SAN ANTONIO — People in the Hill Country say they have fought for months to keep the pristine Sabinal River waters clean.
Last May, the Young Life camp at LoneHollow Ranch applied for a permit that would have allowed them to discharge up to 60,000 gallons of wastewater a day into the Sabinal River.
That may not be happening at all.
The Sabinal River, which runs through Uvalde and Bandera counties is spring-fed and crystal clear.
"We bring our dogs down here, people come to sit in the river," Barbara Baggett, part of the group Keep Utopia Beautiful told KENS 5.
Baggett lives in Utopia and is one of the many people in the area that enjoy the river and the various swimming holes along its banks.
Many popular spots are downstream of the Young Life camp.
On Saturday, the camp announced in partnership with the Cibolo Conservancy and Bandera Canyonlands Alliance that it will withdraw its current discharge permit in favor of a zero discharge approach for wastewater.
“I was thrilled about that, the community has been working on this for months," Baggett said.
Along 187, several signs reading "Save Our Sabinal" could be seen on fences leading up to the campsite.
A Change.org petition gained over 24,000 signatures asking to stop Young Life from discharging the permit, which was pending at the time.
Young Life says it will file for a Texas Land Application Permit which "will allow us to achieve two goals for water management we have had from the very beginning of this process."
They say their goals are to treat water to the highest standards for use in areas where there might be human contact and reuse most of the water the camp generates for irrigation.
"When you put treated wastewater, even though it's treated to high standards. Things change like that and it's irreversible," Baggett said as she snapped her fingers.
Young Life says under its original permit, 60,000 gallons of wastewater was far more than the camp would need or want to release.
"Previously available zero-discharge options would not have permitted LoneHollow Ranch to use treated water for irrigation in all areas of the camp, creating a need to use more groundwater for irrigation. However, this new plan will allow LoneHollow Ranch to adopt a zero-discharge approach without compromising on Type-1 treatment or limiting the areas of the camp where treated water could be used," Young Life staff wrote in a press release.
Baggett says the new solution hopefully won't muddy the waters now or in the future.
“There are lots of families here that have a history going back hundreds of years. And that’s very important for these people to be able to pass this beautiful legacy onto their children,” Baggett said.
Young Life tells KENS 5 their engineers are working as quickly as possible to withdraw the discharge permit.
According to the TCEQ website, the permit is still listed as pending.