Free Republic

I think at some point, all of us started referring to [Barton] spring as ‘The Spring,’” said Pedro Villalobos, Chair of the Parks and Recreation Board. “That’s because of the baggage that it carries with it.” We are recommending based off of William Barton’s known ownership of enslaved people – and given the Confederate Monument Resolution passed by City Council – we are recommending that there be an effort to rename Barton Springs,” Villalobos, who served on the working group, continued. William Barton was known as someone who wanted to participate in the extinction of Native Americans,” Marshall said in...

AUSTIN, Texas— The Center for Biological Diversity and Save Our Springs Alliance today filed a notice of intent to sue the Texas Department of Transportation and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over an Austin highway construction project’s threats to the federally endangered Austin blind and Barton Springs salamanders. The conservation groups recently learned that the MoPac Intersections Project has exposed at least 21 underground caves, sink holes and other karst features that provide habitat for the endangered salamanders. There is a high risk that construction will pollute the two species’ habitat by introducing silt and pollutants to the subsurface. The...

I want to know who the Head Salamander is. I want to know the name of The Big Lizard. I want to know who is giving the big bucks to the Save Our Springs Alliance to stop development in the Barton Springs watershed. But I may never find out, because of an interesting little gem of irony that I find particularly amusing. The Save Our Springs folks — the same frog-fondlers pushing an amendment that would make the city post all information online in real time in the name of freedom of information — won't release the names of their...