RECREATION

Documenting the springs of Texas

Chad Norris tests water flow and quality in the springs he loves

By Pamela LeBlanc
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, November 09, 2008

Chad Norris, knee-deep in chilly water, plunges a small net into the mucky bottom of a stream trickling out of Rebecca Springs near Blanco. He misses his target, a pale amphibian the size of his pinkie finger.

"It's not the first time I've been outsmarted by a salamander," the aquatic biologist for Texas Parks and Wildlife chuckles, bending low as he poises for another attempt.

A co-worker plops a probe into the water, then calls out the temperature, pH level and oxygenation numbers to Norris, who jots them in a notebook.

Norris is visiting this spring, on private property southeast of Blanco, to monitor the health of the water and track the plant and animal life living here. In the past six months, he's checked some 400 springs, picking his way through stinking mud, swarms of insects and the occasional water moccasin. Chiggers and ticks are just a few of the on-the-job hazards.

Norris doesn't mind.

"It gives us a little snapshot of the quality of water that comes out of the springs," he says, sloshing closer to the small cave where the water emerges from the ground.

The work brings him to some ranches held in the same family for generations, where he shares lunch with old-timers and talks with them about water issues. Springs like this one, owned by Bob and Rebecca Kavanaugh, puddle into fern-draped swimming holes and feed rivers around the state. They function as the natural outlets of aquifers and reflect the health of the water sources on which urban areas rely.

"Springs are a window into groundwater," says hydrogeologist Raymond Slade, who calls them the canaries in the coal mine. "As springs deteriorate, that's a good assessment of what's happening to our water resources."

Development and drought in Texas have slowed the springs' flow, and Norris, a 37-year-old, 10-year veteran of the state agency, is gauging that impact on the ecosystem.

It's a life's work for the pony-tailed, sandal-wearing scientist with a lizard tattoo on his ankle, won years ago in a trade for Metallica concert tickets. He's always loved the water and the creatures that live there. That's why he lives in Wimberley amid the area's rivers, creeks and springs.

He learned to respect nature early on. As a toddler, he once turned up the heater of the family's aquarium, killing a tankful of fish. Later, on family trips to Wekiwa Springs in Florida, he'd swim through the crystal waters, searching for turtles and snakes. He craved the peace of an afternoon spent fishing with his father or grandfather, and the excitement of finding out what was tugging on the end of his line.

That intrigue has transferred to the springs, where he counts bugs and fish and takes water-quality measurements. "There's always the thrill of looking at a creek or water body and wondering what lives down there," he says.

After earning degrees in environmental geology and biology, Norris studied large springs such as the Comal and San Marcos, mapping vegetation, conducting salamander surveys, and studying parasites. Then he realized scientists didn't know a lot about the state's less famous springs, which serve as a refuge for an array of rare and endemic species.

"Considering their importance as a water resource, little to no information has been gathered on the smaller springs that litter the Texas landscape," he says.

He landed his first job at the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department — maintaining water quality instruments in the Texas bays — because of his boating experience. When his bosses sent him to sample water from streams in the Big Thicket of East Texas, he found his passion. "It means a lot to me to try to protect the environment and conserve what we've got in the state," he says.

The creatures that live at the springs are Texas natives, he says, and their habitat could be lost if spring quality is degraded. That's already is happening in places. Some springs have dried up or become intermittent instead of perennial. Landowners, some of whose properties has been in their families for up to six generations, say a series of small droughts is taking a toll on their springs and the critical riparian, or riverbank, habitat downstream.

"They tell me that during shorter droughts, springs are as low or lower than the drought of the 1950s," Norris says of the prolonged dry period that ravaged much of the state before urban growth exploded, "which indicates to me that water use is having an impact. Development — that's the biggest threat to maintaining spring flow."

It's a sensitive issue in Texas, where springs aren't specifically protected by law and landowners have "right of capture" and can drill a well to withdraw the groundwater.

Norris encourages landowners to preserve the ecological jewels of which they are guardians. Most don't want the specific location of their springs made public, but Texas Parks and Wildlife plans to lump the data into geographic regions and provide it to local and state agencies so they can better manage water resources as the state's population continues to grow.

Some landowners are suspicious. "People don't necessarily want you out there poking around," Norris says. "Certainly they're not real crazy with me showing up. I'm the state."

Once, when he found a salamander in a private spring, the landowner didn't want it acknowledged. "He looked at me like 'I didn't know those were here and I don't want anybody to know they're here.' "

But some landowners, like the Kavanaughs, welcome Norris' visits. They learn more about their property from him and what they can do to keep their springs healthy and flowing. Norris has been to the ranch six times, and on this day the couple greet him on the front porch of their 1860s-era cabin, made of hand-hewn cedar and limestone, with cold peach tea and warm banana nut muffins.

"It's wonderful, it really is," Rebecca Kavanaugh says of Norris' work. She learned from Norris about a type of salamander that lives on her land. "We love it."

Some of Norris' research also will find its way into a companion book to "Springs of Texas," a fat compilation of information about the springs that dot the Texas landscape. In the 1970s, the late Gunnar Brune visited hundreds of Texas springs, many of them water sources for pioneers, and documented their loss and decline. Now Norris is working with environmentalist Helen Besse of Austin to compile data from springs in the 71 counties that Brune didn't cover in his original book, first published in 1981.

The Kavanaughs' Rebecca Springs is part of that work. It forms the headwaters of Rebecca Creek, which feeds into the Guadalupe River and, eventually, Canyon Lake. Native Americans once camped here, and during the Civil War wood from hickory trees along the banks were used to make gun stocks. In the early 1900s, settlers brewed moonshine out of a still near the springs. Today, it's a favorite spot of the Kavanaughs' grandchildren, who wade in its crisp water and chase tiny frogs along the shoreline.

The main spring emerges from a cave that snakes back about 25 feet. Smaller springs bubble up around a pond. But because of the current drought, a thin scum has formed over the surface.

Norris and the other biologist, Janet Nelson, finally scoop up a juvenile salamander, less than an inch long. Norris makes a note, then releases the tiny, pale creature. He turns over a rock, and flicks off a water penny, a disc-like critter related to a pill bug. He spots scads of caddis flies. All are indicator species; their presence means that the water quality here is good. He tells Rebecca Kavanaugh, who is watching from the edge of the pond, that the springs appear healthy despite the low flow.

He slogs further downstream, looking for snails and crawfish, noting mayflies and joyfully plucking an inch-long, prehistoric looking bug out of the water. "Oh, this is great!" he says, holding the body of the dragonfly larvae and using his fingers to pull on its chin, demonstrating the bug's retractable jaw.

Finally he and Nelson toss a seine into the 3-foot-deep pool just below where the springs come out. They're hoping to find a green-throat darter, a small fish that's endemic to the headwaters of springs like this. The darter evades them, but something else flops in the net.

"Here's a teeny tiny bass," Norris says. "And there's a big sunfish over there, just mocking me."

It is more evidence of the importance of these sparkling oasis to the ecosystem.

"Springs are pretty magical places from an ecological perspective," says Myron Hess, manager of Texas Water Programs for the National Wildlife Federation. "They're very unique habitats and really critical to the identity of the Hill Country. The work (Norris) is doing is particularly critical because springs tend to disappear gradually. If you're not aware of what's out there, it's easy to miss a gradual decline — and we may not be aware until it's too late to save it."

Norris, for one, is determined that doesn't happen.

"I can't imagine my kids being in the Hill Country in 20 or 30 years and not having springs to cool off in."

pleblanc@statesman.com; 445-3994