Wilbarger Bend is renowned for a legendary Texas pioneer, its bald eagles, prime farmland, and exceptional water quality. It is about to become renowned for having one of the largest sand and gravel mining operations in Central Texas.

If we don’t act now to stop or, at the very least, mitigate the destruction of this last undeveloped jewel in the Austin-Bastrop River Corridor, its priceless natural assets — fertile soil, clean water, abundant wildlife — will be stolen from future generations. 

This 9-mile stretch of riparian beauty and fragile river ecology (just 8 west of downtown Bastrop, 20 miles east of Austin) is an outdoor classroom and recreation destination for thousands of students, biologists, eco-tourists, anglers, paddlers, and Audubon birders. Home to the endangered blue sucker and hundreds of species of migrating birds, the Bend's McKinney Roughs Park and nearby Hyatt Lost Pines also enjoy these 2,000 acres of undisturbed ranch and farmland. Young and beginning farmers work alongside culinary students to learn sustainable farming skills at Green Gate Farms , the county’s first certified organic vegetable and cut flower business.

This rare mix of reliable water and fertile soil, coupled with Bastrop’s investment as an agritourism destination, has made the Bend a choice location for ranchers, organic farmers and popular recreation venues. This Bend is also home to a thriving Hispanic community and the Utley Freedom Colony whose slave descendants still reside here.

Suddenly, without public notice or input, nearly half of the Bend (900 acres) has been sold or leased to sand and gravel companies. The health and livelihoods of the people who live here are now threatened by an industry that has so few restrictions in Texas that a state legislative committee published a 78-page report justifying long-overdue reforms. (See Texans for Responsible Aggregate Mining (TRAM). 

This petition is a call-to-action demanding that our state legislators support those recommendations rather than defeat them as they did two years ago.  Our overburdened river ways deserve more equitable, responsible, and sustainable land and water use regulations and initiatives, such as the John Graves Scenic Riverway on the Brazos and Vermont's Intervale Center. Without this level of protection and place-based solutions, the Austin-Bastrop-Smithville River Corridor can never fulfill the goals this river partnership envisioned exactly 20 years ago! 

Please sign this petition and learn more at: Friends of the Land.

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