Austin Springs Eternal - visiting Barton Springs pool in Austin, Texas - Brief Article

Sierra, Nov, 1998 by Bruce Selcraig

Pure waters, deep in the heart of a Texas metropolis

One of life's small pleasures for us native Texans blessed to live in Austin is watching the parade of folks who come to our now-trendy city to shoot a movie or attend a high-tech conference during our brutal five-month long summers. By the third day, if they're not already back on the plane, the wilted visitors tear off their new bolo ties and gasp indignantly, "I was expecting dry heat, like Vegas. How do you people survive in this?"

Two words: Barton Springs.

In the heart of Austin, barely a mile from the state capitol and even closer to car dealers and burger boulevards, a cluster of limestone springs releases about 26 million gallons a day of 68-degree Edwards Aquifer water into one of the nation's cleanest urban streams, Barton Creek. Some 41 miles of creek flows from the Edwards, beneath wobbly old live oaks that shade arrowheads and rattlers. But it is the one-mile stretch near downtown, home to a 1,000-foot-long, city-run natural swimming pool, about which good Austinites wax so passionate.

"Barton Springs," said the late writer and Austin resident James Michener, "can indeed be called the soul of our city." Former Texas Governor Ann Richards called it "the most beautiful natural-spring public swimming pool in America." She was being modest. Barton Springs is sanity amid the chaos, a life-affirming church of goosebumps that has soothed more souls than Billy Graham.

People started gathering in these restorative waters 10,000 years ago, followed more recently by the Lipan Apaches, Comanches, Tonkawas, and Spanish missionaries. (I like to imagine the friars doing bellyflops here.) Barton Springs is still a multicultural stew today. With my retriever and kids as icebreakers, I've chatted under the cottonwoods with newly arrived Salvadorans, the sunburnt homeless, federal judges, and software moguls.

The city has erected no garish billboards touting Barton Springs, and about the only commercialization near its waters is a small concession stand and kiddy train in 360-acre Zilker Park, which surrounds the pool's steep, grassy banks. This unpretentious small-town retreat, surrounded by a half-million people, evokes a time before TV and air-conditioning. In the shallow end of the pool on the limestone shelves, little children with their inflatable water wings mingle with pregnant moms looking for relief from the heat. Farther down, where the water reaches 17 feet deep, there's the diving-board queue and the serious goggled swimmers who show up year-round (some at 5 a.m.!) to do their miles. Below the spillway dam that forms Barton Springs pool, the creek returns to nature and becomes a shallow (1-to-4 feet deep) 200-foot-wide playground for dogs, canoes, and families. You can swim for free here, though without lifeguards or, technically, the city's blessing. All the ball-chasing retrievers, immigrant families, and the occasional whiff of ganja give this spot a kind of Andy Griffith meets Bob Marley feel. Barton Springs is very country, but not always this country.

NUTS & BOLTS

HOW TO PREPARE

Bring a towel, sunscreen, and maybe a hat, and watch out for the fire ants. Below the dam, many regulars wear aqua shoes because the creek bed's rounded rocks make footing awkward. At the pool: no dogs (keep 'em leashed in the park), no smoking, no alcohol, no coolers, no food, no glass. Barton Springs pool is open year-round. Call ahead: after heavy rains the pool may be closed if runoff has made its way into the creek rather than into storm drains.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Contact Barton Springs pool at 2201 Barton Springs Rd., Austin, TX 78704; (512) 867-3080 (for recorded information), (512) 476-9044 (to speak to a live person). A Web site that explores the cultural, scientific, and natural facets of Barton Springs can be found at www.tec.org/bartonsprings.> FOR DEEPER READING

Barton Springs Eternal, edited by Turk Pipkin and Marshall Frech (Softshoe Publishing, 1993), is a wonderful collection of essays, recollections, and photos of the springs.

THE POLITICS OF PLACE

Protecting Barton Springs and the creek from development is a full-time and highly contentious job. Development in the 354-square-mile Barton Creek watershed and depletion of the Edwards Aquifer are by far the greatest threats to the springs' survival. The resulting runoff of fertilizer, soil, and motor oil from roads, homes, businesses, and parking lots, plus well-pumping that supplies about 35,000 users, all put the springs in jeopardy.

Several years ago, a coalition of environmental groups called Save Our Springs won a citywide election that imposed tougher building restrictions and water-quality standards on the watershed, and developers are still pouting. Former University of Texas football player Jim Bob Moffett--whose international mining giant, Freeport-McMoRan, has a spinoff company operating several golf courses on Barton Creek--threatened to "bankrupt" the city with litigation if he didn't get his desired building permits. Last year, a pro-growth attorney filed a lawsuit claiming that swimmers, not developers, were harming the officially endangered Barton Springs salamander. Such tactics have galvanized Austin's environmental activists. The SOS regulations have withstood several court challenges, the Austin City Council is now dominated by environmentalists, and the SOS political endorsement is arguably the most coveted in local elections.