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Poor communication and planning may uproot part of East Austin’s Festival Beach Food Forest, as Interstate 35 construction and a relocated wastewater line collide with years of grassroots work.
Last month, Food Forest volunteers were surprised to learn that the massive effort to widen I-35 at Lady Bird Lake includes relocating a wastewater line through part of the food forest that has been in the planning stages for nearly five years.
The Food Forest, a grassroots project neighboring the Festival Beach Community Garden and RBJ Residential Center in East Austin, is designed to be an edible forest garden. Fruits, nuts, vegetables, and herbs are part of the project to reclaim the public commons. The relocated wastewater line was not part of that plan.
“The utility project was approved without the knowledge of Festival Beach Food Forest stewards or the city departments that have most recently funded and supported the site’s growth,” said Aly Tharp, Food Forest’s steering council coordinator.
“I seriously question whether state law was upheld in this case, given that [we] were not given written notice of the public hearings at the [Parks and Recreation Department] board meeting in November 2024, or Austin City Council meeting in January 2025,” Tharp told Austin Free Press.
The widening of I-35 involves numerous city departments. To keep up with it, Food Forest created “a team that stays focused on what’s happening with the I-35 expansion and how it’s affecting the forest,” explained volunteer coordinator Jenna Jasso. Despite this, she said, “The news about the pipeline completely hit by surprise.”
Texas Department of Transportation spokesperson Brad Wheelis said that TxDOT meets quarterly with various groups to share information about the construction. However, Angelina Alanis, the food forest volunteer tasked with working with TxDOT, said, “The plan to lay a temporary wastewater pipeline through the site was never mentioned by TxDOT or city stakeholders.”
The planned construction and breakdown in communications pose serious challenges and potential harm to the food forest.
Trenching by TxDot for the new wastewater line could begin as soon as Feb. 17, putting pressure on Food Forest volunteers to move about 90 trees and shrubs before then. Volunteers are scrambling to figure out where to move plants and how to keep them safe.
Image credit: Richard Stone.
Ricardo Soliz, Austin Parks and Recreation’s TxDOT liaison, said that he was aware of the Food Forest expansion but did not know that the relocated wastewater line overlapped it. He added that there was no direct communication about this between his office, TxDOT and Austin Water, the city department responsible for relocating the pipe.
In 2020, Food Forest stakeholders won grants from Austin’s Urban Forestry department to study a forest expansion. In 2021, the Austin City Council approved the Food Forest expansion. In 2024 and 2025, Food Forest stewards received $100,000 in Urban Forestry grants to increase the forest’s footprint from about two-thirds of an acre to three and a half acres.
Even with approval from the city council and support from the Urban Forestry Department, the expansion was left out of drawings unveiled at the November Parks and Recreation Department meeting. Drawings do show the placement of the new waterline but don’t show the location of the new Food Forest landscaping.
“While (Food Forest) leaders have worked hand-in-hand with Austin Parks and Recreation and the Urban Forest Department for over a decade, the pressures of I-35 expansion have led to a breakdown in inter-departmental coordination,” said Alanis.
That analysis is largely shared by Austin Parks and Recreation, PARD liaison Soliz said, “It’s critical to note that Austin Water’s relocation project was planned — and received the City Council’s approval prior to us knowing of the food forest expansion.”
“One of the worst parts about this is that this is a temporary water pipeline to reroute wastewater during the construction of the new highway,” said Jasso. “They’re going to abandon it in 10 years, and we don’t know what the process looks like for decommissioning. We don’t know what the long-term plan is for this wastewater pipe.”
Officials with Austin Water said that while they were not aware that the wastewater pipeline threatened the food forest expansion, they were working with Parks and Recreation and other city departments to determine what might be needed to ensure that the site is restored to existing conditions after the TxDot construction is completed.
How easily that could be accomplished is an open question. Alanis said that trenching in the food forest is destructive, and it’s unwise to grow edible plants on top of a wastewater line.
Image credit: Richard Stone.
“The thing about permaculture design and permaculture agriculture is it’s super intentional,” she said. “Exactly where the plants are, and the way the land is designed influenced how we augmented it through berms and swales and other techniques to start to capture and retain more resources and really maximize the abundance. So it’s not like we can simply move a few plants and go about our day. We’re going to have to redesign what took years for us to do.”
“Moving all these plants is obviously going to take a lot of time, a lot of energy,” Alanis said. “We have to store those plants for a year while they do this, and then hopefully return the plants to the site. But we haven’t been given clarity on what happens post-easement. Do we reinvest in that area? We’re not sure, and that’s a particularly crucial area because it is our barrier-berm to pollution. How does that impact the rest of design and our momentum in implementing the design?”
The Food Forest is considered an East Austin gem, said Kit O’Connell, who visits the green space.
“It’s one of Austin’s more unusual public parks,” O’Connell told Austin Free Press. “Every plant within the food forest is cultivated for its edible or medicinal purpose, from everyday culinary herbs to more unusual fare like beauty berries and passion fruit.
O’Connell added: “Many visitors come to the park each week on volunteer days, for free classes like yoga or educational plant walks, or simply to enjoy its shady spaces.”
Food Forest volunteers said the way communications and plans were mishandled leave them concerned about what other problems the I-35 highway project could trigger.
“If this could happen in the background without us knowing, despite actively talking to multiple people in Parks and Rec, how do we know that there is not something else that we don’t know about?” Alanis asked.
“How do we start to invest our time and even city money into this land?”
Richard Stone is a Central Texas native reporter and editor with 35 years of award-winning experience covering local issues that matter. More at Wilcoblues.com.
