On the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele Dufilho San Antonio is a fast growing, fast moving city with something new happening every day.

That's why each week we go on the record with Randy Beamer and the newsmakers who are driving this change.

Then we gather at the reporters roundtable to talk about the latest news stories with the journalist behind those stories.

Join us now as we go on the record with Randy Beamer.

Hi, everybody, and thank you for joining us for On the Record this week.

I'm Randy Beamer, and just over the past few days, we have seen new master plans for what's called the Arboretum of San Antonio, a whole new concept we haven't seen in South Texas or this whole area.

It was dreamed up about ten years ago by former Mayor Henry Cisneros.

And the new president and CEO is Adriano Quinones.

He's been here about two months now.

Welcome to San Antonio.

First of all, what is an arboretum?

For those of us who haven't been to any of those around the country?

Yeah.

Well, an arboretum.

It's focus specifically on the trees and the woody plants.

It's a little different than a botanical garden.

Not a whole lot different.

Just that focus is the different part.

We tend to be a little bit more wild looking.

Not quite as manicured as a botanical garden, but not because there's not manicured spaces.

It's just because trees are big and, you know, they they just have a lot more going on that way.

So it's it's similar but different than a botanical garden but still collections of trees.

We do research, we do education, that sort of thing, and make a beautiful green space.

And this is down on the southeast side, the Old Republic golf course and some other acreage that's been given, this won't open for a couple of years.

That's correct.

Why not?

What are you getting ready in that time?

As part of the master plan?

It's a lot more than we would think.

Yeah, it's it's a it's a an aggressive master plan, for sure.

It is an old golf course, and that actually lends itself beautifully to an arboretum.

The Salado Creek runs through.

There are, already beautiful, majestic trees on the property, some of them 100, 200, 300 years old, probably.

But there's still a lot of work to do.

I mean, there's about four miles of golf course paths already, but it hasn't been used since 2020, so there's some repairs to do those.

But also there's buildings to build, there's collections to collect.

There's all the things that are going into that.

So and the public had been shown three possible concepts of this.

And the the final master plan is a combination of those three.

That's correct.

What are they.

So the three different concepts were broken up based on some community, information.

We did a lot of community outreach.

We reached over 18,000 people to kind of inform us what we wanted to have this arboretum look like.

And in that process, we came up with these three kind of overriding three themes that everyone had.

One was, community, a garden built around community outreach and community, bringing everyone together.

While San Antonio, which had a lot to do with the nature, the actual native trees and that sort of thing, and then testing grounds, which was a more of a research focused kind of place.

It still had beautiful gardens, beautiful collections, but focused on research.

Now, Henry Cisneros dreamed this up as what he called a cathedral of trees.

And people might think, oh, we're going to have big, tall trees.

But in San Antonio we have a lot of live oaks, we have some pecans and others, but we don't think of the big trees that you had in Columbus.

Or you were.

Yeah, in Columbus, Georgia.

Right.

What kind of trees were we going to see?

All native?

No.

Which I really like to talk about because we focus on the native trees, for sure.

But we're also focusing on, what's going to happen as the climate changes.

What is happening to our trees?

Many people know right now our pecans are struggling.

Some cedar elms are struggling.

This is because of drought, climate change, these kinds of things.

The heating up that we're experiencing in order to make sure that we are doing what our mission is, which is to look at the trees that would adapt best to our changing climate.

We want to look at our native trees, for sure.

We also want to look at trees that might have potential to be the next generation of trees that can survive a changing climate.

Are you going to be planting trees then in the next few years?

And is this an ongoing process?

People might wonder, okay, well, there were trees there before in the golf course.

Probably live oaks, mostly.

Or depressingly.

We actually have, quite a few different species of trees.

Live oaks for sure.

Cedar elms.

We have Osage oil.

We have mulberries.

We have junipers.

We have many, many species.

I think we've counted well over 30, some 35 different species of trees currently on this.

How much of the area, say, where the fairways and greens.

Where are you going to be planning, and will that be something that kids can do when they start coming in in a couple of years, or is that going to be done?

They'll always be planting of trees.

We will have people coming in to help us.

We already have people that have a lot of interest.

They want to volunteer.

They want to plant trees.

But the reality is there's sometimes that that people can't be in their construction, that sort of thing.

We can't have everyone in there.

The green, the fairways.

There are plans for a lot of those to turn into collections of trees.

There's also areas for research in those areas where we'll have plots of trees that we're looking at to see how they are adapting.

We will have we're actually partnering with, Bexar County.

They are putting in, County Park on the property.

And the great thing about that park is it is an accessible park, meaning that people with mobility issues or different kinds of things like that can use this park.

It will be fully accessible.

It is actually the first fully accessible, playground that the county is putting in.

There are other ones that are city parks.

But it's also the first one altogether on the south side.

So that's something really exciting for us.

And are people going to pay to get in there?

There's a welcome center.

There's some buildings.

Is it going to cost them?

Is it so there is a welcome center, where we'll have classrooms.

Will have a cafe.

People can get a bite to eat, that sort of thing.

But we are committed to a free admission to all of Bexar County and all citizens of, San Antonio.

People might compare it to other parks where they drive in.

They bring their, you know, coolers and things like that.

Is that not the concept for this?

No.

We people can bring a picnic in for sure that we have beautiful spots where they can sit and and do that sort of thing.

It's not so much that, as it is a place to look at trees and see, these are.

Not barbecue pits and.

No.

Tables.

Yeah.

When they come in, what are they going to be struck by, you think mostly.

I think that they will be struck by how beautiful a place that celebrates trees is.

We are going to have a tree walk through the canopy of the tree.

So elevated above.

And getting that different perspective is is an amazing thing, if you've ever got to do it at some other place.

Everyone loves zip line or just tree walk.

Just tree walk for now or I don't rule anything quite out yet.

You know what we want to do what the public wants.

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

And good luck with that.

Adriana can Yunus, new president and CEO of the Arboretum San Antonio, down on the southeast side.

Thanks for coming.

In.

Thank you so much.

I loved being here.

Just last week, the city of San Antonio established something new here called the city's Multi-Modal Transportation Commission.

Here to explain what that is.

What it's going to do is Kat Hernandez, director of the city's transportation department.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thank you for having me.

What does a multi-modal transportation commission, what is that going to do for San Antonio?

And how long of an outlook are you are you going to bring to this?

The city took a bold step last week with creating the first multimodal Transportation Commission.

This has been done in other cities like Austin, in Corpus Christi.

And so San Antonio.

Doing this gives us an opportunity to look at the, provide recommendations related to the four policies that our department worked on in the last year.

In September of last year, we updated our Complete Streets policy.

We also updated our Vision Zero Action plan in December.

After about 11 months working with different stakeholders, on task force and subcommittee, we adopted the transit oriented policy framework.

Especially along, where the where VA is doing their advance rapid transit lines.

So to focus on, where that appropriate density and intensity of uses are.

The other big plan that was adopted in January early this year was our bike network plan.

All four of those policies have recommendations that, need to move forward, whether they are changes in ordinances and changes in our unified development code.

But we need to make sure that we have stakeholders that represent, the city citywide so we can get the input, the appropriate input on it, and they'll provide recommendations on those policies, on those changes in ordinances to city council.

And the commission has been established.

But the people on it, I have not yet been chosen.

How will that happen?

As you know, we're in an election cycle.

So at the end of every election cycle, they do a call out for, filling boards and commissions.

And so at the same time that they do that, that's when we'll start, needing to receive applications.

So if there if anyone is interested in sitting on one of those seats, reach out to the council member and also apply when the city clerk's office.

And so they will be appointed by council members.

But also you'll have members from via the Metropolitan Planning organization.

Yes.

So the composition of the commission is 13 members.

11 of those seats are, appointed by council district and the mayor.

And then we have a seat that will be appointed by the Alamo Area Metropolitan Planning Organization.

And as of.

Now, you use some phrases, some words in there.

People might not be as familiar with first complete Streets.

What is that?

And how are we going to see different complete streets in the future?

Sure.

So complete streets basically is looking at our streets through a lens to determine what are the necessary elements that we need to put on the street to make it safe for the user.

So it's all based on context.

If you think about your neighborhood street where the houses are, what are those two components that you frequently see lighting, sidewalks.

So that way your pedestrians are walking, whether they're walking to school, whether they're walking back to their home, but and lighting.

So you can see at night.

But every street is different.

And so those elements will be looked at through that complete street lens you mentioned.

Also bike paths and bikes in the future.

Are people going to see and maybe complain about that?

Every street would have a bike lane or a lot more streets would have a bike lanes.

Well, obviously we want to be sure that we remove conflict points.

As you're driving, sometimes you're a little nervous when you're riding next to a cyclist.

And so we want to be sure that we have the safe infrastructure for the cyclists so they can feel safe as well as the driver that's feeling safe.

Again, not every street needs a dedicated bike lane, because again, you can share the road in your neighborhood street when you're riding a bike, going to your.

House.

What is multimodal?

What does that part of it mean?

We think of, via park and ride, that kind of thing.

In addition to that, what are we looking at?

Multimodal just means, various routes to, to to use transportation.

Whether again, you are walking, you're going to use the sidewalk.

Leave the sidewalks on the street, whether you're cycling, whether you are taking the bus or whether you're driving is just, multiple modes of transportation is what multimodal?

Where do we need you think the biggest input of money and time and treasure working on all of those?

Is it streets?

Is it bike paths?

Is it, via.

So each of those things are different, each component.

Right.

So, there's not a bus lane on every single road.

But there also what Via's doing is trying to make sure that they have they look at their most frequently used routes and try to get people there faster, more frequent operation.

So that's why they're working on an advanced rapid transit route, on the Green Line, which is the San Pedro line.

And then they're also working on an East-West connector that would, get people faster along the Commerce route.

Bike lanes.

Yes.

Those can be expensive because you're adding it to the infrastructure.

What we're doing is we're we're partnering with our partners, like public works.

When they're doing their street maintenance program, they coordinate with us to say, okay, we're about to maintain the street or do a new thing.

Does a bike lane, is a bike lane appropriate?

It's been a lot of complaints about coordination and taking a lot of time doing streets Say, Broadway, Saint Mary strip, that kind of thing.

Is that what the commission is going to be working on as well?

The commission again, will their focus will be looking at policy changes and ordinances.

They might want to get updates on, how some of those projects are going.

But again, we're all about communication and what the city is doing.

Vision zero, you mentioned that as well.

What does that mean for people?

Vision zero is a strategy to get to zero fatalities on the road.

Whether that is through education, outreach, engineering of the roads, those are the strategies that we look at so we can continue to educate people on how to just be more, aware of your surroundings as you're driving.

We have a lot of very wide streets, a Austin Highway, some out on the west side as well.

And that's where we've had a lot of, pedestrian incidents, if not fatalities.

What can you do in those areas?

What might we look forward to that a commission would look at and recommend to the city?

Sure.

So, we actually have a program in which we're doing some corridor planning, taking some of those roads that have a lot of injuries, have a lot of deaths, and start looking at them conceptually to determine how do we make it safer.

Are the, blocks too long for somebody to cross?

Because it's very hot in San Antonio?

Do we need to add more elements to make it safer?

Is there enough lighting for people to be able to see, who's on the road?

Do we need to add more lighting?

So corridor planning that we do allows us to take a look at those things.

So then as you have that plan, then you move it towards the design and the construction phase.

And this is in San Antonio, the Commission as well as MPO and VA.

I asked earlier, light rail, that's not part of this commission's purview.

You're not going to be looking at that as a possibility down the road.

Now, their focus is what what we're doing today, people who drive, people who walk, people who use bus, people who cycle, that's their lens.

Right now.

And how tough is it to work on streets and, and, transportation when we have such sprawl in San Antonio?

What's the toughest part there?

Oh, gosh.

The toughest part about that is trying to get people, connected to their destination.

And in a well connected network that's safe.

So I would I grew up as a planner, so I'm very much aware of how, we have, planned our cities.

Right.

And how others have just incrementally jumped over in order to build a home.

So I think it's it's working with all of the partners, such as Tex Dot, such as public works, to make sure that we have those well connected streets.

Again, focusing on safest infrastructure is what we're working on.

And again, people can get involved in this, over the next few months after we get a new city council in June, I think it is.

They're sworn in.

But as well, you want people to give input, and they can do that online or through their council members.

Or how do they do that?

Yes.

So, part of the composition includes certain categories that, we are looking to fill.

Six of those seats will be reserved for those that are.

Two of them are transit riders.

Two of them are cyclists.

One is the transportation engineer, and one represents what's called transportation disadvantaged, whether they are, disabled, elderly or low income.

Those are the perspectives that we'd like to include on the commission.

So they would fill those categories, five open spots after that.

So again, if you want to volunteer, just reach out to your council member.

And it is a volunteer job.

It is it.

Is a volunteer job.

All right.

Thanks.

Well good luck with all that.

Kat Hernandez, director of the city's transportation Department.

Thanks very much for coming in.

Thank you.

On reporters roundtable this week, the Texas Legislature this session is taking up issues of water supply, but not so much issues of water quality, especially wastewater.

That is sometimes, going into our pristine lakes and streams up in the hill country.

Joining us to talk about that, a man who wrote a story, a very long, good story on this Dylan Bender, who is a reporter for Inside Climate News.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Now, this is an issue that a lot of people in our area, in the Hill Country have been talking about in specific cases, especially over the last few years.

But you looked at some that go back 20 years.

How big a problem is wastewater going into our streams and rivers?

Well, it's a big and widespread problem and it only gets bigger as growth and development continue to push more and more into the countryside.

In Texas, there's only really 21 segments of pristine streams left, in the state that haven't been, you know, the site for treated wastewater discharge.

So this is where the battle is sort of coalescing to protect these last, these last few areas, because almost everywhere, every other waterway, carries some amount of wastewater discharge.

What are we talking about in terms of what it does to a stream, when you have wastewater treated or not going into these streams?

Well treated wastewater is a big difference.

It's important to specify this is clear, clean water, it looks like.

But it has high levels of organic nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen that come primarily from human waste.

So these will cause, blooms in algae, which doesn't sound like a huge deal, but really, it devastates the entire native ecosystem.

You think about a clear hill country stream, flowing over limestone primarily.

Once it gets full of algae, this chokes out all the other plant and animal life.

This algae dies, sinks to the bottom, turns into a kind of rotting muck.

And then we have a swampy, green, stinking stream.

People might think, well, we have a Texas Commission on Environmental quality TCU, and that they would regulate this kind of thing and that there would be standards.

Sure.

Well, there are no statewide standards on these nutrient levels in wastewater discharge.

Another point is that the TCU is our environmental regulator.

Texas is a huge industrial state.

TCU is regulating all of our refineries, power plants, things like this, to talk about every new subdivision and wastewater treatment plant going in Texas, one of the fastest growing states in the country for 20 years now.

That's a big task.

And there's just not the capacity to have oversight over every project the way that they are now.

In addition, TCU leadership is appointed by our governor by politicians who are very pro-growth, and their mandate is to keep building cost low here.

So it's not likely we're going to see TCU really cracking down and forcing developers to put more money into, you know, their wastewater systems.

We have seen this in the San Antonio area, up in the hill country, with the development that gets saws, water supplies and Antonio water system, but they don't necessarily have to get, their treatment of water.

It doesn't go down sewers into the source system.

It is going into a creek nearby is the kind of thing you're running into more and more up in central Texas.

Yep.

That's the kind of thing we're seeing all over the place in the Hill country.

As these new neighborhoods and subdivisions go in, in these very beautiful areas.

Well, they have wastewater and they need somewhere to put it.

And in order to hook into the city system, you'll have to run big pipes all the way out there from your wastewater treatment plant.

So often it turns out to be cheaper for them to do it at small scale and discharge into the nearest, creek or ditch.

Even now, what about the differe are there layers or levels of treatment?

You talk about phosphorus in this article and that there are different levels in different areas allowed?

Sure.

There's two two sides of this, and one is those different kinds of treatment for sure it's possible to treat this water to remove phosphorus.

It just comes down to money.

You would have to put it can actually double the cost of a wastewater treatment plant to add this nutrient removal.

And the systems can be quite simple.

One, for example, can grow algae.

Instead of just growing that in your waterway, you grow it in a tank and harvest.

It can be sold as, as fertilizer.

But another side of this is not so much the treatment, but what to actually do with the wastewater, even if you don't remove that phosphorus, there are alternatives to just discharging it into the waterway.

For example, using it on your land to irrigate, grass and gardens and stuff like that.

It's already fertilized.

It's not just subdivisions and houses where this wastewater comes from, but there are plants and things like that in certain areas.

And there's more concern in those instances.

Yeah.

Well, there's all kinds of projects that would be treating, wastewater.

Two cases that I looked at, for example, on Commissioner's Creek, a tributary of Hondo Creek up in the hill country.

It was a Christian youth camp that bought this property and wanted to treat wastewater and discharge it into the creek.

Neighbors got together, hired a lawyer, and fought that the camp, decided they would instead, spray their wastewater over their property instead of discharging, in nearby Seminole River.

Very similar situation.

Another youth camp wanted to discharge.

Neighbors thought it.

Same thing happened.

This happens kind of all over the place in Austin on Barton Creek.

They're fighting to, amphitheater music venue developments with a luxury condominium complex.

So, you know, they're building all over Texas right now.

It's anything you can think of.

But the neighbors are going specifically and having to deal with that, specific, group going to the legislature hasn't work.

They've been doing that for 20 years.

There's been there have been bills in there.

There's one this session.

What's happening there is a bill, a Senate bill this session.

It's not not moving.

Currently out of committee.

So, you know, this has happened in past years.

Also, many advocates for this water protection issues have become very frustrated, with this because of so many repeated efforts.

But, you know, there's a lot of money behind building in Texas.

And that money has the ear of a lot of state lawmakers.

So, there's just not a lot of interest in environmental protection.

People also may not know the treated wastewater, as you see here in San Antonio, pumped into the headwaters of the San Antonio River there near Brackenridge Park.

It has been treated wastewater for some time because there's not enough bubbling up from the aquifer like there used to be.

So some of us walk in, maybe swim in, maybe shouldn't, but boat in this kind of thing, what are the effects that people are worried about.

Should be worried about, shouldn't be worried about.

Yeah.

So this treated wastewater is safe.

You know, more or less generally speaking.

Yeah.

San Antonio uses a lot of treated wastewater in its waterways here in the center of the city, San Antonio, really seen as a leader in many water issues.

Most of the rivers of Texas, once you get downstream of the big population centers, you know, downstream of Austin, San Antonio are almost all treated wastewater.

So those are kind of a lost cause as far as protecting aquatic life.

It's been kind of a long time gone.

But, but if you, say, fall into the San Antonio River or put your hand into the river if you're down kayaking, that kind of thing, you should be okay.

You should be okay.

Well, thank you very much.

Fascinating article again.

You can see it in Inside Climate News.

Dylan Pardo, our reporter.

Thanks very much for coming in.

My pleasure.

Thank you.

And thank you for joining us for this edition of On the Record.

You can watch this show again.

You can see any previous shows.

You can also download them as podcasts.

Just go to klrn.org I'm Randy Beamer and we'll see you next time.

On the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele Dufilho