The Barton Creek Uprising

An old girlfriend once told me, “There really are only two stories ever told: either two people fall in love, or a stranger comes to town.” In the late 1980s, Jim Bob Moffett moved to Austin and changed my life — and the story of Austin. Jim Bob was the CEO of Freeport-McMoRan, a giant petrochemical and mining company. They had bought up over 7,000 acres along Barton Creek at rock-bottom prices during the bank boom, bust, and bailout of the eighties. This land was beautiful, classic Texas Hill Country land, much of it prime habitat for the golden-cheeked warbler, a beloved songbird and candidate for endangered species listing. Jim Bob’s plans would harm Barton Springs and the warbler.

On June 7th, 1990 — 35 years ago next week — Jim Bob and his lawyers brought his Barton Creek Planned Unit Development, or PUD, to city council for consideration. I was a young puppy lawyer then, ignoring my paid work to volunteer with other environmental activists. My older brother had turned me on to Jerry Jeff Walker, Willie Nelson, and the cosmic cowboy sound of Austin, and I’d come here for the holy trinity of Austin: live music, Barton Springs, and Tex-Mex.

I knew there would be a big crowd at City Hall that morning. The Austin Chronicle cover the previous week had set off the alarm. The cover mocked a ransom note: “If you don’t read this, we will poison Barton Springs.” Floating on the pool surface was a beach ball with skull and crossbones. Inside, the Chronicle told us that Freeport-McMoRan was the discharger of more toxic pollutants into the waters of the United States than any other company, and they owned the world’s largest gold and copper mine in the mountains of West Papua. Their Grasberg mine disappeared and displaced indigenous native West Papuans, converting the entire Ajkwa River system into a giant sluice delivering mine waste from the mountains to the sea.

City Hall and the sidewalk that morning filled with people waving signs and chanting early in the day: “Save Barton Creek,” “Pound the PUD,” and my favorite, “No Slimers.” Over a thousand people signed up to speak, and over 200 actually spoke. Jim Bob’s team went first. They were not threatened by the crowd — they had locked up their votes ahead of time. And when Jim Bob spoke, he told the council, “As a geologist and former UT football player with the highest grades on the team, I know more about Barton Springs than anybody in this room.” The crowd went wild.

Then the opponents spoke, all through the night. Most of them told the council to reject the plans, for Jim Bob wanted 3,000 apartments, over three Barton Creek Malls of commercial development, thousands of homes, and four golf courses. They spoke for the water, but they also raised the question: who’s going to govern — the people, or big money? At about 11 that night, Jim Bob and his team rose up in unison and ceremoniously left the room, throwing in the towel when their request to postpone was denied.

As the sun rose the next morning, the last speaker spoke, and it was time for the council to decide. Council Member Shipman made the motion to deny the PUD. Cheers and a standing ovation erupted. But then she added, “and grant the requested variances.” Almost nobody had heard this — but I did. I turned white. Jim Bob’s team had not thrown in the towel. They had simply played possum all night long. They had crafted a masterful motion and fed it to Sally Shipman — one that would really screw Austin, but sounded like a win for the people. But just as quickly, Council Member Robert Barnstone jumped in. Barnstone was a developer himself, an early pioneer in redeveloping the decaying central city. He quieted the audience and explained how Shipman’s motion would do real harm. And then he made a substitute motion to deny the PUD — period. Everybody cheered once again, and after a few minutes, the vote was seven to zero to deny the PUD. The people made a difference.

Of course, it wasn’t over. Jim Bob and his developer friends launched a decades-long campaign to divide and conquer Austin. Our mobilized community hung together, and we formed the Save Our Springs Coalition. We exercised our right to direct democracy under the Austin city charter and petitioned the Save Our Springs ordinance onto the ballot. And on August 8th, 1992, by almost a two-to-one margin, City of Austin voters approved the SOS ordinance. A developer lawsuit attacked the ordinance, but it failed when then–Texas Supreme Court Justice Greg Abbott wrote the opinion upholding the ordinance as valid.

In the decades since, the SOS movement launched by the Barton Creek uprising won real protections for our waters: electing green officials, winning voter approval to protect parks and preserves — including over 30,000 acres of Barton Springs watershed — and winning federal protection for the Barton Springs salamander, the golden-cheeked warbler, and six other local species, and also protecting our waters that we all share.

But Austin is a different place today. Climate change threatens all of our waters more than ever. Rapid growth and a loss of local journalism threaten our waters and our functional local democracy. The Austin Chronicle has long ago stopped being a City Hall watchdog, and I believe that Margaret Sullivan’s book Ghosting the News is correct that the loss of local journalism threatens American democracy every bit as much as fake news. But active citizens, joining with independent media projects, are working to reclaim the kind of community that showed up for Barton Springs on June 7th, 1990 and August 8th, 1992. Two years ago, park activists partnered with journalist Steve Mims to produce the short documentary Zilker, Inc. — a plan to monetize a natural treasure. The partnership derailed the City Hall plan to convert Zilker Park into an outdoor entertainment district. And then this year, nonprofit local news startup Austin Free Press produced a second Mims documentary, The Magic Hole, which shines the light on city council’s rush to commit over $30 billion of our future hotel taxes to a giant new convention center without voter approval — all the while telling us there’s no money for arts, culture, or parks. Local music, arts, and parks advocates working under the umbrella of the Austin United PAC are seeking to petition the issue onto the November ballot, just as the Barton Springs activists did in 1992. The people will decide.

For me, Barton Springs and the Austin community inspire me every day. It takes a community to save a community. And as another old friend likes to say, we can each only do a little — so please do. And may salamanders forever swim in your water supply. Thank you.