Alert From SOS

Dear Editor,
   Clean water and live music make living in Austin wonderful, and swimming at Barton Springs and reveling at the Backyard amphitheatre are among the best of both. Imagine living here without either one.
   Out-of-town real estate speculators are pushing for a "big box" shopping center that threatens the Backyard and Barton Springs. Dallas-based Lincoln Property Company is pushing a project, called the Shops at the Galleria, that would entirely surround the Backyard with 43 football fields' worth of pavement and retail boxes, including a 165,000-square-foot Lowe's.
   In addition to destroying the Hill Country setting at the Backyard, the proposed development is on the banks of Little Barton Creek, where contaminated runoff from parking lots would flow into Barton Creek and emerge at Barton Springs.
   You can view "before and after" images of this property at www.sosalliance.org/beecave.htm. See for yourself the ugliness that is proposed. Then join us in saying "no, thank you" to Lincoln and Lowe's.
   We have stopped this development for now with a court-ordered temporary injunction, but the Village of Bee Cave Board of Alderman is trying to correct their violations of local and state law by reconsidering the project at their April 13 meeting. Plan on attending this important public meeting. Write the board at www.beecavetexas.com/ask.psp.
   The Backyard doesn't have to suffer the same fate as the Armadillo World Headquarters and Liberty Lunch. Barton Springs doesn't have to become a repository for urban runoff.
   The developers can build in the area but off the Barton Springs watershed and without ruining the Backyard. The public has a right to act at the ballot box, in the court of public opinion, and in the marketplace. Get involved. We need your help. Call us at 477-2320 or visit our Web site: www.sosalliance.org.