recreation property, he said, although rising corn prices could increase the demand for agricultural land.

To sell or not?

Many farmers and ranchers have sold, including Hanson. The millions he made from selling to Home Depot have kept him out of debt, a fate that many farmers face.

Now he can keep his land without worries about money. There are new worries to replace them though. His former hunting grounds are mostly cleared out for development, and Brushy Creek isn't much of a fishing spot anymore. About five years ago, the bigger land sales started, and with development of homes nearby, it became too dangerous to shoot coyotes on his land.

He goes to country stores for coffee or burgers to be around "farm boys" like himself; he has no use for the Chili's within sight of his workshop. He often shops at Home Depot, sometimes telling the checkers that he used to play in a particular spot years ago. Their disinterest, he said, makes him think they don't believe him or they don't care.

Hanson said he fears his suburban neighbors have the same attitude, although he hasn't asked.

"It's sad to say, I can't go over to all the people living in those houses," he said, pausing at his 1960 John Deere tractor that he uses to haul hay to his cattle. "It's not that I don't owe them people my friendship, but it works both ways. (If) they come over, I'll talk to them."

He looks toward their tightly spaced homes and wonders what they think when they look over at his land.

"Would they like to be where I am in a house with 200 to 300 acres around it?" he asked. "I'd like to have a house with 1,000 acres around it."

A few of them do feel like they have 200 acres even if it's Hanson's land they look out at.

"That's what it kind of feels like," Gina Crump said. "I have a fence, but we see the cows. We see everything."

The Crumps bought their home in Hutto Parke because they heard the farmer with land just beyond their backyard didn't plan to sell.

"I love the farmer," said her neighbor, Valerie Artley Allen. "Tell him to keep it up."

Hanson's great-grandfather moved to Hutto from Sweden in 1910. He came with nothing and slowly bought land and equipment and learned how to farm the new terrain. Like other settlers, he tilled the land under the tall grasses of the Blackland Prairie to reveal the black dirt below. After years of trial and error, the settlers learned how to work with the soil, which expands with just a little water and dries hard as cement without it.

"There's a lot of good acres under Home Depots and subdivisions and golf courses," said Williamson County extension agent Zan Matthies.

Hanson worked the land beneath what is now the Hutto Parke subdivision for more than 20 years, until the owner sold it in 1999 to a home builder. But the rich soil that's been so good to Hanson has caused problems for his new neighbors. Many who bought homes in Hutto Parke are asking their builder to buy the homes back because of cracking walls and foundations, caused partly by the fluctuating soil. Hearing that, Hanson said, he feels justified in farming the land, not building on it.

"It's ideal for agriculture," he said.

The homes brought more than just changes to the scenery.

Twice, drivers have run into Hanson's fence. He worries what would happen if one of his cows got loose and caused a car accident. When drivers were few and more likely to be farm people, it wouldn't have been a problem. Sharing the same space with suburbanites brings scores of scary what-if scenarios for farmers and ranchers, Terry and Matthies said.

Farmers often have to convince their new neighbors that the pesticides sprayed just beyond their backyards won't harm them. When a strange dog bothers the cows, a rancher's usual practice is to shoot it. But with suburbs nearby, that dog is probably a lost pet.

"Everybody's eyeing (farmers) under a microscope," Matthies said.

Given these worries and increasing land values, why stay?

"Their way of life is so important to them that they figure out a way to make it work," Terry said. "They don't want to be forced out against their will."

Rude awakening

For now, no one is trying to force Hanson from his land. When he sold to Home Depot, he made an unwritten deal with the City of Hutto, he said. The city has no plans to annex Hanson's property. On long-range planning maps, it's marked as open space rather than commercial or residential, so the Hansons won't have to pay the higher taxes required for a commercial property or deal with curious developers.

"We did that intentionally" to help the Hansons keep their land, said Matthew Lewis, Hutto's chief city planner.

Still, Hanson's property is at the center of where city leaders expect most growth.

Hanson knows that he'll probably be the last person to work this plot of land. His sister lives in Lake Jackson and would be happy if he sold the family land to split the proceeds, he said. He has no biological children; his stepson didn't grow up on the land and has no attachment or interest in working it. He hopes only that he can stay for his lifetime.

He said that, like aging, the growth has come gradually. It's easier to deal with that way.

"If it would have happened over two to three years ˜ oh, my God," he said. "What a rude awakening."

He looks out of the opening in his workshop, toward the shopping center with Chili's and Home Depot. Now, he said, things probably are going too fast.

"It's getting out of hand," he said.

The ink is still moist on Capitol Hill's latest energy bill and, as if on cue, a scientific avalanche is demolishing its assumptions. To wit, trendy climate-change policies like ethanol and other biofuels are actually worse for the environment than fossil fuels. Then again, Washington's energy neuroses are more political than practical, so it's easy for the Solons and greens to ignore what would usually be called evidence.

The rebukes arrive via two new studies in Science, a peer-reviewed journal not known for right-wing proclivities. The first, by ecologists at Princeton and the Woods Hole Research Center, reviews the environmental consequences of increased biofuel consumption, which had never been examined comprehensively. Of course, that didn't stop Congress and the Bush Administration from jacking up the U.S. mandate to 36 billion gallons by 2022, a fivefold increase from a mere two years ago. Such policies are supposedly justified because corn-based ethanol and other "alternatives" result in (very modest) reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions when mixed with gasoline.

The researchers break new ground by exposing a kind of mega-accounting error: Prior studies had never credited the carbon-dioxide emissions that arise when virgin forests, grasslands and the like are cleared to grow biofuel feedstocks. About 2.7 times more carbon is stored in terrestrial soils and plant material than in the atmosphere, and this carbon is released when these areas are cleared (often by burning) and the soil is tilled. Compounding problems is the loss of "carbon sinks" that absorb atmospheric CO2 in the bargain. Previous projections had also ignored the second-order effects of transferring normal farm land to biofuels, which exerts world-wide pressure on land use.

So, incredibly, when the hidden costs of conversion are included, greenhouse-gas emissions from corn ethanol over the next 30 years will be twice as high as from regular gasoline. In the long term, it will take 167 years before the reduction in carbon emissions from using ethanol "pays back" the carbon released by land-use change. As they say, it's not easy being green.

The second study comes out of the University of Minnesota and the Nature Conservancy and explores what the authors call the "carbon debt" when native ecosystems are converted to biofuel stock. Until the debt is repaid, biofuels from those fields will be greater net emitters than the fossil fuels they replace. The authors find that the debt for corn ethanol in the U.S. is between 48 and 93 years. In Indonesia and Malaysia, which have a 1.5% annual rate of deforestation to produce palm oil for Western European biodiesel, the debt is as high as 423 years. Yep, that's four centuries. Even Fidel Castro won't last that long.

If all this doesn't lead to a great awakening among policy makers, we don't know what will. The studies are even more damning because they examine the issue with the theories of the global warmists and conclude that biofuels actually exacerbate the problem they're supposed to solve. On top of that, they're creating new environmental troubles like deforestation and a reduction in biodiversity that may be worse over time than whatever the importance of observed climate change. In either case, or both, they're damaging the planet more than they're helping it.

Ethanol and biofuel proponents always point out that current options are little more than placeholders, temporary fixes until the technology advances and "second-generation" options emerge: "It's just around the corner," we're told. "No, really, this time it's real." That's why the Congressional energy bill put a cap on corn ethanol and, with lavish subsidies and tax credits, essentially legislated the creation of a speculative new biofuel industry from scratch. One hitch is that the technology never seems to turn that corner. Another is that, as the blockbuster Science studies imply, the unintended consequences of such divination matter more than the self-congratulation that "doing something" provides.

Yet special blame also belongs to the environmentalists, who are engaged in a grand bait-and-switch. They stir up a panic about global warming, and Washington responds to the political incentives. Then those policies don't work and the greens immediately begin pushing a new substitute, whose outcomes and costs are equally uncertain. But somehow, that never seems to discredit the entire enterprise and taxpayers keep footing the subsidy bill. Our guess is that these new revelations will also be ignored. They're too embarrassing.

Hill Country View
Thursday, 28 February 2008
Sisters gear up to fight rural dam proposal

By Linda Byrne
Editor

Friends of Bebe and Mary Fenstermaker, along with environmentalists and open space proponents who are sympathetic to the sisters’ plight, gathered for a news conference at the Fromme Farm on Feb. 11. Photos by Linda Byrne

On a piece of Hill Country land undisturbed for more than a century, ranching sisters are taking a stand.

Circling the wagons with friends, environmental activists and an eminent domain lawyer they say has been on retainer for 20 years, Bebe and Mary Fenstermaker are telling area officials to go back to the drawing board in drafting a flood control plan for the region.

Flood prevention planners have identified the Fenstermaker property off Scenic Loop Road south of Boerne as a possible location for what is being called LC16A-site 5, a flood control dam that comes with a price tag of $16 million.

David K. Langford of the Texas Wildlife Association said what the sisters’ fight boils down to is this: “Is it fair for government to give developers variances to build in a flood plain, and then condemn someone else’s land in order to build a dam protecting those houses that were knowingly and purposefully built in that very same flood plain?”

Bebe Fenstermaker said their 900-acre Maverick Ranch-Fromme Farm has been targeted for eminent domain proceedings four times previously. “We have fought bad ideas for 20 years. We think that’s enough,” she said.

Thus far, the sisters say, they have received very little written or verbal communication from the city of San Antonio, the lead agency planning the dam. They and their attorney have attended one meeting with officials in the last two years.

Ron Green, president of the Helotes Heritage Association, a group working to preserve the area’s cultural and natural heritage, said the decision-making process at the official level “has not been transparent.”

The Bexar County Commissioners Court, San Antonio City Council, the San Antonio River Authority and 17 suburban cities collaborated in 2001 to form the Bexar Regional Watershed Management partnership in order to alleviate flooding in and around San Antonio.

“BRWM has created a flood management plan and has initiated efforts to implement the plan,” Green said.

From the San Antonio River Authority’s perspective, this is all very preliminary. Bexar County is in the process of developing a multi-million dollar capital improvement program to be spread over a 10-year period.

“They’re looking to spend anywhere from $400 to $500 million, $40 million to $50 million per year, building capital improvement projects throughout the Bexar County community, solely for flood mitigation purposes,” said Steven Schauer, SARA’s manager of external communications.

The county initiated the improvement program this fiscal year and has identified about 56 projects officials want to study.

Schauer says it’s not just a matter of looking at the Fenstermaker property to see if it’s feasible to build. The pros and cons of all the sites are being identified and taken into consideration.

“We’re taking all of these other aspects, such as the open space and wildlife habitat, as well as historical nature of the property, into consideration,” he said. “All of that is needing to be incorporated in the preliminary study.”

Bebe Fenstermaker is dubious. “They say it’s preliminary, but they’ve picked the site,” she said.

Indeed, Schauer confirmed that Phase I was completed in a 10-square-mile area that includes the Maverick Ranch in August 2006.

"Phase I looked at 20 potential sites,” he said. “Phase 2 recommendations that the city is pursuing pared those down to six or seven,” and the Maverick Ranch is in that group.

Schauer said Phase 2 includes ground surveys and geological testing, historical-archeological studies, environmental assessments and a “fatal flaw” analysis.

But the Fenstermakers have not consented to a right-of-entry agreement for Phase 2 studies, which would give officials access to their property to conduct studies.

They maintain their land, which has been a working cattle ranch for 150 years, is the wrong place for a dam because it is home to two endangered bird species, the golden-cheeked warbler and the black-capped vireo, and it also has historic sites that should be left alone.

“Three historic homesteads comprising an early settlement neighborhood …ensured the listing of the entire Maverick Ranch-Fromme Farm as a district on the National Register of Historic Places. There are prehistoric sites within the Ranch-Farm and the last Indian raid in Bexar County occurred on the Maverick Ranch-Fromme Farm in 1870,” the Fenstermakers said in a news release.

Annalisa Peace, executive director of the Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance, an umbrella organization representing 41 member groups, said a public hearing is needed before any more plans are carried out.

“Northwest Bexar County contributes clean water to San Antonio. We think the highest and best use of this land is what they’re doing right here,” Peace said.

Writer Joni Simon contributed to this report.