Grapes of Wrath Redux

Water into Wine. Really?

When I hear some of our local officials and business leaders here in Hays County, Texas speak admiringly of “agro-tourism” in Hays County, I have a tendency to cringe, and for some reason, my mouth gets a little dry.

Methinks somebody smells money where I detect only the arid odor of drought tinged with a slight aroma of greed and short-sightedness. Are we talking about luring people to our part of the world so they can book a luxury suite at the Salt Lick Lodge and Massage Parlor or eat at Mandola's and look out the window and gaze at lush vineyards watered with our groundwater?

Really?

Are we talking about pulling a Water Into Wine Miracle right here in the Texas Hill Country? Perhaps somebody spotted the image of a wine bottle on a local tortilla and took it too seriously. Makes you think perhaps somebody was visiting California’s Napa Valley and got a harebrained notion that our arid, unpredictable landscape could masquerade as some sort of tourist attraction that grew wine grapes.

If there is anything Dripping Springs, Texas is unlikely to ever be famous for it will be consistently lush landscapes, but you wouldn’t know that by listening to the Salt Lick’s developers who have the audacity to name their new project, “Driftwood”, even though there is an established community by that name of which this BBQ joint and its adjacent illusions of grandeur are but a tiny part.

No one living in our lovely little "postal fiction" of Greater Driftwood stands to benefit one iota from any of this, well not unless you also plan to get with the program and find your own way to attract tourism. Snake Farm? I have no idea what these people are thinking, but surely they have heard about wells going dry from one end of the county to the other and noticed we spent most of the summer with nary a drop of rain.

Our community needs to revisit the concept of “The Commons”: a shared community where we each have our private realm, but where we each have a share in a common heritage, common concerns and a sense of being part of something larger than ourselves.

Scott Roberts, the owner of the Salt Lick, owes our State Representative Patrick Rose a really big favor. Well, he has been paying upfront on that favor for years, hosting those big fundraisers out at the Salt Lick and not making Patrick pay a dime.

Representative Rose, rather than use his time and talents this past legislative session to secure for our area’s water supply some legal protections and research funding or work to get Hays County some enhanced abilities to hold the reins on rapid development, instead spent his entire time, apparently, on a special law designed just so Scott and his business partners could levy their very own sales tax for their little fiefdom. Last week’s election was priceless. There was only one person qualified to vote to establish that taxing entity, Scott Roberts. The vote was 1-O. The ayes have it.

How much water does it take to grow a grape? Not only do you need water for irrigation, but it takes a lot of water to wash those bottles and keep the floor of your winery clean, wash away your pesticide residue and feed your tourist population, not to mention to make sure your other landscaping stays green. Well, according the Texas Water Development Board, the 2008 estimate for Hays County’s 150 acres of vineyards was 400 acre/feet of water or the amount of water it would take to fill 400 football fields to a depth of one foot. This was for irrigation only and did not even address all the other things a vineyard requires water to do.

Can we really afford to keep grapes and tourists hydrated when some of our local households are having to truck in water just to stay afloat?

Grapes are essentially delicate little orbs of water and sugar perched precariously on vines that are a tasty treat to a host of predators. What is being sprayed on these vines to prevent insect depredation, disease, mildew and to cut down on the inevitable native “weeds” that surely would love to share in that bounty of water is anybody’s guess, but when I downloaded the “list of pesticides commonly used on wine grapes” I got ill just reading it. There is a comprehensive list at pesticideinfo.com. Don’t read while eating…or drinking wine.

Google, “water quality + vineyards” or any related site and you will be treated to what it like to live near a vineyard and all the problems these communities are having being wine’s next-door neighbors. Where does all that toxic run-off end up? What about herbicide overspray and the inevitable shift in insect populations caused when you kill off one or two species or introduce a new pathogen into the local ecology?

To make matters worse, there was not a grape in sight this year as a late April freeze had nixed this year’s harvest along with my crape myrtles. So all that water the vineyards drank up this past summer while the rest of us were conserving and watching our own landscapes turn into toast was spent just growing grape leaves and dreams.

It is puzzling to me how folks got the idea that this was a good locale to try their hand at a water-thirsty crop in a time of decreasing rainfall and groundwater resources?

Seems that a few large landowners are increasing their vineyards even as our ability to use groundwater decreases dramatically. Are these vineyards using rainwater harvesting? I don’t see any of them erecting massive pole barns adjacent to their field to collect and store rainfall, but simply damming up our local creeks for irrigation and/or pumping the aquifer, our shared water supply.

We need a good agricultural base in our county, but are vineyards the way to go? Crops should be chosen based on what the climate and the water resources can actually support, not simply what a few enterprising landowners decide is best for their bottom line, regardless of the effect this will have on their neighbors and the shared water table. If there are too many bugs or diseases in a particular area, shouldn’t less-susceptible varieties be planted, making less of an impact on the soil, air and water and making an organic option possible?

If anyone at all is minding the store, we need some serious community conversations before allowing former cattle ranches and open lands to be converted into vineyards.

What might turn a few pockets into lusher landscapes threatens to do so at the expense of thousands of residents who depend on groundwater as their only water source. Shouldn’t we consider what is being planted before giving carte blanche permission to any and all comers who seek an ag exemption?

Are all agricultural endeavors equal? I don’ t think so, and there is a consideration given to this when pondering how many cows a acre can support in the Hill Country vs. The Blackland Prairie on our eastern shores. Shouldn’t more attention be paid to just why a person needs an agricultural well and how much water they are planning to pump out of our shared aquifer?

As it stands, agricultural wells are completely exempt from oversight by the groundwater conservation district, just like a family’s domestic well, even though the potential impact on the aquifer could be immense.

Granted, we should all be looking to rainwater as our next water source and especially to conservation as the cheapest water available anywhere, but until then we are all in this together, this effort to use less groundwater.

So, when you hear that term “agro-tourism” or hear tell of yet another landowner wanting to plow up his range and plant grapevines, ask yourself and then ask them if trying to turn Central Texas into wine country is really such a great idea.

I think we all know the answer.





Susan Cook is a native Texan and a resident of Driftwood, Texas.