What I learned from “Losing Ground”

The article in the Express News, “Losing Ground”, basically talked about the vested rights law or another word for it is grandfather clause. This is a law made where big time real estate developers go around the city and other people or organizations. One of these organizations would be AGUA. This organization protects the Edwards Aquifer. It protects the aquifers recharge zones which is one of the most important parts of the aquifer, this is where water is put back into the aquifer. This was a ordinance made in 1995, that they can also find a way to get around with this vested rights issue. One important aspect I picked up from this article is that most people in the San Antonio area are against this vested rights law, but the real-estate developers sure enjoy it. Because it makes their job a whole lot easier than going to a city council meeting and having them vote yes or no on the development. Another fact that I have learned by reading this article is that a lot of land has been torn to shreds or the pastures have been bulldozed to about nothing in the Hill Country, this I don’t agree with why rip and tear up all that land for just a little country development. If people want to live in the country let them experience what the country is really like, with dirt roads and miles and miles of trees around.
I believe it help the readers better understand what developments are going up and also how much land it is ripping up also. But in my opinion it is mostly talking about this vested rights clause, and how it helps real estate developers get around these city ordinances we have, for example the tree ordinance, and also some organizations for example AGUA. This article is basically explaining the clause, it doesn’t really go in to detail on the developments and just basically explains what this law is and how the developers are using it. I don’t really understand this vested rights issue because it is just an easier way for some big time developers to do some big time damage to our environment which is already in trouble anyway due to all the developments already built here in San Antonio. I don’t think we need any more developments, we already have enough here in San Antonio. In my opinion we could get rid of some of these developments here in San Antonio. Or we could just stop adding out and keep what we got, cause what they are doing is tearing up our country sides. I even see this out in Floresville, where the town just keeps growing, I don’t like to see my hometown being stretched out. This is what I think about the article itself, I don’t think it really gives us a great detail about the developments, but about the laws made to get around our ordinances we have for the protection of the city of San Antonio.

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AGUA Vistior

On Friday, October 19, 2007, we had a speaker come in from AGUA, this is a organization trying to protect the aquifer. When class first began she had a slideshow presentation that she showed to the class, and she explained the slides. She explained to the class what it is she does for the AGUA organization, which is representing cases to the city council of San Antonio. She also showed us some slides about developments being built on or around the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone. This is where water is put back into the underground aquifer. Building on these recharge zones is a little hazardous due to the fact of pollution, anything on the ground in the recharge zone will end up back in the aquifer. She also showed us some maps of where the recharge zone is located at. She also showed us some maps of where they wanted to put these developments at. Which in some cases, in my opinion is a little on the crazy side, because they want to develop right over the recharge zone. When she finished with here presentation. She had the class break up into groups, and she had us present a mock presentation, after we talked to our group, each group explained their version on the case and gave it a yes or a no, it was a good learning experience. I learned a great deal of credible information about the Edwards Aquifer from her presentation. She also gave me a better understanding on what the recharge zones are and what the purpose of the zones are.

My Neighborhood: Floresville

My neighborhood is in a small town about thirty miles south of San Antonio down Highway 181. Floresville is home to a little over five thousand people, it is mostly country side, but my family and I live in the town of Floresville on A Street right off of Highway 181. I am about a mile from downtown Floresville where the old courthouse still stands. In the courthouse square there is an old jailhouse which is now a museum for tourist who come to visit. In town there is the town square and a American Legion Hall, which is used by the people for parties and other celebrations, but it is mainly used by the veterans for their meetings. Although the old jailhouse is not used anymore due to the lack of cells inside it still stands there in front of this jail house is a buried time capsule, that is supposed to be dug up in the year 2020, it was buried there in the early 1950’s don’t know an exact date.
Floresville is famous for the Peanut Festival, which is a fair on the second weekend of October, so it was just recently, people come from all over to see the parade on Saturday, after the parade they go to the carnival and eat the food from the food booths. The parade has gotten bigger and bigger since I moved down here from San Antonio. When I was a senior I was involved in the Peanut Festival, to be involved your parents have to be involved with the school, and you have to maintain a B average in all your classes, it is fun though because you get to miss a lot of school due to the other parades you travel to. This year the Peanut Festival made more money then it has ever made, due to the dances being free, everybody came down and went to the dances and spent more money on the food, and carnival rides for the kids.
My neighborhood is in the heart of downtown Floresville, we own a corner house at the end of the block and my house is located right across the street from a daycare center, and one house we have a young husband and wife that live there, the other two houses at three houses at the end of the block belong to my aunt and my cousin, she is renting one of the houses out to another young couple. Across the street from us my great aunt owns the brightest house on the street. That is pretty much it with my neighborhood.
Another big thing in Floresville is high school football, during football season every Friday night there is at least three thousand people at the football game watching, a lot of the little shops here in Floresville shut down at about seven o’clock to go and watch the Tigers play this is what I liked when I played football even though we weren’t the best football team people still cam and watched us play. Now since they are undefeated there seems to be a lot more people at the games watching them play. This is pretty much how it is here in Floresville, not much happens here except for around this time with the Peanut Festival happening.
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