AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 In the \u201860s, the Holly Street Power Plant stood tall. For nearly 30 years, the residents of East Austin pushed for the removal of the plant, citing safety and environmental concerns. After the plant was decommissioned, city and community leaders came together to discuss how to use the space. It was later determined that it would be used as a green space for the local community. It\u2019s now the Festival Beach Food Forest (FBFF).<\/p>\n
Over 100 volunteers have spent the last year planting more than 90 trees and shrubs in this specific area, including several plants specifically chosen to complement a 40-year-old mountain laurel in the space that will be killed because of the Interstate 35 expansion project.<\/p>\n
Stake flags are in the soil and orange lines are dotted at the food forest. They\u2019re all signs of a new trench installation. It\u2019s a small part of the I-35 expansion project.\u00a0FBFF volunteers Angelina Alanis\u00a0and Aly Tharp said the I-35 expansion was no secret to anyone living in Texas.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince I\u2019ve been alive, they\u2019ve been talking about expanding I-35,\u201d said Alanis.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Volunteers met with the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) quarterly to understand the impact to the FBFF.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve told us that we should be worried about noise and dust and limited parking,\u201d said Alanis.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2024, at a city meeting, city employees said the FBFF would not be impacted by construction. Moving forward to 2025, the City Council approved the wastewater pipe to be installed below\u00a0the FBFF. Advocates said no mention of the pipe was brought up to volunteers until January 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that they haven\u2019t changed the timeline beyond saying you\u2019ve got now two weeks left before they\u2019re going to trenched through this area when we\u2019re still waiting to sit down and talk to anyone from Austin Water and TXDOT directly about this,\u201d said Tharp.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to volunteers, the FBFF team is requesting an immediate pause to allow for a permaculture-based approach to this utility project and the affected area.<\/p>\n
Spectrum News reached out to TxDOT about community concerns. A spokesperson sent us the following statement:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe work near the Food Forest and Community Garden is an Austin Water wastewater line on city-owned property.\u00a0TxDOT\u00a0will perform the work on behalf of the city as part of the I-35 Capital Express Central Lady Bird Lake segment, which got underway in early 2025.\u00a0TxDOT\u00a0coordinated with the City of Austin during both the planning and design phases. As standard practice, when details of upcoming construction activities are confirmed,\u00a0TxDOT\u00a0provides updates to nearby stakeholders to keep them informed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
We also reached out to the City of Austin. It said its Parks and Recreation Department would be in contact with us. Austin Water sent us the following joint statement with Parks and Recreation:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile\u00a0Austin\u00a0Water\u00a0was made aware that the TxDOT I-35 expansion project would affect some existing\u00a0Austin\u00a0Water\u00a0infrastructure, like the need to temporarily relocate one of our wastewater lines near Lady Bird Lake, we did not learn of the impact to the Festival Beach Food Forest until January 2026 during the\u00a0Water\u00a0and Wastewater Commission\u00a0meeting, when representatives of the organization spoke during public communications. We appreciate the Food Forest\u00a0staff raising awareness to the impacts, so we can\u00a0collaborate\u00a0on solutions\u00a0to preserve their\u00a0important work\u00a0in the community.\u00a0Austin\u00a0Water\u00a0is working with TxDOT,\u00a0Austin\u2019s Parks and Recreation\u00a0and Capital Delivery Services departments\u00a0to engage with the Food Forest volunteers to determine the full scope of the project impact.\u00a0Austin\u00a0Water,\u00a0alongside\u00a0our city partners,\u00a0will do what we can to help mitigate impact and\u00a0restore the site to existing conditions after construction is completed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone\u2019s kind of pointing fingers at the other person instead of really taking accountability,\u201d said Tharp.\u00a0<\/p>\n
TxDOT said it has no plans to pause or delay the project.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 In the \u201860s, the Holly Street Power Plant stood tall. For nearly 30 years, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[2160,30627,132,134,133,5604,5606,1570,102,138,223,82,1569,2053,29499,835],"class_list":{"0":"post-157932","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-app-top-stories","9":"tag-app-traffic-and-transit","10":"tag-austin","11":"tag-austin-headlines","12":"tag-austin-news","13":"tag-austin-what-you-need-to-know","14":"tag-barbara-fox","15":"tag-ctv","16":"tag-dallas","17":"tag-el-paso","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-san-antonio","20":"tag-texas-what-you-need-to-know","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-traffic-and-transit","23":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}