NewsDrop-April-2024

AN ENVIRONMENTAL MAKEOVER WINS AN AWARD

By: EAHCP Staff

Every year, the Texas Recreation and Park Society (TRAPS) recognizes excellence of organizations across the State of Texas advancing and protecting recreational services offered at Texas parks. This year the City of New Braunfels received the Park Development Innovations Award for its Landa Park Aquatic Complex parking lot renovation completed in spring of 2023. The long-standing and highly-used parking lot that serves the Aquatic Com plex received a major upgrade due to the Edwards Aquifer Habitat Conserva tion Program (EAHCP), the City of New Braunfels TCI Department and the City of New Braunfels Public Works Department (Watershed Management

Division). The renovation project included a complete replacement of the parking surface as well as an environmentally friendly bioretention system and drainage structure that filters out pollutants and sediment that run off of the parking lot toward the Comal River during rain events. That major project had been on the City of New Braunfels’ drawing board for a while, but it wasn’t until the EAHCP stepped in to financially jump start the project that it got the green light to proceed. The EAHCP’s interest was that pollutants from that aging parking lot would negatively impact the threatened and endangered species living in the Comal River over time.

“The Aquatic Center’s parking lot is only a stone’s throw away from where federally protected endangered species thrive in the Comal Springs and new channel of the Comal River,” said City of New Braunfels Watershed Coordi nator Phillip Quast. “Once we started talking with the EAHCP team, we knew that we could elevate this typical parking lot repaving into a water quality enhancement type project. And so with the infusion of EAHCP funding and the EAHCP team’s planning and administrative assistance, we were able to move the project forward.”

Congratulations to the City of New Braunfels and EAHCP for this award-win ning, collaborative project which will enhance the Comal River and Comal Springs ecosystem for many years to come. The Texas Recreation and Park Society (TRAPS) is a nonprofit educational and professional organization founded in 1937 to advance the profession of parks, recreation and leisure services in Texas.

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