Directors of three Central Texas groundwater conservation districts and other experts will discuss the increasing demands being made on the area’s water resources at a workshop April 23 in Bastrop County. The free workshop will be from 1 to 4:45 p.m. at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in String Prairie, located off of Hwy. 304 near Rosanky.

The featured speaker will be Dr. Ron Kaiser, a professor of water law and policy at Texas A&M. Also speaking will be Joe Cooper, manager of the Lost Pines Groundwater Conservation Districtand others.

“It seems that every week there’s news of another plan to pump groundwater from our area and export it to the growing suburbs from Austin to San Antonio,” said Jeremiah Jarvis, president of Pines and Prairies Land Trust.

“This workshop will be a good opportunity to find out firsthand about the demands on our area’s groundwater and what we can do to help protect those resources,” continued Jarvis.

Already, a half dozen projects have been announced proposing to sell water from the Carrizo- Wilcox aquifer in Lee, Bastrop and Caldwell counties to thirsty cities to the west. Water marketers have been buying up water rights from landowners in those counties.

Most recently, the Brazos River Authority announced a plan to buy 35,000 acres in Lee and Milam counties and export water beneath that land to suburbs north of Austin.

For more information visit the PPLT Web site at www.PPLT.org