ustxtxb_obs_1970_03_20_50_00011-00000_000.pdf

Good Job, 0, Sen. Yarborough BUMPERSTRIPS: 4 for 50c, 15 for $1, 100 for $3, 500 for $14, 1,000 for $25. Send .check and Zip Code; we pay postage and tax. FUTURA PRESS iNc Phone 512/442-7836 1714 SOUTH CONGRESS P.O. BOX 3485 AUSTIN. TEXAS Buz Sawyer and Barton Creek Austin Two Houston firms, an Austin bank, and 8 Austin area residents are being sued by Austin conservation groups to prevent further pollution of Barton Creek by housing developments. And you can read about it in the funny papers. But it isn’t really very funny. Plaintiffs, in the suit filed in 53rd District Court back in January, are Mr. and Mrs. Paul Bolton, Mrs. Cecil Cabaniss, Mr. and Mrs. Lowell Lebermann, Mrs. Russell Fish, Mrs. J. Frank Dobie, Mike Butler, and Mrs. Fagan Dickson. Mrs. Dickson is the former president of the Austin Parks and Recreation Board, and a long-time leader in anti-pollution campaigns. Some of the plaintiffs are also members of the board of trustees of the newly formed Austin Environmental Council organized by Mrs. Dickson which has affiliated with it a broad range of organizations such as the American Institute of Architects, the Audubon Society, The Austin Women’s Federation Heritage Society, the Austin Junior League, the League of Women Voters, the Austin Natural Stience Center, the Society of Professional Engineers, the Women’s Architectural League, several garden clubs, church groups, and the Austin chapter of the Sierra Club. In their lawsuit, this group is asking the court for a declaratory judgement that Barton Creek is a navigable stream under the terms of state laws. All Barton Creek has to do to pass this test is be 30 feet wide from bank to bank, from the mouth of it on up through the area owned by the defendants. The suit also alleges that the landowner defendants along the Creek above Zilker Park in southwest Austin are seeking to deprive the public of the right of access to the stream for recreation purposes. The defendants are Kirkwood Development Co., Inc., and Austin Southwest Development Co., Inc., both of Houston; the Capital National Bank of Austin; and eight Austin area men: Tom Bradfield, president of Bradfield, Cummins and Gore, Charles F. Dellana, Harold E. Massey, Jessie Mallory, Taylor Gaines, Robert L. Stone, N. J. Walker, and Jack Andrewartha, president of Andrewartha Homes. Before the lawsuit was launched, the City of Austin had tried and failed to secure options to buy from the defendants about 1,000 acres of land along Barton Creek. None of the landowners would take less than $1,000 an acre, and the city can’t afford that. At present, Barton Creek above Zilker Park is sparsely inhabited, but it won’t be that way for long. Jack Andrewartha has revealed that his anticipated alterations on the creek bed and flood plain just above Barton Springs swimming pool include the construction of about 400 residence units. In the process, Andrewartha told the Austin City Attorney that he plans to remove approximately a half-million cubic yards of the sandy loam along Barton Creek bank to a depth of about 20 feet, and all the trees in the pecan bottom. Once the loam and the pecan trees are gone, Andrewartha said, they will be replaced by limestone from the adjoining rock bluff to restore the flood plain to its present level. All the apartments to be constructed there will be on steel reinforced piers well above the flood plain and high enough to permit a paved, covered parking area beneath. Construction is due to begin in about 60 days. Andrewartha’s response to the conservation group’s lawsuit against him and the other landowners was to threaten to bring a countersuit that would require the removal of the two dams in the creek that form Barton Springs swimming pool. If the creek is to be designated a navigable stream, Andrewartha would have it be literally navigable as far up as his property. Those who have the habit of reading the daily comic strip “Buz Sawyer” will have noticed that the current plot involves ex-Navy pilot Sawyer taking sides in the controversy in his old home town of Edenville between the conservation group led by a socially prominent woman, Mrs. Betty Norman, and the rapacious developer Happy King, who wants to fill in the old swimmin’ hole and make it a giant parking lot, for the workers in the brewery which will use all the water from the springs. While it would be a mistake to identify Happy King with Jack Andrewartha, or any of the defendants, or even a composite of all of them, and while there are only limited points of correspondence between Mrs. Betty Norman of Edenville and Mrs. Fagan Dickson of Austin, still it is a fact that Roy Crane, who draws Buz Sawyer, is a University of Texas ex-student who keeps up pretty well with what goes on in and 1 1 around his alma mater. But it isn’t at all certain that even the intervention of Buz Sawyer on the side of woods, trees, parks, and clear water in the ole’ swimmin’ hole can do anything to slow the march of progress in Austin toward a Barton Creek as polluted as Waller Creek now is, or as Town Lake is rapidly becoming. DECK YOES Mr. Yoes, a member of the board of directors of KPFT-FM, the new Pacifica radio station in Houston, read the above article as part of the station’s first Austin Report, scheduled to be broadcast every Thursday evening during KPFT’s one and a half hour newscast, “Life on Earth.” Yoes and Kaye Northcott, the Observer’s associate editor, produce the weekly Austin portion of the news program. to begin broadcasting at 9 a.m. March 1, but the novice staff was mired in technical difficulties, including the absence of some vital equipment. The station finally was launched onto the air waves with much jubilation late that night. Ed. March 20, 1970 11 CLASSIFIED BOOKPLATES. Free catalog. Many beautiful designs. Special designing too. Address: BOOK PLATES, Yellow Springs 8, Ohio. ANNE’S TYPING SERVICE \(Marjorie Anne Service, Binding, Mailing, Public Notary. Twenty years experience. Call 442-7008 or 442-0170, Austin. OKLAHOMA LIMITED. A Journal of Political Opinion. Published Monthly $5 Per Year. Box 2777-TO, Norman, Okla. 73069. VISITING Southern California? Like campy things, antiques, collector’s items? Get our complete guide to Southern California thrift shops, flea markets, swap meets. Send $1 to the Crap Trap, Box 101, Malibu, Calif. 90265, MARCH ON WASHINGTONphoto essay, over 100 pictures, speeches, etc. 10″x12″ Absolute. Send $2.50 Relevance Press, Box 366X Newcomb Hall Station, Charlottesville, Va. 22901. THE TRUMPETDigest of Independent Liberal Goleta, Calif. 93017. ASTROLOGY in Houston: Full chart service available. Special consultations by arrangement. 668-3107. KENNEDY-JOHNSON “A Ticket for Texans” red, white, blue bumperstickers $2.00 each, all proceeds to Ralph Yarborough campaign. Ray Heinrich, P.O. Box 3498, Baytown, Texas.