Environmental Protection

Climate change is not coming; climate change is here and we must act now. As San Antonio experiences an increase in growth we must pledge to prioritize the conservation of our precious natural resources. It is essential we create and uphold environmental standards for those who threaten our water source with careless development as well as implement an audit on any SAWS project exceeding $1 billion in proposed contracts. We must be strategic and prioritize the conservation of our cheapest water source by investing and integrating rain and stormwater projects into a number of areas such as urban design and SAWS initiatives. Prioritizing rain and storm water catchment programs will not only improve our water supply by mitigating the amount of contaminated water entering the Edwards Aquifer and creeks but can lower irrigation water usage. To ensure equity rain barrels should be supplied to residential SAWS users to minimize the cost burden of SAWS water rates. We simply can not afford to allow further environmental degradation and must require new development projects to integrate water sensitive urban design. Integrating ecologically sustainable development such as self-sustaining community rain gardens will absorb and infiltrate street water run off while also mitigating the island heating effect.

Together with community, we will:

• Support innovative water protection measures 
• Pledge to prioritize the protection of our cheapest water source 
• Champion ecologically sustainable development 
• Increase transparency and accountability with our public utilities