With her husband, Larry Butler, Carol Ann Sayle runs the Boggy Creek Farm, a certified organic urban farm in Austin (one of the first in Texas). They produce between 50 and 60 pesticide-free crops and a variety of value-added canned and smoked foods, which they sell at their farm, through farmers’ markets, and within traditional retail groceries. Through her work at the Farm, her mentoring of Farm apprentices, and her networking with the Texas Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, she has been effective in promoting more sustainable alternatives to conventional agriculture.
Region: Blackland Prairie
Ted Siff
Mr. Siff has had a multi-faceted career in conservation, working in early national Nader organizations, such as Congress Watch, and helping found and lead several state and local open space groups, including the Texas chapter of the Trust for Public Land and the Austin Parks Foundation. Realizing that public interest work requires political engagement, Mr. Siff has been active in monitoring Texas political goings-on as a former publisher of the Quorum Report, and in lobbying for millions of dollars of park acquisition bonds. Seeing that non-profits need stable financial support, he served as board chair of Earth Share of Texas, a workplace giving campaign representing more than 70 conservation-oriented NGOs across the state. Outside of the non-profit world, he has also contributed to conservation efforts, by serving as executive director of the well-known ecotourism firm, Victor Emanuel Nature Tours, and running his own private lands protection consultancy, “Creating Common Ground”. As well, Mr. Siff is a founding board member and long-time officer of the Conservation History Association of Texas. Most recently, he has helped found and lead the Shoal Creek Conservancy and the Austin Outside organizations in Austin.
David Stall
Mr. Stall has worked as a city manager and citizen advocate. He teamed up with his wife, Linda Stall, and other volunteers to research and share information about the Trans Texas Corridor. The Corridor was an ambitious plan to build a 1200-foot wide, 4000-mile, 584,000-acre set of tollways, railroad tracks, and utility transmission lines which would criss-cross the state. The Stalls’ organization, CorridorWatch.org, identified a number of concerns about the Corridor, including fragmentation of habitat, takings of historic family homesteads, breakup of agricultural operations, limits to emergency service access, terrorist risk from combined utilities, undercutting of local sales tax revenues, liability for large costs ($184 billion), loss of public revenues from the state transportation system, and limited benefits from alleviated traffic congestion.
Linda Stall
Mrs. Stall is an escrow agent and citizen advocate who helped found CorridorWatch.org, which serves to research and share information about the Trans Texas Corridor. The Corridor is an ambitious plan to build a 1200-foot wide, 4000-mile, 584,000-acre set of tollways, railroad tracks, and utility transmission lines which would criss-cross the state. Working with her husband, David Stall, and other volunteers, she has identified a number of concerns about the Corridor, including fragmentation of habitat, takings of historic family homesteads, breakup of agricultural operations, limits to emergency service access, terrorist risk from combined utilities, undercutting of local sales tax revenues, liability for large costs ($184 billion), loss of public revenues from the state transportation system, and limited benefits from alleviated traffic congestion.
Col. Jim Stinebaugh
Col. Stinebaugh served as Director of Law Enforcement at Texas Parks and Wildlife from 2001 through 2005. From 1967 to 1971, he was a Texas Game Warden in south Texas, and later, from 1973 through 2000, he served as a Special Agent with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service on various assignments throughout Texas and the Southwest. In enforcing laws protecting game and wildlife, he has worked cases involving defendants poaching deer, smuggling parrots, killing threatened or endangered species (pronghorn antelope, whooping cranes, golden and bald eagles), killing protected migratory birds (such as those lost in uncovered oil pits), using illegal hunting methods (helicopters and automobiles) and other offenses.
Billie Woods
Ms. Woods is a classically trained musician living in Elgin, who has been active in organizing and leading a non-profit citizens group, Neighbors for Neighbors, in trying to improve the environmental performance of the Alcoa lignite mine and smelter near Rockdale. A recent settlement led by Neighbors for Neighbors exposed a multi-year pattern of Clean Air Act violations at Alcoa, and succeeded in securing major emissions improvements. Ms. Woods and Neighbors for Neighbors continue to work with Alcoa on groundwater issues. The utility plants powering the Alcoa smelter (later slated to close) were fed by 6 million tons of lignite (a low-BTU grade of soft coal) a year from its 14,000-acre lignite strip mine in Milam county. Alcoa had entered into agreements with the San Antonio Water Service to sell it 40,000 to 60,000 acre-feet of groundwater, drawn from the mines. Ms. Woods and other citizens were concerned that this pumpage would dry up local wells, draining this portion of the Simsboro aquifer, a section of the Carrizo-Wilcox aquifer that runs through central Texas.