Edwards Aquifer Enhancement
2/20/2009
I’m signing up for a new program. It's called the "Edwards Aquifer Enhancement Program." Bandera County is the only county that was selected by the state to receive the grants. Then the county decides which properties they will give the applications to. They are giving them out to people with property in the Medina River Watershed, which includes us. There's a list of guidelines and parameters, but the bottom line is we'd get 65% of the cost per acre not to exceed $200-$300 to clear the cedar. Depends on density and we'd have a year to do it. First the county guys would come out and we'd select the perimeters of areas to be cleared. I would then come up with an estimated cost per acre that we could do this. And then we'd clear some cedar. I wanted to do this on the east side. Eventually clearing the whole place. We would not set the contract for the whole place all at once. We would select certain areas to do, and then renew the contract once that area has been cleared. That way, we don't bite off more than we can chew. We'd finish clearing that pasture that you and Peter started on, the top of the hill, maybe the sides of the hills, and that corner that is on the county road. This also might get us some more water down in the pond at the campsite. That spring at the top of the hill still has not gone dry. If we clear all the cedar up there, who knows, we might get water flowing on top of the ground some day. The great thing is, we have the equipment, time, and man-power to do it ourselves, so aside from fuel costs, which we have anyway, our budget should not be effected. If we cleared 150 acres of cedar, we'd get a nice chunk of change to cover costs.