 Thank you very much for coming to the public scoping meeting of the River Road Ecosystem Restoration Project. We are kicking off a project in collaboration with the City of San Antonio Parks Department, the San Antonio River Authority, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. A real quick housekeeping note, tonight's meeting will be filmed in its entirety by our now cast SA, and the video, the whole length of it, will be available via YouTube. Let's kick off off tonight with an overview of our project partners. This is the collaboration between Cosa Parks, and we have Bill Pennell in the back, who is our project leader. And also from City of San Antonio TCI, Stormwater, we have Jake Howe, who's helping us out. Also, I need to acknowledge that we are partnering with Juni to give a very, very special thanks to Congressman Doggett's office for their endurance and all their hard work many years of working with the Corps to bring this project to fruition. As well as a big thank you to all the elected officials who have helped us through this process to gather funding and bring all the partners together. A real quick, I would like to acknowledge my bosses from our board of directors, Deborah Goldner-Probe, Suzanne Scott, our biologist, Justice Watson. There's a huge Sarah team that has been working for a number of years on this project. I'm sure that many of y'all have seen them in the river working in your neighborhood. Survey, biological sampling, all of our engineers and scientists who have been working very hard for a number of years you're going to continue to see them out there. So when you see that Sarah shirt just give us a wave and don't be afraid to come talk to us. We'd be more than happy to talk to you about the project. In particular, if you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact Caitlin. She's our coordinator for all of our public outreach on the project. And speaking of that, we just wanted to let y'all know that there's a lot of stakeholders that are involved in this project. And you can see from the long list that we've been coordinating with a lot of different entities to get to this point. And we're going to continue to coordinate with you and many others through the project from feasibility as far as it goes. So let's actually talk about the project. This is the project limits of our feasibility study. It goes roughly from Mulberry all the way down to 281, roughly from Avenue A through River Road. Davis or Allison Burke. If you know, this project has a long history. I was thinking about how to introduce this tonight and all I could think of was we're back. This project has been going since 2008 with its conceptualization. There's a lot of different studies of the biodiversity, traffic, the archeological that have built to get us to this point. Now we tried to remember different funding mechanisms, including TCEQ to try to improve some water quality. And we've had a couple of challenges along the way. But we've gotten to the point where the Army Corps of Engineers is working with us to try to study the feasibility of doing a project. And we're very positive that we're going to be able to get this project through the feasibility stage and see what we can do with it. And when I say see what we can do with it, let me just be clear. Sarah's goal from the get-go is to restore the aquatic and recurring ecosystem for the San Antonio River. By restoring the function of the stream and the army personally, this is a really important project because you'll often hear that this is the last remaining vestige of natural area of the upper San Antonio River. So we have a huge responsibility tonight and through the project. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to justice so she can talk about the feasibility study and the project as a whole. Well, you guys are back and this is my first time working with the project. So really excited about it. Hope you guys are excited about it. I think it's a really good project. I love ecosystem restoration. So hopefully it'll be something that y'all can enjoy and give us comments on. I'd like to start off with saying I hope you guys signed the sign-in sheet. And in the back, we also have comment cards. Any comment should be, please submit them in writing. If they're not submitted in writing, we can't accept them. So if you have anything to say to us, please write it down. You guys have already seen the study area. So the purpose of this meeting is there are artists who are in environmental assessment and just getting public input. So we always want public input. We always want to coordinate with other agencies. We want to share the information, partial information with the public, make sure you guys know what's going on, make sure you guys can share maybe things that you might think is a good idea or maybe something's a bad idea. We may not know about it until the very end. So we always like to get that input up front. We want to discuss our environmental concerns and any local conditions you guys know. So the National Environmental Policy Act guides our impact analysis. So whenever I'm writing up our environmental assessment, I'm going to be talking about the impacts of the area. So I'll be talking about the existing conditions, any future with project conditions, future without project conditions. This would also include our habitat analysis. So a few weeks ago, we went out to the field and did some measurements on the stream quality in the right-hand areas to kind of see what's going on out there and kind of develop some models to go along with that. So this project is a CAP project, which is also known as a continuing authorities program. So this is a study process. So we started off with this feasible cost sharing agreement signed in 2018. That was our kind of check off on being able to start this project with the federal government. We've got the funds in February of this year, so we were able to kind of get rolling on everything. So we already done a federal interest determination. So with the CAP project, you get your federal interest, different determine. So that kind of tells you what your problems, your goals, your opportunities are going to be. Right now, we're in between that federal interest determination and then the major support and command decision meeting. So at that decision meeting, our command would tell us if they agree with this, tentatively select a plan. And that plan would go our way from the alternative plans that we've developed. So that would be a combination of different measures and opportunities that we can do. And I'll discuss that further in the slides. And the final result would just be submitting our final draft document and go along with the recommended plan. So you guys may be already be aware, but this section of the River Road is severely degraded with erosion. There's a lot of sedimentation. Sedimentation can affect the water quality, affect your wildlife habitat. We've got a very narrow, right-pairing area. So all of that sedimentation erosion is really impacting the areas around it. So it's starting to go around and everything. So that's something we want to look at. And also with the proliferation of the expansion of invasive species, we just want to make sure that invasive species are kind of narrowed out of the area. We can do different controls on that. But we also, so with this, we want to look at the objectives and we also have different opportunities. So the main objective for the historical engineers to restore the aquatic ecosystem function structure through a section of San Antonio River. So pretty much the same thing as San Antonio River Authority. And also opportunities would just be to restore additional recreation and ecosystem and equal tourism benefits to everybody in the community. So as you guys can see, there's a lot of erosion along this section of the San Antonio River. We've got erosion at end low points. We've got a lot of drainage that's cutting into the banks. Be aware of that final loop going around on Avenue A. That's the picture to the left is a picture of that area. You know, we need these riparian, riparian vegetation vegetative areas to prevent erosion. So that holds in the Riverbank. So when you have, you know, pictures like this, right along your Riverbank, that's not a good sign. We need to build up that and kind of keep all these problems from happening. Next question. Do you mind defining the term trees? Some people don't know certain word like riparian. I'm sorry, riparian is like oak trees. It's just like a vegetative area with large vegetation, like along Riverbanks and stuff like that. So the picture to the left is the low water crossing further down along that turn around Avenue A. That's a non functioning culvert. So we're getting a lot of pooling in this area. Large pooling is really not a good thing for a river ecosystem. You need to have pool, ripple, run. So ripple would be kind of water going along the rocks. Run would just be a straight go through without any stopping and pooling, you know, just a big giant pool of water. The picture to the right is the picture of a sand barn that has been created because the river is already itself. So that's one of the things we want to look at. We've got some ideas for this little area maybe possibly, you know, doing little emergent wetland plantings. So that would just be plants that can be planted in the water and they grow up through. So potential measures. So measures are something that the Corps of Engineers can do, Sarah can do to fix a problem. So we just call it as like, we do things like it makes a species management. I'm at Kane right here. That's all along the river. That can cause a problem of water quality that can cause a problem with your native wildlife. If you have a lack of native plants, you're going to have some you're going to start having problems with your native wildlife. And many of you guys are birders or anything like that, you know that you have to have native plants around for the habitat. We're also thinking about maybe possibly doing the modification of manmade or natural structures within the river. Modification of possibly the low water crossing at the lower end of the dam or lower end of the river, possibly inputting j-hooks. J-hook would be a rock system that would create a ripple. So kind of creating more natural structures within the stream without channelizing it because we don't want to channelize this river because it's one of the last remaining segments. We can have a possibility of modifying pedestrian access, the parking situation, modification of maybe the fishing areas. You know, one of the big concerns is the roads that are going along that river. If we can expand the vegetated areas, maybe look at removing some of those roads, that would just increase our water quality and our river ecosystem. The picture right here is an example of a wooden box. That would just be one example of a nesting structure that we could use. We can install bat boxes, bluebird boxes. You know, there's a plethora of things that we can do to kind of increase wildlife, nesting structures, platforms, things like that. So the next steps, we've been working on developing these measures. We want to build alternatives. So alternatives would just be a combination of these measures in combining these into plans. So once we kind of have plans through, we can do a cost analysis. So we can compare our benefits to our cost, and that kind of gives us a bar graph on where we want to end up. So the more benefit you have, you know, the better, like the more likely that project is going to succeed, but you have to compare that to cost as well. Everything's usually about money, right? So we got to, we got to make sure we're doing the right thing. The next step would be selecting a tentatively selected plan. And we would recommend that to our major school in command. So if they would like, if they like that idea, then we can move forward with our project. The Coordination Ares is a federal organization, so we always have to coordinate with our local agencies. We need to coordinate with the US Mission Wildlife, making sure we're following, you know, threatening the danger species regulations, things of that nature. And then we would, after that, we'd complete our feasibility phase. So we do expect this project to end roughly around the end of 2020. So like I said, you can submit your written comments. I've got the comment forms up here. You can submit them to me at the end of this meeting. You can mail them to me, like information is up there. They're also on the storyboards in the back. You need to take a picture or anything. And you can also email your comments to this River Road ER at usays.army.mil. That is a group email, so I can receive an email saying you want to send to us. I'd like to, in my presentation, by saying we can now break and go over to the storyboard so we can kind of get one-on-one questions and answers. Thank you. To just give you a overview of where we are in the project. So tonight is the start of the public comment period for our public scoping for the feasibility study. And the feasibility study with the Army Corps of Engineers is going to be looking at is particular alternatives. And you saw some potential ideas or measures that could be used to develop an alternative. When they look at the alternatives, their next step is going to be to evaluate the ecological impact of various plants and the cost of those plants. That analysis is going to go into a cost-benefit process and then be recommended through their majors as subordinate command. At that point, if it's recommended and it's a deep, viable project, then it will move forward to consideration for funding or design construction. So tonight, we're really talking about a tentative alternative. And that brings me to y'all's responsibility tonight. We need your input, your comments, your ideas. And because of the process of the federal government, we need those comments to be written. So it's a very important thing. I'll kick up a comment sheet. I'll go ahead and give us some feedback. Please go over to the storyboard, talk to the various members that are helping out with the project, ask us questions, write down your ideas, and please get them into the public comment. So we have some time to look at the two sides of the storyboard. We're going to stand out sort of a tentative plan or your ideas, so we can, like, because we couldn't really follow everything that we would like to sort of know that. So we can look at it. So yes, we will have some time, we'll be willing to talk you through at the various storyboards. So outside of that, we will be coming back to you as part of the process, just to let you know how things have gone, what measures are going through the process, and being evaluated, and how they're how they're ending up in the mix. I think maybe they, right now you don't have anything more than what they have today. They haven't really gotten to a point where they have anything that they've studied. This is the very beginning of the process. I think what they're saying is these are the ideas that they put out here, the problems, and the things they're starting to look at. So your information today will help inform them as they go forward in looking at those ideas. They didn't want, they haven't developed the ideas yet. Tonight, this is, that's why this is so key. This is very much the starting pistol for this project. We're we're at the very beginning. I would rather, I would rather not adjourn to storyboards because it's such a scattering of input and information, whereas in the larger body concerns or questions can be answered and observed by everyone. I'm going to leave that to our project manager with a core because there is federal requirements for this process that has to follow a particular sequence. Right. So, you know, we would like them to do storyboards today and so we're going to stick with our plan. So, other questions? In watching this and seeing a little bit, it seems one of the big concerns that I have is it might be the low water crossing would be eliminated. Is this more than a fact? So, that is one of the potential measures that has been tentatively identified. This is definitely at the start. There's a lot of things to consider with that decision. I think there's a lot of voices that needs to be heard. We need to keep in mind that the purpose of the project is to to restore the aquatic habitat and functioning of our variant system, which is going to require that there's trade-offs. We just need to go through the process to have the public input to identify appropriate measures. Yes. In the last four years, this is the third meeting that I've attended and each time you've indicated this is a starting point of what was going to happen. In the meantime, projects get started or say they're getting started and they don't get started. The next thing we are told is Army Corps of Engineers took back some money. Baird County did not come through with others yet at the same time. San Pedro Creek is doing fine. The Mission Reach is doing fine. I grew up in that area. During the summertime, there's a trickle that goes down by San Pedro Creek and all. This is a river, river. Yet, in all these years, nothing has been done. Things have started. No, we're told that things are starting. We have yet to see. When our process with this particular process, as far as a CAP study process, we will... There's few circumstances that would not allow us to take it all the way at least to the feasibility process. At the end of the feasibility process, we then take our determination up to, as I said, our higher command and they approve our selective plan or not. Depending on how that goes, we may say, if you saw on here or on here that one of the alternatives could be a no-action alternative. If we had that alternative, that would be something that would say, hey, none of these alternatives that we've come up with had the economic or ecological benefits. That is one of the ways that this project could possibly result in something like that, but we will be going through the feasibility at least portion of this. After the feasibility portion, we then have two other portions. If we have approval, that would go through the design phase and the construction phase of the project, and then that would see a pull into the CAP study part of the project. I believe before there hasn't been a CAP study on this, correct? Yeah, let me just explain, because we know the confusion, because this project has started to stop many times, and we feel your pain. The issue is that when we started the last time we were here with the TCEQ, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, that project was really just focused on water quality. We weren't able to be as comprehensive in the study, like what some of the comments that we were receiving back from the community is that y'all really wanted us to look more at some of the issues that we're able to look at with the Corps of Engineers more from an ecosystem restoration perspective, more of a holistic approach to the project. So we went back and we really started pushing more, because we were trying to get money from the Corps of Engineers, as she mentioned, for a long time, and it was going through fits and starts, as it does sometimes through the federal government. But we really got, Congressman Doggett really went to the back to say we need to get this funding, because it had been going back and forth and we really weren't securing it, because we wanted to make sure that we were able to address more comprehensively the types of improvements that y'all really wanted us to look at. So that's why I sort of moved away from the TCEQ program and moved really more aggressively to the Corps of Engineers because of system restoration. So we apologize about the fits and starts, but we feel like this scope, based on the feedback that we received last time, is more in line with what we believe y'all want us to look at. So that's why we really, this is more directed in the way that y'all want us to believe. Apologize, but I think we're on the right path, fine. And as far as our partners, I think they're all very interested. Judge Wolf is very interested in what this study is going to show. I know the city of San Antonio, you can obviously see. We have members from the city here. There's a lot of interest right now in what's happening in Brackenridge Park as well as this area. So I do think that the heightened awareness after we've done the master planning, of course the Brackenridge Conservancy is going through a cultural landscape report process right now. So I do think the heightened interest is also allowing for this project to get more feedback. So I appreciate the patience, but I do think we're on the right track now. Thank you. I have a point of process to direct towards the project director. I think it's great that we go and look at this, but I don't think you've worked with this particular body of people before. And it would be behoove you, trust me, if after we all look at that and talk to you all as individuals that we get back together so that we have the benefit of hearing each other's concerns. This is an incredibly engaged neighborhood, also a very activist driven neighborhood and a very vocal neighborhood. And we want this as much as you do, but we have to all be on the same page and hearing collectively what people's concerns and responses are, is going to move the project forward with the support of this body of people rather than in fits and starts without the support of this group. And we live in this environment, and we've tried to be good stewards. We haven't had the resources to do it, so you want us to help do this. You want us to support our lawmakers and our leaders who are moving us forward. Please allow us to do that. Not everybody wants to get up and ask a question in front of a crowd, so thank you very much. It's a lot of voices to be sure of. But if you still want to have that opportunity with the storyboards for everybody to come over and take a look at, let's take their presentations and then we can talk. Is that possible? Let me put it this way, verbal comments will not be officially part of the federal record. So as long as everyone will agree that they will get their official comments on paperwork, you can continue with questions. Will the storyboards be on the video because I had neighbors who weren't able to be here tonight? Will they be on the storyboards? So the fantastic thing is that the storyboards are exactly what you saw in the presentation. So you've seen them, they'll be in the video. It's just giving you an opportunity to look closer at them, look in more detail and have one-on-one conversations with the project members. So I'm impressed that there's a good group of people here. What's your current funding for this phase of the... So with the feasibility study, it is a 50-50 cost share between the Army Corps of Engineers and the San Antonio River Authority. And thus far the San Antonio River Authority has put up $261,000 towards the feasibility study. They are Texas not contributing anything to it? Contributing financially? No, not at this point. They are not part of the sponsor group. So the new floodplain lines, do you all, does the Corps already have the information about the new floodplain routers in River Road, the Atlas 14? Has that been completed? And is that factored in to all of this? Atlas 14 has been completed and there's new rainfall levels for Iowa across the state of Texas. So if we need to use that information, we absolutely will. We'll use the most up-to-date version of it. But the project that's proposed here is an ecosystem restoration project. And we're not anticipating any significant changes to the floodplain. So it should neither harm nor benefit no change to flooding issues. So you have seen them in our neighborhoods that there should be no additional areas within like the 100 or 500 year floodplain? Correct. Thank you. So I just wanted to mention, as far as Atlas 14 goes, we have a group with the River Authority that is working with Jake Powell in the back. And Jake, do you want to talk about the process that the city is going through? So to speak, the first thing I want to note is that when this project becomes a construction project, and not just a planning project, the project will have to go through permitting at the city. And we will make sure that there is no impact, no rise in the floodplain. That's part of our group. So that's, no matter Atlas 14 or not, we will be part of that. So we will also be part of this feasibility study as needed for review to look it up and make sure there's no issues. We know that it's a sensitive area, and we'll keep all of that in mind as we go through the process. And in the meantime, to consume that data, look at the updates and look at what's needed in our hydraulic models that do allow us to delineate the floodplain and gain knowledge there. And we're making updates and working very hard in our remap of the floodplains. So that's going to be contributing to the eventual project, as Jay said. Yeah, I have a couple of issues. The first that's to do with understanding the two terms, which I'm wondering if they're interchangeable. And that's eco restoration and steam restoration. They're not mutually exclusive to me. But anyway, my first intent in talking with Doggett many, many years ago was that we wanted a stream restoration project. So stream restoration is a small component of ecosystem restoration. But it's one of those things that, like the movie, if you build it, it will come. If we get it right with the river, if we get the form and the function so that it can be safely conveying water and sediment so we don't have the erosion issues. If we get the vegetation and there is a tool, then the habitat, the repairing and aquatic species, they will come back. So we're using stream restoration as a tool of ecosystem restoration for this project. Okay, I agree with that. The thing is that there's a human safety element here that nobody wants to talk about. And to me, it's the elephant in the room. But if you drive six feet off of River Road, there's a 25-foot vertical bank down the stream. You know, I don't want the city to come out there and put guardrails in the guardrails and the rest of the bank is just going to cave in. But, you know, somebody's got to face up to the immediacy of this issue somehow. Please make sure that you write that down on your comment card so it does get into the federal record as one of the important concerns of the community. When I mentioned that we have to get the form and function right, this is a perfect example of how the river is experiencing erosion, how it's stressed. And we're trying to address that through this project. And we need to capture those thoughts and your concerns in regards to that. So please make sure you get back in your comment card. Please go through and talk to the different project members, look at the details. Rain in the back has the comment cards. We definitely need to get your written comments. And we will stay here for, let's say, 20 minutes to answer any final questions that y'all might have as a group. And how many minutes do we have to go through the story? So I think 20 minutes unless the group says differently. So right now it is 6.45, so at 7.05 we will reconvene. Okay. Are there any comments or discussions that y'all would like to put forward? I would like to ask a question. Is whoever is designing what they think they're going to do with the last little natural reach of the river, are they the same team that did What's Down by the Blue Star? So we don't have a design team just yet. We're purely in the feasibility stage. Once this goes through the process for the federal government, then that will, if it is selected for a, one of the alternative plans is selected for a project, then it will start the design and eventually construction project. We have a United States riparian team come to the ranch and help us with some areas and they wanted to see what was done down by the Blue Star. And we went down there with somebody I don't know, Sarah, somebody gave them a, was going to give them a little tour. And when they saw what San Antonio had done down there, they were so disgusted by it. It is so not ecologically riparian repaired at all, not even sort of. They wouldn't even stay for the end of the tour. They said, get us out of here, get us out of here, get us out of here. And we left. So I just hope that whoever you are using to guide you on what you do with the last natural reach of the San Antonio River, you get a true riparian expert team to guide you. Thank you. Any other comments or questions? How do we find this on YouTube? So back at the back, there are these small wires. Please feel free to pick it up so they can access the YouTube. We're also going to post it on the River Road Neighborhood Association Facebook page, and we're going to email it around to everybody and everyone can just spread the word. And also, Sarah, we'll have a copy of it as soon as possible. So we'll receive a copy and word to make that accessible. Other comments, questions? I will thank you all very much for your participation tonight, please. There's a 30-day open comment period. If something occurs to you that you haven't written down tonight, there's justice. You can email her. You can mail her. Please give us your input and feedback. And thank you very much for coming tonight. So you can email the information in. You have to write it and email this. Is that correct? You can email as long as it's pretty. That's just the method of being able to write and email to that email either. No, you don't have to use that. You can write an informal email and you can say, do your justice and give us your feedback, as long as it goes to River Road ER at usays.army.nl. River Road differently. I just want to say public scoping never ends on these projects. We're just accepting the written comments for 30 days. You can always still send me stuff and I can look at it. But the comments are what can be integrated into our environmental assessment. So we can actually respond to those in writing. So what works, Texas? 6102. I think it's really important to just close the circle of communication that when the comments are submitted either through the email address or through these written comments that we're going to turn in, that all of the comments will be considered as part of the planning process. We're not just sending them in. That wasn't clearly articulated. And it's really important in the public process that the input from the public be seriously considered. And as per the memorandum, what's it called? W-U-M-N-E-U-S. Thank you. Thank you all very much for coming tonight and we look forward to working with you in the future.