Another Barton Springs argument brewing

AUSTIN (KXAN) - In 2004, a massive flood dumped an estimated 2000 cubic yards of rock and gravel in the deep end of Barton Springs Pool.

Two years later, the City of Austin tried to remove the debris with a vacuum device. The mess proved too much for the vacuum, so only the top foot or so of of the gravel bar was removed.

The remainder still sits where it came to rest, blocking the flow of water through the pool and trapping silt that gets stirred up in the water. As a result, lifeguards sometimes have trouble spotting swimmers beneath the surface.

So when the city began to develop a master plan for Barton Springs, part of the proposal called for a major dredging operation to remove the gravel with a huge crane that would be parked on top of a big hill on the north side of the pool.

The specifics of the plan are still being developed, but a variance is already making its way through the city bureaucracy that would pave the way for the work to begin in the fall of next year. According to City Aquatics Director Tom Nelson, preliminary plans call for the pool to be closed for an estimated three and a half weeks for a project that would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $600,000.

"The material that's in the pool right now, if we leave it, is just going to remain," said Nelson. "If we get another flood in a year or two or in 10 years, all of that material is just going to add on top of this one and we could get a facility that is non-swim-able."

Some long time users of Barton Springs, however, are not convinced the crane is the way to go.

"This is a one-shot construction project, industrial type project," said Susan Bright, an activist and long time supporter of Barton Springs. "And then the next time a flood comes, the same thing's going to keep on happening, and the same thing's going to keep on happening, and the same thing's going to keep on happening and there are no provisions, there's no planning for what to do in the future."

Bright and others are pushing for an alternative. They want the city to shore up part of a long bypass tunnel that runs alongside the pool waters. The tunnel, which funnels excess water from Barton Creek around the pool, also needs work.

Why not build part of it up to withstand the weight of a backhoe and some trucks, the critics argue. That way, dredging could take place periodically on a smaller scale, removing some 10 to 15 percent more material than nature deposits in the water every year.

The bar would gradually disappear and future backhoe treatments would keep it from returning.

"Why kill every living thing on the bottom of the pool all at once," she asks, "when you could incrementally dredge and replant and dredge and replant and do it over time in a softer, kinder, more natural way?"

Nelson said that idea will not float.

"We're dealing with a large amount of material that's in the pool," he points out. "So the mobilization costs of getting equipment down here and just removing 10 percent at a time is just not cost effective."

That, said Bright, is reminiscent of another Barton Springs controversy. When the Parks & Recreation Department proposed cutting down many of the trees around the pool, a public outcry resulted in a drastically scaled back plan that saved most of the trees.

"We can either have a natural solution like taking care of the trees, planting new ones so that in 100 years, we'll have another beautiful canopy or we clear cut, start over and risk all that that implies and give the money to the construction companies and the engineers," said Bright. "So I think it's a philosophical difference. Ideas create action and the idea that what will help this pool is construction projects is a dangerous idea. Construction projects almost never help nature."

But Nelson rejects that reasoning. For him, the issue has nothing to do with lining anyone's pockets. You see, he may be the director of aquatics now, but he first moved to Austin as a child and started swimming in Barton Springs at the age of five.

As a teenager, he went to work at the pool, checking out dressing room baskets to swimmers. As a teenager, he became a life guard there and gradually worked his way up the organizational chart to the director's spot.

I started working here in '83 and so, yes, I have a vested interest in seeing this pool thrive," he said.

The final decision about what to do will come from the Austin City Council, though the United States Fish and Wildlife Service will also have a say, since Barton Springs is home to an endangered species of salamander.