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THE BORING MACHINE AT SKUNK HOLLOW
Preservation isn't cheap. At $150 a foot, boring costs five times what can be
done with dynamite and backhoe. But sometimes nothing else will do.
$15,000. It like to broke me."
John had little choice in the matter.
With the City sitting on his operation,
tying up all his equipment, he was
losing close to a thousand dollars a day.
So he came up with $15,000 towards
restoring the creek to its original
character. In addition, Bill Milburn Co.,
Bryant-Curington Inc. and he were
each fined $200 for having failed to
nature, and that if the City wasn't
payingfor the project, Jagger
Associates would have built their own
sewage processing plant rather than
tie into the City's.
Under Approach-Main ContractS,
the City buys additions to its
wastewater system five years after
they are added on. It is ironic, but the
citizens of Austin will pay to preserVe
obtain a Creek Permit. what is private property.
John finished the job and restoration Skunk Hollow is next to the BartO
began. Even Jeff Friedman turned out Creek portion of Zilker Park, but not
to help plant the new trees. For a while part of it. As yet Jagger Associates
it looked as though the area would once have no plans for the area. The Hollow s
It is ironic, but the citizens of Austin will paY
to preserve what is private property.
sides there are too steep for any sort of
high density development. Ji¢
Coleman, the project's overseer,
emphasized that he wasn't speaking for.
Mr. Jagger, but believed the City could
buy the land if it wanted to. The City,
however, has yet to allocate funds for
that purpose. Over two million dollarS
was approved by the voters in last
Saturday's election to extend Zilker
Park further up into the Barton Creek
watershed, but the City has shown no
interest in Skunk Hollow beyond
again flourish. But then came the rains,
and the worst flood in twenty years
wiped away nearly everything. Now
only broken rock remains.
Today: Skunk Hollow
That experience with Barton Creek
left some hard and bitter memories.
Many people, after that one bad
experience, decided all restoration
efforts were doomed to failure, that
nature is simply too complex to replace;
so "Restoration" became an unpopular
concept. It was replaced by the idea
that as little of nature should be
preserving it.
disturbed as possible, and whereMeanwhile, Engineer John Hughes
practical, nothing should be disturbed is a happy man. He's received the
at all. Enter the Skunk Hollow Case. money to meet the challenging task oI
Skunk Hollow is a delicate place of digging a sewer and protecting the
byD.Schweers Bill Milburn Company put it to the they all were finished, Jagger
• Engineer John Hughes is at it again, test. Neither they nor the engineers, Associates Inc. got a permit with ten
A year ago he took the half ,mi e. of BryantCuringt°nInc"n°rthec°ntrac- special conditions attached at an
Barton Creek above Campbell s Hole, tor, John Hughes, applied for a Creek additional cost of $100,000.
cut downJlhe trees,dug a trench 85 feet Permit. They just began blasting and Most of that $100,000 will purchase
rock, trees, water and fern. It's here
that Jagger Associates Inc. intended to
place their wastewater line by blasting
through the rock, opening a trench and
covering it back up.
In all, three City departments
examined their application for a
waterway development permit. The
Environmental Resource Management
department brought in its advisory
panel with the high sounding name of
"Citizens Board of Natural Resources
and Environmental Quality." When
the tunnel John Hughes is now boring,
underneath the lower thousand feet of
Skunk Hollow.
With new boring techniques, the
Hollow will remain untouched. Along
the upper portions an open trench is to
be used. Restoration efforts will be
made such as replacing all trees on a
one-to-one basis, but the emphasis is on
disturbing as little as possible. Access
is limited. No tracked, earth-moving
equipment will be allowed. Trees that
must not be cut have been marked as
such: the pipe must simply go around
them.
"This shows the value of Approach-
Main Contracts," claims Jim Coleman,
overseer of the Skunk Hollow project
for Jagger Associates Inc. He reasons
that no developer will pay anything like
deep, laid in a wastewater pipe,
covered it up and left a barren stretch of
rock one hundred feet across.
Now he's back. He's adding onto that
pipe, sending a branch line up through
Skunk Hollow. There, on the west side
of Barton Creek, Jagger Associates
Inc. are developing 400 acres that will
one day hold a shopping mall,
apartments, town houses and offices.
creek bed. In fact, he's an environmea7
talist.
"You should see the way we can split
rock with this new form of dynamite,"
" * " " t
he boasts. We can come within six fee
of a tree and leave it intact."
NO ONE HAS
CHRISTMAS
CARDS
LIKE THE
digging.
According to the Creek Ordinance,
no alterations can be undertaken in a
creek bed without prior approval of the
City's Office of Environmental Re-
source Management. One of the
proponents of the ordinance, Joe
Riddell, discovered Bill Milburn
Company's oversight. The City
responded quickly. It shut down John
Hughes' operation completely and kept
it shut down while the legalities were
ironed out.
By this time the damage had been
done. "Those trees were this big
around," says John Hughes as he
spreads his arms, "I could have saved
them if the pipe didn't have to go down
so deep. But my contract said 85 feet
deep and that meant the trees had to go.
Afterwards I had to the
John Hughes is back, but he's
learned something in a year: that it's a
challenge to dynamite and backhoe a
wooded area without leaving a scar.
He's also learned the City of Austin
intends to protect its creeks.
One Year Ago: Barton Creek
A year ago the protection by the new
Creek Ordinance had never really been
an extra to a bit of
UNICORN
GALLERY
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AT THE DOBIE
2021 Guadalupe Mon. - Fri. 10-9
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