160. How a Polluted Lake Became a Wildlife Haven in San Antonio

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There's a lake on the south side of San Antonio that used to be a sewage dump. I mean that literally. For decades, raw and partially treated wastewater flowed directly into Mitchell Lake. It was a mess. And then, slowly, something remarkable happened. The city stopped sending sewage there. The water cleared. Insects came back.

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And the birds followed. Today, Mitchell Lake Audubon Center is a 1,200-acre wildlife sanctuary. Some of the only freshwater wetlands for miles along the Central Flyway, the great migratory corridor that funnels hundreds of species between Canada and Central America every year.

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Over 350 bird species pass through or call it home annually. That's more than half of all bird species found in Texas, for what it's worth. In this episode, I sit down with Aaron McGurl, Senior Education Coordinator at Mitchell Lake, to talk about what it took to rescue a place like this and what it might mean for how we think about conservation in a city that's growing as fast as San Antonio is. I'm your host today, Corey Ames, and this is Big City Small Town. Aaron, good to be with you here at Mitchell Lake Audubon Society Center here in South San Antonio. For folks who aren't familiar, would you mind introducing yourself and as well share a little bit more about where we're sitting today?

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Yes, my name is Erin McGurl. I'm the Senior Coordinator of Education here at Mitchell Lake Audubon Center. Mitchell Lake Audubon Center is a 1,200-acre wildlife sanctuary on the south side of San Antonio. We are one exit down from Texas A&M University San Antonio, and as a 1,200-acre Wildlife sanctuary, we work to protect birds and their habitats, and we connect the community to nature. So that's the whole reason we exist.

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Well, and if you could share with us a little bit about your origin story, what's, what's your background? How did you get connected with the Audubon Society and specifically here in San Antonio? Yes, I grew up in Longview, Texas, and I fished a lot with my dad and just kind of played in the mud and always enjoyed animals and nature due to that. And then so I knew I wanted to work with animals. I came to San Antonio to work at the San Antonio Zoo because I thought that was a way to work with animals. But I really fell in love with the education piece because it's not enough for me to just like animals, but helping people learn how they can conserve them became kind of my passion. So I worked in the education department for a very long time. I really enjoyed building the relationship with kids, so I worked I taught school, middle school for a little while, middle school science, and that was fun. But then when I saw this job open up, it was kind of the perfect intersection between teaching conservation and education. So I came back to my informal education roots here. Excellent. And how long have you been here? 4 and a half years. All right. And so for folks who aren't familiar, we have so many great green spaces, natural areas in San Antonio, but sometimes they're hard to discover or maybe the city's so far-reaching.

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You can never really tackle them all. For folks who might not know about Mitchell Lake, can you share a little bit about the background, how this wildlife sanctuary came to be, and yeah, when was this site opened? The history is really interesting. It started as a natural lake. The earliest written record is on a Spanish colonist map. It was called Laguna de los Patos in 1776, so we know there were ducks there then. And then when San Antonio became the most populated city in Texas, they needed a place for waste to go. So they dammed the lake and routed all the sewage into the lake. It was just raw sewage for a while, and then eventually as technology caught up, it was partially treated sewage. And then the '70s, the basins and polders were created as a way to kind of let that sludge sit, and it kind of looks like what it looks like today.

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Over time, they realized putting raw sewage and partially treated sewage into a lake isn't the best idea. They worked to clean that up. And because of the nutrients in the lake, it attracted a lot of insects, which attracted a lot of birds. And so it kind of was always known for birds. So there were a lot of people that were really instrumental in championing for the birds and making it a shorebird refuge. In 2004, because it was known for birds, people really worked to have Audubon brought on board. And that's when it became what it is today. So our visitor center opened up and now we're open to the public Tuesday through Sunday. Sunday, and people can come and look for birds, enjoy the peace of nature, walk around.

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Well, that's a pretty wild trajectory, and I think one, it's really important to recognize, like, you can often get the sense of like things are getting worse in so many regards in the ways in which we like respect, preserve, and conserve our natural areas. And don't get me wrong, there are a lot of negative aspects to that, but I do feel like that's a good sign of progress perhaps that we realize that that wasn't the correct course of things here, at least at Mitchell Lake. Can you say more about the condition of the lake these days? You know, that was some decades ago, but from wastewater to now wildlife sanctuary, that's a good trajectory in my consideration. But yeah, what's the quality of it now? Yeah, I think I agree. It's a good message that if you maybe mess up in the beginning, not do the right thing with nature, it can be brought back. And it wasn't until 1987 that sewage stopped going into the lake completely. But ever since then, it has not been sewage. It's been managed through a partnership with San Antonio Water System. They own the land. The City of San Antonio and Audubon, we work to protect it and keep it natural for the birds. It's a very critical habitat because not— it's some of the first wetlands that birds see on their migrating path.

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We're located on the Central Flyway, which is that migrating path that they take down and back every year. And so it's really important. It's a big aquatic habitat. The lake itself is 600 acres. And so we see a lot of aquatic waterfowl and shorebirds, and they come back year in, year out. So these are some of the first wetlands that they see going from north to south? Mm-hmm.

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Okay, say more about it if you could, of like the significance of this location for bird migrations. Like, it wasn't just, you know, a good area to conserve and protect. It was particularly critical. Yes, we have— we're at the convergence of 4 ecoregions here, and we have 4 distinct habitats on site, which are the scrublands, brushlands, our grassland and our grassland restoration area.

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We have woodlands, and then kind of what we're known for are wetlands.

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And we are some of the few wetlands in Central Texas. So whenever those birds fly down, we kind of, they see that big green space, they see the wetlands, and they can fly down. I like to tell school kids that it's like a Buc-ee's for birds.

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So some of them call it home, but then some of them use it as a rest stop to get food, water, shelter, take a rest, and then they're back on their way to the coast or Central or South America. Well, I know that there's a lot of both informal and formal bird surveys happening on this site. Like, what's the extent of of different species that you're seeing here, any notable species in particular? Like what would someone recognize or not, you know, what's particularly rare or unique that's been spotted here? We see over 350 different bird species per year. So considering we have about 600 or so more in Texas, we get over half. So super special place. Right now is fall and winter is duck season. So we see a lot of ducks, sometimes northern shovelers by the thousands. We get northern pintails, we get hooded mergansers, which is a pretty cool duck species to see. A lot of people get very excited about the paralexia.

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So it's a desert cardinal, very— looks like a female cardinal. And so people will ask specifically where it's been seen to try to locate that. So if you see a female cardinal, look extra close because it might be paralexia. Any other kind of greatest hits throughout the year? Like, what are— I think it's interesting in the winter or whatever, you might not think that there's much to look at in, you know, with a lot of the foliage disappearing for the season. But I do think uniquely with a bird refuge, there's still a lot of fun and excitement to get out of being out in the area. What are other particular strong times of year for people to come visit? Like, what would you recommend are the kind of greatest hit seasons? Yeah, the thing that I think is awesome about migration is there is something every season. In September, in the fall, That's when we get our biggest amounts of American white pelicans, which a lot of people don't necessarily think of as a San Antonio bird. They kind of associate it with the coast, but they come a little bit more inland to freshwater. So we get 500 or more sometimes. There's a few still hanging out over there. Some stay year-round. And then winter is duck season, and then the spring migration is huge. So painted buntings will be here starting in probably March, April, varies year by year, but they'll stay through the summer. Cesaretail Flycatcher, which is our bird we're highlighting for Migratory Bird Fest this year. They'll be back in the spring as well.

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And then lots of colorful songbirds, the warblers, the orioles, and then a lot of those will stay through as well. So really something to see all year. You mentioned there in passing Migratory Bird Fest. That makes me think about what are the ways in which the Audubon Society here engages with the San Antonio public? Like what are programs, you know, other events and ways that people can come and get involved just besides from spending the day here perhaps at their own leisure? Yes, we have events all the time. So everything from our, coming up in March, our Lights Out Night Hike, where we kind of highlight Lights Out Texas and what that is, which is an initiative to get people to turn their lights off at night because many migrating songbirds will migrate at night and that light can kind of disorient them and cause bird strikes. But it's really just a night hike to talk about the importance of night for all animals. And it could be anything from a night hike to guided bird tours on Sunday.

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Our big migratory bird festival is March 21st this year.

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It's— we'll have lots of community partners with activities.

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And Last Chance Forever, a local raptor rescue, is going to come and bring birds to do their bird show. And then we have golf cart tours down in the wetlands as well. Okay. When is that? March 21st from 9 to 1. Going to have to be there. Yeah. I know there's a lot of changes happening here at Mitchell Lake, you know, one of which, one thing that I mentioned coming in, the frontage there, the big sign, you know, you're welcome into the site, is definitely different than the last time I was here, maybe a year or so ago. But you can correct me on the details. So, talk a little bit about the investment that's been made in Mitchell Lake, where that came from as well for folks who might not be familiar, and let's share a little bit about where we're at in that development, the change, and we'll get to a little bit more of the future conversation thereafter. Yes, the City of San Antonio folks voted on to give us $6 million in bond money, so It's an investment for the Southside, which we're really excited about.

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And the bond improvements will include a new education building, which as an education coordinator, super excited to have that. It will be a large area that will, can also function as event space. It's beautiful out here, so we want to be able to welcome people to have events in nature. Down by the wetlands, we're going to have some more road improvements. Right now, whenever it rains, we have to close the trails. So some of those road improvements will improve access during those times. And then there'll be full station restrooms as well. So right now it's all porta-potties, but by the end of 2027, we'll have restrooms down there. There'll also be improved parking areas so we can welcome more guests.

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And so that was the 2022 bond? Yes. Okay.

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And '27 is when those projects are slated to be completed? Yes. What's been done this far? So lots of planning. We've had community meetings to kind of gather input and adjust based on the feedback that we've gotten there. Working with our architect company to plan the buildings and the roads and everything like that and SAWZ.

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Our San Antonio Water System, our landowner and partner, has helped in that as well. What about like trails besides, you know, maybe the mentioned the wetlands. What's trail experience like now? Are there going to be any shifts or adjustments to that? The main improvements for this bond money is, is the roadways over there.

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So our existing walking trails will remain the same, but there are going to be some additional bird viewing areas in the— over by the education pavilion. So it's not just for groups coming or things like that, it's for the public to come and enjoy as well. So there'll be some bird blinds over there, some bird feeding and viewing areas as well, along with some water features. Talking about maybe the health and resilience of our migrating bird populations beyond Mitchell Lake's borders, we would hope that bird populations are thriving and growing. What are you all seeing here in that kind of as it relates to the quantity of populations, perhaps the diversity of species? Is that something that's growing over time, declining, or remaining a bit stagnant? What do y'all notice?

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Yeah, unfortunately data has kind of shown a lot of bird populations are trending down. So that's why places like this existing is even more important over time so we can work to kind of bend that bird curve and bring the populations back up. As far as data, we partner with A&M San Antonio researchers to do some bird banding, and they actually did some pretty cool research with painted buntings on site, and they banded the nestlings to look at their habits habitat. They like to nest in our grassland restoration area. They kind of were studying the effects of human noise on songbird populations. So unfortunately, in general, bird populations are trending downward. There's plenty of data to support that, but that's why places like Mitchell Lake Audubon Center are so important, as especially as birds face more pressures from human interference and climate change. We can hopefully bend that bird curve back up. We have a lot of different species of greatest conservation need that visit our site and species that are particularly affected by climate change, like Lesser Goldfinch, which is the Climate Watch target bird for this area that we monitor. That's what we work to do.

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Well, and so San Antonio and the greater Bexar County region are certainly fast-growing. There's a lot of new developments sprouting up. All over, quite far-reaching. So I imagine, you know, some element of habitat loss. It's not going to be a friendly factor towards the bird populations. And so perhaps from what we can extract and learn from Mitchell Lake, you know, what are some really important practices that we might adopt, you know, outside of the boundaries of the 1,600 acres here, you know, in our neighborhoods, city communities, to make ourselves, you know, San Antonio is a bird city, you know, for one.

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How can we more so live up to that creed? Yes, so San Antonio is a Bird City and part of that is community education. And so that's a big piece of what we do here. We have lots of conservation projects on site that we kind of encourage people to look at and see what, what piece of that they can incorporate in their own space. Nobody can do it all, but if we all do a little something, it's beneficial. So like our native plant gardens behind me, We promote natives. Not only do they save water, but they benefit wildlife. They provide food for bees, butterflies, birds, bats, and they're perfectly timed with the seasons. So as migrating birds are coming through, they have a little something for everybody that comes through. And so our gardens kind of serve as a demonstration area of what might work in your space. There's signage that kind of tells what, what is good for shade, what's good for sun, and people can take that back and hopefully put some natives in their space. Another one that people can participate in is community science. Most of our programs have an element of community science and programs like eBird, Merlin, or iNaturalist. It seems like a fun way to learn, but it also gives data to scientists that can look at trends over time and decide where to go next. Well, I think those things are so helpful and slightly gamified too. I mean, whether you're talking about native plants or you're talking about the interest of getting into birds, I feel like each of those kind of fuel the other. Come from plants first and foremost, but I think of myself a little bit as a collector, more of the native species that I can house on our home landscape. But then likewise, it becomes a thing of, ooh, what birds are we able to see around our house? And I love using Merlin or eBird or what have you to feel like I'm collecting them in some ways to kind of check them off the list. So it's a fun way, especially for my kids, 2 and 4, I have thankfully very sophisticated cameras, and so we kind of treat ourselves like home, you know, wildlife videographers and enjoy that exercise quite a bit. Erin, I really appreciate you sharing so much about the Audubon Center here at Mitchell Lake. What else do you feel like we left out? Is there anything else that you'd want, you know, San Antonians to know about Mitchell Lake that they might not otherwise? Yeah, I think I would say that there's a little something for everybody. We hope to serve as kind of a model for urban conservation. But whether you're a hardcore birder, I think people think of Mitchell Lake Audubon Center and think of birds, or you just want to like come out and hang out and enjoy the peace of nature, it's a little something for everybody. So we exist for the birds and we hope to keep the land natural to help the birds out, but it's also a place where people can just come out and enjoy the peace of nature. Lovely. Totally agree. All right, Erin, thank you so much. Thank you so much.

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San Antonio calls itself a Bird City. That's a real designation and a real promise. But a designation doesn't protect a Painted Bunty. It doesn't give a Northern Pintail somewhere to land.

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The work does. I believe Mitchell Lake is proof that we can get things right, even after we've gotten them very wrong. The question is whether we can use that lesson beyond its borders. If this conversation resonated with you, I'd love for you to visit Mitchell Lake in person.

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They're open Tuesday through Sunday, and their upcoming migratory bird festival is March 21st. You can also support the work at MitchellLake.Audubon.org.

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This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Geekdom and Westin Urban. We're grateful for their continued support. And if you're not already subscribed to our newsletters, My San Antonio Something and Bob Rivard's Monday Musings, those are each linked in the description below, or you can find signups for those at BigCitySmallTown.com.

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All right, y'all, thanks for listening.