Landowners of nearly a century make deal with the city of Austin to protect it

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Landowners of nearly a century make deal with the city of Austin to protect it

AUSTIN (KXAN) – The owners of Shield Ranch – a 6,600-acre swath of land spanning Travis and Hays Counties – made a deal with the city of Austin to conserve some of its vulnerable land and protect it from development.

Last week, the ranch announced that it was selling to the city over 200 acres of its property to become a conservation easement – an agreement to prevent development into future generations. This allows the land to stay within the family while protecting vulnerable land. 98% of the entire ranch is now protected wildland, according to the Shield-Ayres-Bowen family.

“We have a long history – pushing 90 years – of connection with the land, and we’ve come to appreciate the value it represents,” said Bob Ayers, a co-owner of the ranch. “This [agreement] is a way that we can realize a portion of its value – which matters to the family – and still see it protected for future generations of our family and the larger community.”

Shield Ranch houses 10% of the Barton Spring Watershed. Conservationists hope preventing development in the area will protect water quality.

“Anywhere humans develop there’s going to be impacts,” said Lindsey Sydow, a hydrologist with the Watershed Protection Department.

“We can do our best, but anywhere you put pavement, have cars, and have people generating wastewater and other waste there’s going to be some level of impact,” she continued.

The new conservation easement represents the final purchase made possible through a 2018 bond election. Among other propositions,

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, releasing $184 million for flood mitigation, open space, and water quality protection.

“Conservation easements protect the property in perpetuity,” Sydow said. “This program is primarily for protecting water – recharging the Edwards Aquifer – but it can have all these other benefits as well, [including] biodiversity and other ecosystem services.”

While the Shield-Ayres-Bowen still made money from the deal, had they chosen to develop on the land, they would have earned much more, said Jeff Francell, director of land protection for the Nature Conservancy in Texas.

“If the family were of a different mindset, it’d be very likely that property would have been developed and water quality in Barton Creek and Barton Springs would be noticeably worse,” Francell said.

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