Barton Springs Pool is temporarily closed from Monday through March 13 to address flood risks and protect native wildlife, according to a city of Austin news release.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The project will focus on replacing piping from the 1940s, according to the news release. Lucas Massie, assistant director at the Austin Parks and Recreation Department, said this process will take up to 10 days, and the remainder of the closure will be dedicated to regular cleaning and maintenance. The infrastructure is being replaced to mitigate the impact of future disasters, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis old infrastructure hasn\u2019t been used in a long time,\u201d Massie said. \u201cWe want to make sure that if a large flood or something were to come through the area, that the old infrastructure doesn\u2019t damage the new infrastructure.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another focus of the project is to protect and enhance the habitat of the native salamanders in Barton Springs, according to the news release. The species is endangered, according to Texas Parks and Wildlife. Massie said that this project will help the salamanders by reducing potential sediment and runoff from upstream.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there were to be a catastrophic flood and the new bypass got damaged, that\u2019s going to let creek water from upstream come into Barton Springs itself,\u201d Massie said. \u201cIt could contain a lot more runoff, which is not great for the salamanders in the pool.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The construction and cleaning will end the day before Barton Springs\u2019 paid season begins on March 14, Massie said. That way, the construction will not interfere with the busy season, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe city is, in this case, being good stewards and being proactive in trying to ensure that Barton Springs is healthy and available for generations to come,\u201d Massie said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Barton Springs Pool is temporarily closed from Monday through March 13 to address flood risks and protect native…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":{"0":"post-177586","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-austin","9":"tag-austin-headlines","10":"tag-austin-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177586","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=177586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}