TPWD Land Acquisition Comment Period - Enchanted Rock SNA
August 2024's TPW Commission meeting has a few action items worth mentioning.
A short newsletter today. Apparently I signed up for the TPW Commission’s email updates for their meetings and had forgotten about it so I was pleasantly surprised to see it in my inbox this morning. Their quarterly meeting is next week on August 21-22, 2024 and there are a couple of land acquisitions that I think are worth sending in comments of support.
The main/biggest item is for acquisition of 630 acres adjacent to Enchanted Rock State Natural Area. The commission is looking to add this acreage from a willing seller for land directly south of the current natural area. It’s been more than a decade since I’ve been to Enchanted Rock and I absolutely loved the park but if you know that park at all, it can get crowded quickly and the entry lines get long! Adding in more park acreage to spread out crowds and add in more hiking and camping opportunities would be great!
Location map from TPWD, red is current park land, yellow is the proposed purchase. I was curious how much TPWD was going to pay for the property because it isn’t listed in their agenda but it didn’t take much effort to find the real estate listing. It’s currently listed at $18.9 million. You can peruse the listing here. The other thing I’m curious about is how this is being funded. Is this being funded by Centennial Parks Conservation Fund monies? It would be nice for TPW to clarify that in their information so we know how much money from that is just adding land to current state parks vs creating new state parks. Adding on the 630 acres seems like a win to me—though, if I had a cool $18.9 million I might consider buying it myself! hah!
Read the agenda information: https://tpwd.texas.gov/business/feedback/meetings/2024/0822/agenda/item.phtml?item=7
And comment on it here: https://tpwd.texas.gov/business/feedback/public_comment/proposals/202408_gillespie_county.phtml
Accepting a donation of 33.616 acres of land in Brazoria County for the Follets Island Coastal Management Area. Follets Island is a 13-mile piece of land from Surfside to San Luis Pass that is bordered by the Gulf of Mexico and Christmas Bay. TPWD has been purchasing or accepting donations of land since 2014 to protect coastal habitat in this area. If you look on the map below you can see that this would protect coastal marsh habitat from development. Seems like a win to me!
Read the agenda information: https://tpwd.texas.gov/business/feedback/meetings/2024/0822/agenda/item.phtml?item=6
Comment on the item here: https://tpwd.texas.gov/business/feedback/public_comment/proposals/202408_brazoria_county.phtml
Follets Island area of interesting, from TPWD.
Two other items on the agenda include establishment of Chronic Wasting Disease surveillance zones and a pipeline easement at JD Murphree WMA in Jefferson county. You can read the rest of the agenda here and follow the links within it to submit public comments and find out how to attend the meeting in person.
Thank you all who commented via Substack or email last week about SAD in the summer and dealing with the heat and conflicts of being an outdoors person through it all. I truly appreciate it. I did end up getting out for a short 3 mile hike for my book on Sunday morning and it reiterated the need to just get outside. Get out and do the hike, pull the weeds, whatever…even if it is early morning and a shortened amount of time. It does a wonder for your mental health. And then yes, escape to the a/c and a cool drink and indoor activities!
I’ll be back next week with a regular essay. This one just came on my radar this morning and I wanted to get it out into the world before the comment period closed.
Misti writes regularly at Oceanic Wilderness and In the Weeds. She hosts one podcast, Orange Blaze: A Florida Trail Podcast, and recently retired The Garden Path Podcast.