Photo by: Max Heimlich-McQuarters

This blog entry covers the trip to the Water Quality Protection Lands (WQPT) taken by the Natural Resources and Convervation class at St. Edwards. This land is preserved for to purpose of maintaining the quality and quantity of the water entering the Edwards Aquifer.

The cycle of water follows a typical pattern. When it rains, the earth absorbs that rain water through openings in the ground leading to deep underwater caves that deposite this water in the aquifer. The water is then used by Austin residents for drinking, swimming, and more. Protection of this land is so important because of how critical the aquifer is to the hundreds of thousands of Austin residents. In order to make sure the water entering the aquifer is quaility, those responsible for maintaining the land employ a few different techniques. First, every opening that absorbs rain water is covered with a grate. This prevents leaves, sticks, trash, and other debre from entering the caves, and then the aquifer.

Photo by: Max Heimlich-McQuarters

Photo by: Max Heimlich-McQuarters

They also work to preserve the land as best they can in order to bring back native species and plants. They acomplish this by performing controlled burns in order to promote nitrogen and continue the ecosystems life cycle, as well as removing invasive species to make room for native ones.

Photo by: Max Heimlich-McQuarters

The last stop on our field trip was to visit the only exposed section of the aquifer. This land was once used as a limestone quarry, where the construction crews dug deep enough to puncture the aquifer and expose it to open air. This was benefitial and harmful to conservation of the aquifer. Due to it being so exposed, it is incrediby easy to pollute it. Because of this, it was immediately closed to the public, as anything entering the aquifer from that point would reach peoples drinking wells in mere days.

However, this exposed section can also be useful! Because the opening is so big, it allows so much more water to enter it and therefore fill the entirely of the aquifer. The latest plans, which are still being blueprinted, is to reroute the water from a nearby creek to deposit directly into the aquifer in order to fill it as much as possible during the rainy season.

Written by Max Heimlich-McQuarters.