Ep 163 Garry Merritt - The Great Springs Project transcript from the video version of the episode (Note: Transcript has not been proofed)

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:34:06
Garry Merritt
Transportation because there are going to be some transportation savings in this, particularly in the urban areas. We work on connected networks of trails and developing trail segments that can be used for active transportation to get from your house to a to a school or from your home to to the local grocery store in and in back. And so fewer car rides, definitely decent transportation savings and then health, just the physical health benefits and the mental health benefits of more access to parks and open space and trails is very significant.

00:00:34:23 - 00:01:05:21
John Simmerman
Hey, everyone, welcome to the Active Towns Channel. I'm John Zimmerman and that was Gary Merritt with the Great Springs Project that's happening right here in central Texas, basically between Austin and San Antonio and Garry really kind of gives a great overview of this exciting project. It's going to be nearly 100 miles in total connecting four of the most important springs that exist naturally here in the central Texas area.

00:01:06:05 - 00:01:22:10
John Simmerman
And it's it's a lot of fun. It's a beautiful concept and it's wonderful to see two things happening, land being conserved and trail going down on the ground without further ado, let's get right to it with Garry Merritt.

00:01:26:03 - 00:01:30:25
John Simmerman
Garry, it's such a wonderful opportunity to have you on the podcast. Welcome.

00:01:31:04 - 00:01:32:14
Garry Merritt
Well, thank you, John. Thanks for having me.

00:01:33:06 - 00:01:39:28
John Simmerman
So, Gary, I love to have my guests just introduce themselves, so I'll turn the floor over to you. Who's Gary Merritt?

00:01:41:03 - 00:01:45:03
Garry Merritt
So thanks, John. I'm Gary Merritt. I'm the CEO of Great Springs Project.

00:01:46:01 - 00:01:48:26
John Simmerman
Fantastic. And where did you grow up?

00:01:49:23 - 00:01:53:07
Garry Merritt
I'm from a small town in the western hill country called Lakey.

00:01:54:03 - 00:01:54:14
John Simmerman
Okay.

00:01:54:26 - 00:02:13:05
Garry Merritt
It's between Kerrville and Uvalde, right on the edge of the Edwards plateau. The Frio River is on one side of my county, and the new South River is on the western side of my county. Some people have been to Garner State Park. It's ten miles upstream from there or lost Mabel State Park. We're about 15 miles west of there.

00:02:13:23 - 00:02:17:21
John Simmerman
Wow. Okay, cool. So it sounds like the hill country is in your blood.

00:02:18:06 - 00:02:36:03
Garry Merritt
It really is. Yeah. My family's been in the hill country for two generations. I grew up in that town of 500 people and. And just spent all my outdoor time on my growing up, time outside and searching around and continued to ride the land to be a really important part of my life.

00:02:36:12 - 00:02:40:19
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. And formal training. What sort of background in education do you have?

00:02:41:09 - 00:03:07:14
Garry Merritt
Yeah. From after Lahey High School, I went to Rice University to do my undergrad law school, University of Texas. Then I practiced law, corporate and real estate law for seven years in Houston and then moved back to my little hometown of Lakey to open a law practice there where I did a lot of real estate work, a lot of corporate work, and I also got involved in local government there, being our elected county attorney for ten years and our elected county judge for seven years.

00:03:07:15 - 00:03:08:06
Garry Merritt
That's a real county.

00:03:08:20 - 00:03:26:00
John Simmerman
Oh, wow. Okay, fantastic. So you served as the real county judge, which for for those listening in and tuning in and watching this, Texas is a little different in terms of that elected official, you know, with the judge name. Explain that.

00:03:26:17 - 00:03:52:24
Garry Merritt
Yeah. The county judge and elected county judge position in Texas is, if you like, civics. It's really an interesting position because it is judicial. I was a black robe judge and I presided over misdemeanor criminal trials and probate cases and juvenile cases and things like that. There is an executive function in the you are sort of like the CEO of the county.

00:03:52:24 - 00:04:07:18
Garry Merritt
And the point for a lot of those functions and then there's some legislative work as well. And that arose out of the commissioners court, which has a little bit of rulemaking authority in Texas. You can adopt a few things. And so it has all three branches of government in one office.

00:04:08:06 - 00:04:19:08
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. It's pretty a pretty fascinating I was when I moved here, you know, from Hawaii, I was like, wait a minute, they do what is a little bit of everything there is.

00:04:19:08 - 00:04:34:18
Garry Merritt
And one more thing about a county judge in each of the counties. The county judges have all of the constitutional authority to do things, but not all judges exercise that. So one of the things you have to ask someone, if you you know that they've been or a county judge, you have to ask them what authorities that they exercise.

00:04:34:25 - 00:04:43:05
Garry Merritt
That's right. Not all county judges are black judges. Some of them have other people do that. But for me, I like doing things and so I did everything right.

00:04:43:26 - 00:05:00:28
John Simmerman
So when did you start, you know, getting really interested in the concept of land conservation and and how does that kind of tie maybe into your like your personal life and how you like to, you know, get out in in the wilderness?

00:05:02:15 - 00:05:30:19
Garry Merritt
Yeah. You know, I said before that of being on the land was important to me and it really was where I grew up in a small, small community with a lot of around me and so for us, that's what we did for fun. We went were outside and we were looking for swimming holes along the Frio River or the creeks and you know, since we would be on bikes or horses are on foot or whatever, just outside all the time.

00:05:30:19 - 00:05:56:29
Garry Merritt
And so that and all my family has worked on ranches, cutting cedar driving trucks working. And so being big on on the land is always something really important to me. Then working in real estate, you know, you sort of look at and learn how to look at land with a certain viewpoint. But then when I became county attorney and then county judge, one of the things I worked on was to do some long term planning for the county.

00:05:57:15 - 00:06:32:07
Garry Merritt
And in my county, really county, our our economy was driven by tourism. And so I was looking around and talking with folks and was thinking that the natural resources there are our economic engine, that's our Toyota plant for San Antonio or the Samsung that's going to be here just north of Austin. And so we started to build conservation resource protection into our our long term planning and we needed to have the river be clean so people would come back year after year and have water in the river and have an air be clean.

00:06:32:07 - 00:06:35:23
Garry Merritt
And for people to see the cypress trees, because that's how people make their living.

00:06:36:07 - 00:07:08:11
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. So I'm going to pull up the website here. And again, the organization is the Great Springs Project and the website here is Great Springs dot org dawg. And it really says right here, you know, it's the heart of Texas. Talk a little bit about what this project, you know, is and is about. And and we've got a little video that will will pause and play because I think it does a great job of of really bringing it to life.

00:07:08:11 - 00:07:15:06
John Simmerman
But before we press play on that, I'll give you the floor and let you just kind of, you know, give us an intro to it.

00:07:15:17 - 00:07:58:21
Garry Merritt
It's a Great Springs project is for me, it's this it's the project of my lifetime. It really pulls together everything that I'm good at or passionate about. From a Texas perspective, it really is a big Texas sized project. It has conservation at its core of protecting land over the recharge zone of the Edwards aquifer between San Antonio and Austin, and protecting these, the four iconic springs that are in the Great Springs alignment, that's San Antonio Springs, which is the blue hole at Incarnate Word campus in San Antonio to come out Springs, downtown New Braunfels to San Marcos Springs and then on to Barton Springs and in downtown Austin.

00:07:59:04 - 00:08:07:19
Garry Merritt
And so this protecting and connecting these four springs and doing it from a market based transactional perspective, just everything that I love to do.

00:08:08:12 - 00:08:31:13
John Simmerman
That's cool. That's cool. Well, we'll get back to what you mean by market based, transactional and and sort of the nuts and bolts of that. But let's give both of our voices a little bit of a break and give the audience a little taste of what it is this vision is all about.

00:08:31:13 - 00:09:05:29
Matthew McConaughey
It's no wonder why folks moved to the Texas Hill Country to one of the greatest places to live. Water magically springs from the earth and entire rivers are born. The land bursts with color and is teeming with life and water. Defines who we are here. And our identity in history is tied to the Edwards aquifer and four Great Springs.

00:09:05:29 - 00:09:41:03
Matthew McConaughey
These springs and the rivers that flow from them are the soul of our cities. They connect us to nature, giving residents and visitors access to some of the best water recreation opportunities in the world. Barton Springs is the heart of Austin. San Marcos Springs gives birth to a river. Comal Springs is the largest spring in the southwest, and the San Antonio Spring is the original source of the San Antonio River.

00:09:41:03 - 00:10:13:17
Matthew McConaughey
These springs and thousands of others are connected underground by vast aquifers. The Great Springs Trail is the connection. We need a trail that runs through the land that defines who we are. Some of the trail is already established and it's time we connect the dots. Trails make us healthier and they make our towns, our cities and our neighborhoods even better places to live.

00:10:15:04 - 00:11:09:00
Matthew McConaughey
People live longer with access to nature and trails. Show you to the wonders of the world. But the Great Springs Trail is more than just a hike and bike trail. It will conserve a breathtaking part of Texas and the most quickly developing region in the United States. Some of the region has already been protected, but there is still a lot of work to be done.

00:11:09:27 - 00:11:38:27
Matthew McConaughey
Yes, time is of the essence. This region of Texas is growing faster than any other, and if we don't conserve it right now, we are going to lose the very reason that we live here right now. We have the chance to make this dream a reality. Future generations won't. And it's not just people that will benefit the hill.

00:11:38:27 - 00:12:08:02
Matthew McConaughey
Country contains species found nowhere else in the world and is a migratory stopover or on a continental scale. Water that falls here is captured by grass and soil seeping into the land and into vast underground aquifers. These caves and passageways below us are so extensive the species have adapted to live here that are found nowhere else in the world.

00:12:09:12 - 00:12:53:16
Matthew McConaughey
And when these aquifers are healthy, they bubble to the surface as springs. The magic of water is why we live here. Protecting these aquifers and springs is protecting who we are. Unfortunately, the recharge zone of these aquifers is exactly where we're developing. Our springs and our rivers are at risk. Already, in the last 50 years, half of the major springs in Texas have stopped flowing during drought years.

00:12:53:16 - 00:13:22:03
Matthew McConaughey
The time to act is now before it's too late. The Great Springs project is not just a great trail through this recharge zone, it will conserve the land that is crucial for our springs and rivers to survive. Our plan is bold. It must be. Join us.

00:13:22:03 - 00:13:31:04
John Simmerman
Fabulous. If that doesn't inspire us all, I don't know what. Well, that's fantastic.

00:13:31:29 - 00:13:40:09
Garry Merritt
Well, thank you. I know this will be the world's shortest podcast, so thanks for having me. That really does say it all. It really does.

00:13:40:09 - 00:14:07:06
John Simmerman
So a couple of things, you know, sort of resonated with me in watching these images. And one is, is that I'm privileged enough to live in a neighborhood where I have access to the greenbelt, the Barton Creek greenbelt, and within it, within a very, very short, comfortable, safe ride. I can get on my bike and I can ride through the neighborhood on quiet residential streets.

00:14:07:16 - 00:14:32:24
John Simmerman
I can then jump on to a portion of the butler hike and bike trail, and then I can make my way over to, you know, the Barton Springs pool. And then I actually like my bike up there at Barton Springs Pool, and then I walk over to the trailhead and then go deep into the greenbelt. And just like that image of the person trail running, that's that's kind of my opportunity for recreation.

00:14:32:25 - 00:14:59:24
John Simmerman
That's what I do to try to stay sane and my connection to the land, the earth, you know, the area nature in this neighborhood is, is I run, I go back in there and I run. There's a certain connection there for me, you know, with that. And I see how valuable that is. But it was also mentioned in the in the video here is that there's this tension, there's this pressure of this is a desirable place.

00:14:59:24 - 00:15:35:16
John Simmerman
There is housing shortages, and there's this pressure to try to continue to to build more housing and continue spreading further and further out. And yet, you know, we have to find that balance right. Because if like, as was pointed out in the very video here, this is over some of those crucial aquifers and recharge zones. Talk a little bit about that tension and how you all are, you know, relatively newcomers to the scene helping to to try to manage that.

00:15:35:22 - 00:16:02:24
Garry Merritt
Texas is a growing state. Our population is growing, our economy is growing. And and so we do need more housing. We do need more places for people to go work in and to live. But we also need more places for people to be outside. And and I believe a Great Springs project. We believe that that that we can find that balance and those, those two things that seemingly our attention can work together for us.

00:16:02:24 - 00:16:28:28
Garry Merritt
The reason that we work in such a tight geography area over the recharge zone of the Edwards aquifer, slightly into the contributing zone between Austin to San Antonio, it's where the springs are and it's, it's like with our mission to protect them, but it's also to bring attention to the place and the recharge zone of an aquifer means and why it's important to be thoughtful and intentional about the way that we orient toward the land.

00:16:29:10 - 00:17:04:16
Garry Merritt
And so with the same intentional intentionality of of developing single family houses or commercial space, we should have the same intentionality for the way that we treat for us, particularly the recharge, the areas of the aquifer and those in those four springs. So just bringing to people's mind that this is another thing that's really important that we need to be taking into consideration and actively working toward being successful, that we can be successful at adding more parks and open space and spring protection in this area as we're adding more houses and commercial.

00:17:05:05 - 00:17:27:00
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And I pulled up this slide that shows those an overview of those four critical springs and their locations. And this is a 100 miles spring. This spring, the spring trail network that's in place. And to the point, I mean, it's it's right here in the description. It's a national park size corridor. This is massive. Who dreamt up this idea?

00:17:27:02 - 00:17:29:03
John Simmerman
What's the history of the vision of it?

00:17:29:13 - 00:17:57:28
Garry Merritt
Yeah, the vision comes from our board chairperson, Deborah Morin, and she is from San Antonio, lived in Austin to go to Texas and then made Austin her home. And for many years she has thought about and visualized how to protect the springs and particularly the recharge features that support those springs. For her, it was the idea of being active in transactions to do it.

00:17:58:15 - 00:18:21:20
Garry Merritt
And so and they and she she with some friends started to work around a San Marcos Springs, especially a little under a decade ago and they they worked to move some land into conservation there and to protect San Marcos Springs and with great success along with other folks around in San Marcos. That city has been really a bellwether for some intentional land conservation.

00:18:21:29 - 00:18:54:02
Garry Merritt
And now there's almost a ring around San Marcos of 18 miles of protected lands. And it's remarkable and it's fantastic and it's a great asset for that community. And so for that, from that, Deborah Moran and some others formed the Great Springs Project and then hired me and we built a team and moved from planet from an envision in the organization, just the vision of of a connected trail plus land conservation into planning it and that actual execution and transactions.

00:18:54:15 - 00:19:22:24
Garry Merritt
And just to give a little perspective, when we talk about the recharge of the Edwards aquifer between San Antonio and Austin, that's an area that's maybe 90 miles north, south or all of southwest and northeast in the graphic there. And then maybe it's 30 miles wide, roughly, so around 500,000 acres in that area of that. When we started the work, just over 50,000 acres was already in conservation in some way.

00:19:22:26 - 00:19:46:08
Garry Merritt
Great conservation organizations working there along with along with. And you absolutely have to pull this up. The work of private landowners in doing conservation is amazing and the state is incredible and there's been great conservation work done in this area. So when we say we want to add another 50,000 acres, we're talking about less than 10% of the available land in this corridor.

00:19:46:22 - 00:19:49:14
Garry Merritt
Right. So there's intentionality, but there's also perspective.

00:19:50:00 - 00:20:26:22
John Simmerman
Right. It's interesting to is that in the video, it also sort of alluded to climate and droughts and in thinking to, you know, in those days when I feel good and I make it really far into the green belt, I can I know that I'm able to find one flowing spring that is still, you know, is guaranteed to still be, you know, coming out of the rocks and and and given the fact that we had been, you know, until just recently, I mean, we got some rain recently when I was traveling out of the country.

00:20:26:22 - 00:20:48:21
John Simmerman
But yeah, we've been in an a pretty dry period and pretty much there is no water in the creek. And that's the like the only spot I know that there's going to be some water, you know, kind of trickling out of there. And from that life it happens. There's like there's fish in there. There's birds that are attracted to that area.

00:20:49:13 - 00:21:01:11
John Simmerman
Talk a little bit about that part of this in terms of that connection of the health of the aquifer, the health of the land, the health of the springs.

00:21:02:04 - 00:21:30:19
Garry Merritt
And climate in this part of Texas is amazing. And it works out for particularly is incredible for it being an area that has very unique species, in some cases indigenous only to the Edwards offer and the areas around it. You think of aquatic species that only live in the Edwards aquifer or narcotics pieces like Galactic Warbler, for example, that lives in this area.

00:21:31:17 - 00:22:08:20
Garry Merritt
And so the work of doing conservation through public agencies like cities or counties think about habitat conservation plans that they would do or watershed protection plans that cities or counties or river authorities would do. You think about the work of private landowners to move land into conservation, particularly on the surface here around, go and check water for habitat and then the work of the Edwards Aqua Authority and and the other river authority is like GBR and Qualicum Blanco River Authority and San Antonio River Authority and the Lower Colorado River Authority around Species Protection there.

00:22:08:29 - 00:22:22:20
Garry Merritt
There's a lot at play around the relationship and the protection of habitat that relates to water conservation and water resource protection that kind of underlies our mission. A Great Springs project.

00:22:24:04 - 00:22:34:22
John Simmerman
I also noticed on this slide here, you know, basically a nod to, you know, the historical context of of this area. I want to speak to this just a little bit.

00:22:35:09 - 00:23:06:28
Garry Merritt
We understand that we are among the current stewards of the idea of the connection of these four springs in the relationship to humans. What you're looking at there in this slide in the middle, that's the a portion of the white shaman rock art panel. This is along the Pecos River, near the confluence with the Rio Grande. And it shows what some people believe and we believe to be these four springs connected.

00:23:06:28 - 00:23:41:07
Garry Merritt
That panel ranges in age from 4000 to 2500 years old. And it's actually part of a of a massive rock art panel. The communities that you're looking at there in the map on the right side, they were built in those particular locations because of the access to water from the springs from San Antonio. When George Breckenridge started his his built his house there on the in on the headwaters of the San Antonio River to the city of New Braunfels, built around Comal Springs and on and on.

00:23:41:21 - 00:23:59:18
Garry Merritt
So what we believe now, the work that we do is reflective of the work that's been done for millennia, and it represents what people really fundamentally understand, which is we do not exist as a people without being connected to and protective of our water resources.

00:24:00:23 - 00:24:49:16
John Simmerman
Right? Yeah. Yeah. So one of the things that I think about when, when I think about these, these challenges that in the tensions that exist here in this arena, in this area, is trying to encourage a vision of of like a different land use pattern and plan. And we've been struggling here in the city of Austin to to rewrite our land use code and to be able to really encourage there to be, you know, more people within walking and biking distance, you know, to meaningful destinations and being able to hopefully take a little bit of that pressure off of that continuous sprawl of of, you know, housing, trying to, you know, gobble up more and

00:24:49:16 - 00:25:05:14
John Simmerman
more of this precious land that we're that we're trying to conserve here and to talk a little bit about that and where, you know, I know it's probably not core to your your mission, but is certainly adjacent to it.

00:25:05:14 - 00:25:37:16
Garry Merritt
Absolutely. In in Texas and particularly in these rapidly developing areas of Texas, the whole country and central Texas. The fact that there is so little publicly accessible, open space just resonates through so many of the decisions that get made. So for us, adding more parks and open space and trails is responsive to what people are asking for. When city Parks and Rec departments do surveys or cities do surveys, and they ask people what?

00:25:37:22 - 00:26:04:28
Garry Merritt
What did they want in their town? Invariably, more parks and more trails is at the very, very tops of those lists. So people are wanting these places to be outside. We saw that that through the pandemic is we did Safe Streets to give people more places to be outside. We see that in our great Texas State Park systems, where they're just so much engagement and so much use.

00:26:05:11 - 00:26:30:25
Garry Merritt
We see lines like in uncharted rock going down the highway to get in there and reservation systems which are necessary now because people are just it's just challenging to find these great places to be outside. And so adding more parks and open space is important for quality of life, for the reasons that we want to live in the hill country, we want to live in central Texas.

00:26:31:08 - 00:26:59:20
Garry Merritt
It's to enjoy just like you get to enjoy the green belt in Austin because it's close to your house. We need to have these places close at hand for people we have in our corridor. I drive up and down and I talk with and work with people in every community and we have people from one community where there are not enough parks and trails and they have to get in their car and they drive on I-35 15, 20 or 30 minutes to get to the next town so that they can go to a park or be on a trail.

00:26:59:27 - 00:27:15:05
Garry Merritt
And when they finish that and they get back in their car and they have to drive back to their home, we think that by working together, by listening at a local level, finding those opportunities for more parks and trails in their own community, we're making those communities better and stronger.

00:27:15:18 - 00:27:39:17
John Simmerman
Yeah, that's that's one of my biggest pet peeves is that pressure to, you know, be out having to feel like you have to get into a car to be able to go to a park. And and then that puts pressure on the park area and the trailheads to have massive amounts of parking. It's just this is a very, very unsustainable cycle.

00:27:39:17 - 00:28:02:10
John Simmerman
And I've had the opportunity to have a representative from the Trust for Public Land, you know, on the podcast before. And we talked a little bit about the ten minute walk campaign of being able to ensure that there is a a park or a trail or, you know, a linear park or something like that within a ten minute walk of everybody, you know, within a community.

00:28:02:10 - 00:28:26:12
John Simmerman
And I think that's an incredible and important factor. But I wanted to pull up this slide because I think it's something that a lot of people don't appreciate is that trails in all shapes and forms, pathways and trails, whether they're paved or unpaved, are in fact, drivers of economic benefit. Talk a little bit about this from from your perspective.

00:28:27:16 - 00:28:50:15
Garry Merritt
Yeah, this is really important to our conversation and with all of the communities and constituencies in our project area for for me, I have a background in local government and I understand if you're asking for public financial support or public investment in a project, it's important to talk about the rate of return using those public funds no different from.

00:28:50:15 - 00:29:29:28
Garry Merritt
And if you if you were asking for an investment on the private side, you have to you have to explain and have a rate of return for that. That's for type to receive certain investment so that the economic impact, the business growth we've got economic impact studies that reflect the value, economic impact of this trail. We can point to the economic impact of other regional trails like the Razorback Greenway in northwest Arkansas is a great example of a one time $30 million investment with some additional investments along the way that's had outsized economic impact for those communities.

00:29:31:01 - 00:30:04:10
Garry Merritt
The same, we can have the same conversation about other trails, regional trails around the country and economic impact that we that they have. But then thinking about it on a very, very local level, not just bringing more people in to visit your community and then leaving though the impact that they have with your local businesses to attract new businesses, to attract and retain employees, to provide those that great community feel that makes people want to stay in a community and engage and work in that community and spend their money in that community.

00:30:05:04 - 00:30:31:16
Garry Merritt
And then just the value to us as a state and to our economy of protecting the water in the aquifer, having these open spaces and all the economic benefits that flow from that, from flood mitigation to water quality protection to habitat protection for trails, parks and open space are the lowest cost, highest rate of return infrastructure that you can build from a local government perspective.

00:30:32:06 - 00:30:51:28
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. And again, that goes back to, you know, working, doing what we can on our, our land use pattern to to, to be able to have, you know, more people being able to be able to access that and try to conserve and preserve that land so that we don't have that that same pressure that continually goes there.

00:30:52:08 - 00:31:00:19
John Simmerman
So this is interesting. So you've got some numbers that you put together for a total annual benefit. Walk us through what's going on here.

00:31:00:26 - 00:31:26:06
Garry Merritt
Sure. So I know they're a trail guide. Talking about rates of return. Sounds wonky, but the reality is, is that there are all kinds of priorities, priorities that are out there for and without money for projects. All you have is a vision. So someone someone smarter than I am has said that conservation without money is just conversation, right?

00:31:26:11 - 00:31:51:27
Garry Merritt
No money, no mission. And so this is an important part of it is is how how does your project how does it trail project has a park and open space project rise in priority with all of the other priorities that cities have from a transportation and and public safety and fiscal health. Like all the things that cities need to spend money on, our counties need to spend money on or private investment need to spend money on.

00:31:52:03 - 00:32:15:07
Garry Merritt
Why is your project important? And so part of the way we make that case is by talking about these things that aren't at the front of the mind. So this slide represents that we at the beginning on the idea of a 100 mile trail in this corridor, what would be the economic impact of that trail? So just under $56 million per year, just in the four categories that are listed there.

00:32:15:07 - 00:32:36:24
Garry Merritt
So the economic outline is that increased hotel occupancy taxes and sales taxes, people coming to visit their land and water is somewhat of the value of some water quality protection. But it does not that does not include the value of water in place in the aquifer transportation, because there are going to be some transportation savings in this, particularly in the urban areas.

00:32:37:06 - 00:33:06:24
Garry Merritt
We work on connected networks of trails and developing trail segments that can be used for active transports to get from your house to a to a school or from your home to to the local grocery store in and back. And so fewer car rides. There's just some transportation savings. And then health, just the physical health benefits and the mental health benefits of more access to parks and open space and trails is very significant.

00:33:07:04 - 00:33:24:05
Garry Merritt
Again, this is on the idea of a hundred mile trail. We're going to be working on this and looking at it more closely now that we have the actual alignments, proposed alignments or the trail segments. And in I expect that we'll have also some better data sets and that this number will change dramatically. But we look at it more closely.

00:33:24:29 - 00:33:42:01
John Simmerman
Yeah, man. Well, you're talking my my language here with active transportation and health. That's that's fantastic. What's your biggest challenge in seeing this thing through?

00:33:42:01 - 00:34:06:16
Garry Merritt
What? Before I said yes, the Great Springs Project, I thought the biggest challenge would be to actually find the alignments where you could build the trail for 100 plus miles in the middle of two of the most rapidly developing counties in the United States, and to anchor cities that are growing at a massive rate. San Antonio. Austin. But once we figured out we could we could find the alignments.

00:34:07:29 - 00:34:28:24
Garry Merritt
Then the next challenge was can you, can you build a coalition that's going to take to get this done? And and you have to we thought about that and we realized that this this has to be about everyone. It really has to be a place for everyone in this. And it becomes just a big Texas sized project. A lot of ways to say yes to it.

00:34:29:02 - 00:35:08:10
Garry Merritt
So that wasn't the biggest challenge. The biggest challenge we face right now is that there is just not many places in Texas where people can experience the relationship of private property and public access in ways that benefit the private property. So we believe very, very strongly in private property rights. And one of the things that we believe in is by connecting private property to public access, it can make your private property better, stronger, more marketable, more valuable, more usable.

00:35:08:10 - 00:35:35:08
Garry Merritt
Well, that's because people don't have that experience in Texas because we have so little publicly accessible space. It's just a lot of one on one conversations with private landowners, listening to their questions and and understanding their concerns and then helping them to see the opportunity that would come to them with this kind of a transaction. And I'm encouraged by it.

00:35:35:08 - 00:35:43:29
Garry Merritt
I'll say that. I'm very encouraged by it as a Texan. I'm really encouraged by it. But it takes time and it takes a lot of individual conversations.

00:35:44:16 - 00:35:57:08
John Simmerman
Right. And I imagine funding is is another part of it. So we'll pull up the funding slide because I know that most of the audience is going, Yeah, but where are you going to get the money.

00:35:57:08 - 00:36:26:20
Garry Merritt
Yeah. So the money. So what you're looking at on the slide here are the sources of funds for the public side of the investment. And we really look at three buckets. We look at public funds like these. They can come about in a variety of ways for every one of our projects. We'll be working with a project partner again, whether it's a city or county or even a private landowner, to see if there are some public funds that can help be contributed toward the project.

00:36:27:28 - 00:37:03:13
Garry Merritt
Another bucket of money, though, is is private investment. So if there's an opportunity to either do a small amount of development on a piece of property, working with that landowner, supporting the work that that lender is doing or transitioning the ownership of that property to a private investor that will undertake those kind of activities that do primarily conservation in generally trail, and then a potential for some development which can mean a lot of different things that can mean open space development, turning a large ranch into smaller but open space ranches.

00:37:03:13 - 00:37:24:06
Garry Merritt
Or it could be a small commercial development, even a small residential development with significant conservation. And then the third bucket of money is, is just the public support piece that philanthropy in all of its forms, because this is a big project that's transformative for Texas. We do not have anything like this in Texas where we don't have right away.

00:37:24:18 - 00:37:33:22
Garry Merritt
This is not a real the trails project. We're out there building a giant coalition and then working together to connect the trail.

00:37:33:22 - 00:38:04:23
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. You do have a really cool slide in here that says that it only takes 25 feet to make a park. So I got to pull this off because I just had a chuckle about it, you know? Yeah. In other words, it doesn't have to be that grand necessarily. And and and you had mentioned it earlier is that there are some urban sections of this trail project that are actually paved trails.

00:38:05:00 - 00:38:30:16
John Simmerman
Yes. There's some that are in the wilderness, like the one that I run on, but there's plenty of it. Is also this and you mentioned it earlier, is that leveraging the opportunity of an all ages and abilities act of mobility and and that's one of the key drivers that really helps maximize the return on investment when you look at a pathway or a trail.

00:38:31:11 - 00:38:57:18
Garry Merritt
Yeah, we work to be as creative as possible on just how to include more parks, open space and trail inventory into our geographic footprint. We have people that are on the ground looking at places like this one you see on the screen. They may be looking at culverts and they go into highways and there are possible connections that can happen there.

00:38:58:05 - 00:39:29:06
Garry Merritt
We have a couple of rail lines that cross over and sections we look at creek ways. We look at all the potential ways that trail can be connected. But also you can develop more parks and open space, whether it's like a homeowner's association that ended up with some property in floodways, for example, that property may have water quality and protection characteristics, and so finding ways to manage that property for those conservation benefits is important.

00:39:29:06 - 00:39:55:02
Garry Merritt
And it's something that you really only find out about. You can see on a map, you've got to see it in person. And I'll say that's one of the things that we work really hard on is being on site and in knowing the pieces of the particular pieces of property along the way. We spend a lot of time on the land in trying to understand it and and think about how we and all of our project partners can help to contribute to the protection of that land or the connectivity of those trails.

00:39:55:02 - 00:40:20:03
John Simmerman
So yeah, and I want to pull up a series of slides here that really kind of exemplifies the fact that it's it really isn't just Gary. I mean, this is a lot of people are involved in this. And here's the trail plan steering committee. I see several names on there that I recognize and it does stretch across, you know, that entire network of folks.

00:40:20:11 - 00:40:25:18
John Simmerman
You also have an equity task force. Talk a little bit about what's going on with this group.

00:40:26:22 - 00:41:11:15
Garry Merritt
Yes. So one of the very first things that we did as we were working toward finding a good alignment for the trail itself was to spend some a lot of time thinking about and the amazing assistance of this group to help us to understand that the consequences of this sort of infrastructure development. And so this group developed some recommendations for us around planning and design and placemaking and economic opportunity and is an overarching recommendation, recognizing that the springs themselves are sacred, they have sacred qualities and characteristics.

00:41:11:15 - 00:41:39:19
Garry Merritt
And and our perspective of them for me is someone that's been a Texan. My life is even very different from someone whose family has been here for the thousands of years. And and so those recommendations then we pulled into the slide that you saw before the actual developing the trail plan itself. And it's helped us to make sure that we're asking the right questions.

00:41:40:13 - 00:42:00:17
Garry Merritt
Most importantly, make sure that we're listening as the community is talking and in different people are expressing their perspectives on what the trail means to them, what this brings me to them and then working to incorporate that into everything that we do. If you can go back to the slide that has the rock art on it.

00:42:01:12 - 00:42:04:17
John Simmerman
Oh, yeah. Let's see if I can find that this one right.

00:42:04:22 - 00:42:28:26
Garry Merritt
Yeah. I just want to say one thing about this, that. Yeah, yeah, people have been using these springs for to support their existence since they're the people here. And, and so that connection of the people in the springs is just deeply, deeply intertwined. And we feel that today in the communities that we've built up around them, but it goes even deeper than that.

00:42:29:12 - 00:43:01:22
Garry Merritt
These these springs do have sacred qualities. There are is a group of people that called seconds whose origin as people came from San Marcos Springs, they arose on the earth through Marcos Springs itself. And so we we respect that and we honor that. And we're doing our very best to make sure that those stories are told and that people have an understanding of that level of importance of these springs.

00:43:02:11 - 00:43:27:03
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. Very, very well said. All right, Gary, you're back. We just had a little adjustment in background there, but I wanted to pull up this slide, too, because it continues that conversation of it. It really does take a village in quite a few villages. When you're doing something across nearly a hundred miles. Talk a little bit about the land and trail partners.

00:43:28:06 - 00:43:51:27
Garry Merritt
There is an amazing work that's being done and has been done up and down our corridor for a long time by the people that are on this slide, organizations on this slide, and several others. So for us, that Great Springs project, we have this original vision of connecting both from the trail side and also from the concert land side.

00:43:52:21 - 00:44:14:17
Garry Merritt
But our work is only is, is good and strong is our project partners. And so we have the regional vision, but the work done locally is being done through through these, these organizations and these people that we help to support that work. We help to catalyze that work. And we hope to point that work to the right and to the left.

00:44:15:04 - 00:44:37:05
Garry Merritt
So one of the one of the things we did fairly early, we convened a group, we call them Trail Connects, but we had in each of the four counties in which we work, we had someone from a nonprofit that was doing trail or land conservation, but especially trail. And then we had someone from the public agency side, either a city or a county in that county, talking about their project.

00:44:37:16 - 00:45:15:06
Garry Merritt
And in asking, we were asking them, would your project be better, better supported, more interesting if you were pointed towards something else? If San Antonio trails were pointing toward New Braunfels, and if New Braunfels Trails were pointing to San Antonio and to San Marcos and on and on. And we got feedback from that and an understanding of the group that if we can collaborate and we can work together, we can take these 15 trail segments that we've talked about and have them be a place, the place segment that benefits both ends of that and then on and on.

00:45:15:28 - 00:45:22:14
Garry Merritt
So that really led into the trail plan that we've helped to develop and now the trail implementation that we're working on.

00:45:23:15 - 00:45:47:11
John Simmerman
So when you're working with in these different counties and different cities, how does that how does that relationship sort of work and sort of play out pragmatically and logistically? We and I'm sure it varies from from municipality to municipality, but what does that sort of look like in terms of that, that interaction?

00:45:48:12 - 00:46:06:27
Garry Merritt
Yeah, I say there are three things that we we really focus on there. The first is, is really listening to understand and that can be an overused expression. But we, we work really hard to understand what are the priorities in each community and understanding that each community is wildly different from the community that's right next door to it.

00:46:07:12 - 00:46:40:27
Garry Merritt
And the priorities are different. The process is different, the the opportunities are different. But in each place, there's nothing more important to that place than what they have right there on the ground. So really trying to understand that and then building that level of trust that says, here are your priorities, here are our priorities what's the overlap? And let's figure out ways to work together and in where those priorities overlap for the benefit of everyone and then the third thing that we work really hard at is to be the gap filler.

00:46:41:15 - 00:47:03:28
Garry Merritt
So we are we're a501c3. We, we do some convening. We've worked on building the trail plan, but we're also transactional based. And so whatever needs to happen to make a particular deal work, it's likely that we can find a role to help to facilitate that. It might be to find the funding source, it might be to put project partners together.

00:47:03:28 - 00:47:28:23
Garry Merritt
It might be that they need technical expertize or guesswork or mapping or design or legal or land conservation professionals or something else that we try to understand what the need is and then find the resources to fill it with an end goal of getting the project done. That's is for us. There's no ego, nothing. We want to get the deals done.

00:47:28:27 - 00:47:35:12
Garry Merritt
We want to get the right away secured. We want to get the trail built. We want to get land and conservation. That's the most and only thing that's important to us.

00:47:36:09 - 00:48:03:21
John Simmerman
Yeah. So I'm going to pull up your most recent newsletter from September of 2022 here. So the fall September or the fall newsletter and right off the bat, you know, really, you know, honing in on that, this is your mission to, you know, to be able to make this happen and so you're talking about what you're trying to do now is to put land into conservation and get trail on the ground.

00:48:04:01 - 00:48:40:19
John Simmerman
And talking about this particular recent acquisition. And so this really emphasizes the fact that in many cases and many opportunities, you're pulling together the funds, you're leveraging funds, you're doing whatever you can to actually get land into conservation. For people who don't really understand what we're talking about here, can you kind of like, you know, in non like legalese and non real estate jargon, can you kind of just walk us through what you're buying up land and doing what with it?

00:48:41:10 - 00:49:04:11
Garry Merritt
Okay, I'll do that. John, do you have a buzzer? So if I if I fall into anything in Latin. Yeah. Okay. So the paragraph of that putting land in conservation trail on the ground, I say that, that that's our, that's the strategic plan for Great Springs project has two lines two sentences and those are the only two foot landing conservation foot trail on the ground.

00:49:04:12 - 00:49:36:09
Garry Merritt
And that's only just for yeah but but the how to do it part this place like around the prop project is is really a great example of that. So we we call it press around this property for scrutiny because there is a very large flood control dam on it and there's a series of dams that were built by the Army Corps of Engineers and a number of years ago along in the Sink Creek area, just west of San Marcos, and several branch of that same creek that really catch a lot of water and then push water straight toward the city of San Marcos Spring Lake.

00:49:36:13 - 00:50:05:12
Garry Merritt
The springs themselves, and then ultimately into the summer river. So this property had been 144 acres that had been for sale at various over the years. It had been under contract. We purchased a couple of different times because of its proximity of the city of San Marcos, and that is has some open space, some flat space, very developable land and two branches of Saint Creek on it.

00:50:05:23 - 00:50:24:22
Garry Merritt
It's really been looked at by real estate developers for a subdivision and it has a lot of there's a lot of development around it, a lot of single family house houses have been built right around this property. After I came aboard and we looked at it again, it was under contract to be purchased by a developer and deal fell through.

00:50:25:17 - 00:51:03:04
Garry Merritt
And so we were in the wings and as soon as it did, we made an offer. We Great Springs project made an offer to buy the property and and that offer was accepted. And so then we started to work on how to build the financing around that project to move it into conservation. Okay. So we found some people that wanted to invest in the property and they wanted to own the property themselves for recreational purposes, which was great, and they wanted to keep it mainly whole and, and use it for a hunting operation in a weekend ranch for themselves and their families, which is perfect for a property like this.

00:51:03:17 - 00:51:34:17
Garry Merritt
Okay. So we worked with them on, on an agreement on their behalf to the vast majority of that property for a conservation easement over the vast majority of that property, to donate a trail easement on two sides of that property to Hays County in exchange for Hays County providing funding for the conservation easement. We worked with a resort for authority to provide some funding to be able to do some research on the property in exchange for money that was used for fencing.

00:51:35:16 - 00:52:01:25
Garry Merritt
And then there's one small portion of that property along a roadway that really doesn't have many conservation features on it. It really was better suited for single family houses and so worked with the investors to develop 1010 acre lots to be home sites to help to subsidize the cost of buying the property. And when we get into conservation, there's a phase two of that that will involve the city of San Marcos.

00:52:01:25 - 00:52:22:29
Garry Merritt
We hope to acquire another piece of it for conservation, but that really is reflective of for us and bringing quite a few different groups together with a common goal of conservation and a recreation opportunity for trails and then making the financing part of it work for everyone. So now the landowners Happy Hays County has trail easements. We're going to help with that.

00:52:23:21 - 00:52:38:25
Garry Merritt
I'm getting the trail built. The really important part of a chunk of St Creek is protecting them. Instead of 600 homes, they will have ten homes on it and those ten homes are nowhere close to any kind of conservation resources.

00:52:39:22 - 00:52:55:21
John Simmerman
Interest. And I see here that one of your trail planners, Kanis, is working on getting out there and hiking in through here and flagging it out and trying to figure out where the trail should go. Will this be a natural surface trail or a pave trail?

00:52:56:01 - 00:53:16:20
Garry Merritt
This one, it's going to be primarily natural surface trail, and it really is well suited for that. There are a couple of topographical features they're going to need some something that's a little more hardy, a little more burly to get up and down some smaller features. But it'll be a natural start up trail person.

00:53:17:03 - 00:53:28:26
John Simmerman
Okay, very good. And I see here that there's an opportunity to actually for the community to to donate to help towards the trailhead. What's what's kind of happening here.

00:53:29:06 - 00:53:53:05
Garry Merritt
Yeah, this is another really interesting feature of this property that a number of years ago that one of the roads that it passes right in front of the property had been slightly relocated and as a result are right around three acres, right on the corner of this property that make a perfect trailhead. And it's sort of an orphaned piece of property surrounded by other places.

00:53:54:04 - 00:54:14:27
Garry Merritt
And so, again, with AT&T and with some funders to develop that is the perfect trailhead right on the corner of the property. And from there to be able to get on the trail and then move around, move around the property so that for generating support from that from the public, we have some foundational support for that as well.

00:54:15:03 - 00:54:33:19
Garry Merritt
And then and we'll continue to help to develop that because it's it's we're super happy to have the land in conservation. We're super happy to have the trail easement. And what we really want is to have a trail built that people can use so we can work on a trail on the ground that people can use.

00:54:34:06 - 00:54:39:13
John Simmerman
And hopefully one that people don't have to drive to to helped to use as well.

00:54:39:24 - 00:55:03:03
Garry Merritt
That is right. And to that end, let me say that once we we didn't know this was happening until it was happening, but once that project was moving forward, a couple of the neighbors came forward with some opportunities that are own. And so there's a strong potential to connect that trail on that process around the property, to other trail, to other trail, and then eventually into the city of San Marcos.

00:55:03:03 - 00:55:05:25
Garry Merritt
This public trail system, which would be remarkable.

00:55:06:16 - 00:55:36:29
John Simmerman
Yeah. So as I alluded to, I just got back from some international travel. I was in the Netherlands as well as spent a little bit of time in Belgium and a little bit of time in France, in Paris. But one of the things that I love so much about traveling in the Netherlands is the ability to very easily on my bike just be able to get on a pathway and really quite quickly be out into the rural countryside.

00:55:37:11 - 00:55:57:20
John Simmerman
And they have just this fantastic network of trails, you know, connecting village to village, city to city. And so I had to think of you. I was just like, you know, it's like I mean, this is this is kind of what this is. But one of the things that I noted is in I grew up on a ranch in Northern California.

00:55:57:20 - 00:56:23:03
John Simmerman
So I understand the rural context and ranch land and things of that nature. But when I'm on my bike and I'm rolling past, you know, all of these wonderful farms there in the Dutch countryside, and I'm just thinking this is so cool that, you know, these easements have been, you know, created and and they're facilitating, you know, active mobility.

00:56:23:14 - 00:56:48:08
John Simmerman
And it is just so cool because especially with the proliferation of electric assist, we're seeing older and older and older people continuing to remain active. They're getting out on their electric bikes and they're in their, you know, seventies and eighties and nineties. And it's so incredible to see because they're just soaking up that rural environment that, you know, nature.

00:56:48:14 - 00:56:50:12
John Simmerman
So I thought about you.

00:56:50:23 - 00:57:11:09
Garry Merritt
Yeah. Well, thanks for that, Don. I know that's one of the things I really do wish that more people would would be would have the opportunity to see what the opportunities are to be in places like that, where there has been the right away way and the trail built and people can use it all. People can use it for whatever they want to use it for.

00:57:11:20 - 00:57:24:29
Garry Merritt
And you see those places where those trails are so well and so well, love and so much just an integral part of people's daily lives. And we we should have that in Texas. We can't have that in Texas. And we're working really hard to bring that to Texas.

00:57:26:07 - 00:57:51:11
John Simmerman
I get the sense that what you're doing here in this project could be duplicated many times over throughout Texas if if we can just kind of work through any challenges and any tensions that that sort of exist of that public and private, you know, use or it's really public use of of, you know, private land and or private adjacent land.

00:57:52:08 - 00:58:18:06
Garry Merritt
Yeah, absolutely. You know, for us, this Austin, the San Antonio Trail Network, we really are looking at it as a spine. And we have been talking with people that are working on trails and thinking about how to connect their trails to to this trail from burning Candle County to city and east and west and north and south of this Austin, the San Antonio corridor.

00:58:19:12 - 00:58:45:05
Garry Merritt
And then you look at some other regional trails that are either happening or have been contemplated around Texas. And and there's great potential if we can continue this work in and and find some transformational changes to the way we think about trails and public, this kind of active transportation component. And then find the funding for it and continue to prioritize it.

00:58:45:05 - 00:58:56:03
Garry Merritt
We we have been we may look up in a few years and and to see a remarkable change in this state for the better for everyone.

00:58:56:19 - 00:59:07:25
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. Now I know that some segments of of the trail are in place where we at in terms of, you know, number of miles and percentages and that sort of thing.

00:59:08:23 - 00:59:35:08
Garry Merritt
The way that we develop the alignments for the trail itself and with this steering committee of people that were already involved in building trails in their community and and in their county was by looking, at all of the plans that we could find that had trail on them in some way. So city parks and open space plans and trails plans and transportation plans, long term transportation plans, thoroughfare plans, everything that.

00:59:35:22 - 00:59:54:13
Garry Merritt
And even talking with the real estate developers themselves, they're doing master plan communities and looking at their development agreements to see where they have trails and parks. So through those, we sifted through all of those with the steering committee and and figured out, okay, this plan is really happening and this one is never going to happen. And part of this one will.

00:59:54:13 - 01:00:20:10
Garry Merritt
And so through that, we were we really worked to use the things that were already being promoted and worked on locally. Then we found the gaps in the gaps are something that we at great strength project for taking on finding those ways to connect. So when you look at our trail plan that's on our website at this past April, you'll see the maps that actually show the alignments and it will reference the particular plan that it comes from.

01:00:20:23 - 01:00:49:09
Garry Merritt
So you can see the city of New Braunfels may have a dry come out creek plan. San Marcos has their plan so to answer your question better of the 100 plus miles of the trail network, over a third of that is already on the ground, which is the trails that are being built and looking at projects that are on the short term horizon for transportation plans in the park plans, there's roughly another third of it that is right away is either secured or being secured to do it.

01:00:49:09 - 01:00:58:24
Garry Merritt
And so that leaves about a third of it for us to be out doing our land conservation projects and our trail right away acquisition project to secure that right, a way to connect all those things.

01:00:58:24 - 01:00:59:10
John Simmerman
I love it.

01:00:59:19 - 01:01:05:26
Garry Merritt
Our timeline is we say the Alamo to the Capitol by 2036. Okay, but we really want to get it done sooner.

01:01:06:09 - 01:01:16:08
John Simmerman
Right? So cause cool. Garry, it's been such an honor and pleasure chatting with you. Is there any final nugget you'd like to leave the audience with?

01:01:16:29 - 01:01:41:20
Garry Merritt
Well, John, I want to say thank you so much for having it's really a great opportunity to talk about our work, but also really enjoy hearing your perspective on the project. What I'll ask you and ask anyone is if you think that there's something that we're we can do better. There's a if you have an idea, if there's something you'd like to do to help, this is a big collaborative project.

01:01:41:24 - 01:02:04:11
Garry Merritt
And so please reach out to us. You can look at our website and there's a contact tab there. You can sign up for our newsletter at greatest things. But that or we do have social media follow that, but please engage with us because we there's a there's room in this project for everyone and it's going to take all of us, all of us working together to make this happen the way that it should and tastic.

01:02:04:11 - 01:02:18:13
John Simmerman
Yeah. And I'm going to pull back just a little bit. Everyone can see that website again. Again, that is Great Springs project dot org. Gary Merritt, thank you so very much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast. It's been such a pleasure having you.

01:02:18:23 - 01:02:19:10
Garry Merritt
Thank you, John.

01:02:20:07 - 01:02:38:22
John Simmerman
Thank you all so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Garry Merritt and if you did, please give it a thumbs up or leave a comment down below and share it with a friend. And if you haven't done so already, please be sure to subscribe to the channel and be sure to ring the notifications below next to the subscription button so you can customize your notification preferences.

01:02:39:03 - 01:03:02:01
John Simmerman
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01:03:02:19 - 01:03:30:13
John Simmerman
Again, thank you all so much for tuning in. It means so much to me. And until next time, this is John signing off by wishing you much activity, health and happiness. Cheers. Hey. Also want to send a very special thank you to all my amazing active towns ambassadors out there who are directly supporting my efforts through Patreon. Buy me a coffee the YouTube super thanks as well as purchases from the active town store and making donations to the nonprofit.

01:03:30:25 - 01:03:42:29
John Simmerman
I simply could not do this without you. So again, thank you so very much.