Water Ordinance Gets First Rewrite in 28 Years
The City of Austin uses science-based monitoring to develop and direct watershed regulations and to enhance stormwater control design criteria.
City of Austin, Watershed Protection Department
October 2013
City Council passes the Watershed Protection Ordinance, "a comprehensive overhaul of Austin's environmental and drainage code," building on the foundation of work that began with the establishment of the Watershed Department in 1991.
At the core of the WPO are three interrelated changes: better stream buffers, improved floodplain protections and new erosion hazard provisions.
The 2013 ordinance brought crucial creek protections originally created for Barton Creek and the Hill Country to the vulnerable, long-overlooked Blackland Prairie creeks in the east. It thus addressed both environmental and community equity goals.
— Matt Hollon, Austin Water
