Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
inevitable. In contrast, the City of Austin is often characterized as a juris-
diction with a strong commitment to environmental protection and has
passed a number of stringent regulatory requirements to fulfi ll these goals.
An environmental activist notes:
The City of Austin is the only bureaucracy I have ever seen that is very commit-
ted to water quality protection as a community. . . . I think they see themselves as
responsible to the community and responsible for environmental protection in a
way that is pretty unique. I have never gotten that sense from working with the
county, LCRA, or TCEQ [Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the state
environmental agency], a sense for accountability to environmental protection.
They just don't. What they have a sense of accountability to is the letter of the
law, if that. They are very different cultures.
72
This emphasis on environmental protection by the City of Austin is an-
other characteristic that sets it apart from neighboring jurisdictions and
the state government.
The municipality's commitment to protecting water quality is most
evident in the series of watershed ordinances passed between 1980 and
1991 that placed limits on development in areas surrounding creeks and
watersheds through the Land Development Code—specifi cally, subdivi-
sion and site planning activities.
73
The ordinances were inspired by the
Lake Austin Growth Management Plan of 1976
—one of the earliest ex-
amples of water quality planning in the United States—prepared for the
City of Austin by the renowned landscape architecture fi rm of Wallace,
McHarg, Roberts & Todd.
74
The plan was one of the earliest to develop
a solution to the water quality impacts of urbanization and was based on
scientifi c correlations between impervious cover, distance to waterways,
and impacts on water quality. Measures included development density
limits and construction bans on steep slopes and near watercourses and
sensitive environmental features.
75
The fi rst major watershed ordinance to address the impacts of urbaniza-
tion was the Lake Austin Watershed Ordinance, passed in 1980. The or-
dinance included impervious cover limits, structural controls, an erosion/
sedimentation control plan, and prohibitions on building in the hundred-
year fl oodplain around Lake Austin (one of the Highland Lakes). Two
additional watershed ordinances were passed the same year and extended
water quality protection measures to two West Austin watersheds, Barton
and Williamson. In subsequent years, more rural watersheds were added,
as were buffer zones on creeks and sensitive environmental features, and
impervious cover limits were increased. Of particular note was the 1986
Comprehensive Watersheds Ordinance that extended environmental
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