A two-year restoration of the Lyndon B. Johnson National Grassland, northwest of Dallas-Fort Worth, is aimed at helping more rain soak into the ground in a watershed that drains toward Grapevine Lake and the Trinity River basin.
The National Forest Foundation and the U.S. Forest Service have been working together on the grassland, Catherine Cody, the foundation's associate communications director, said in an interview on KERA's NTX Now that aired Tuesday.
Much of the effort is in the Cotton Creek watershed. Cody said that creek system flows into Grapevine Lake and on into the Trinity basin, which she said supplies drinking water to about 6 million North Texans. KERA reported that erosion and decades of changes to the land have altered how water moves through the area and how much of it is held there.
Cutting back the cedars
The main tool is thinning. Eastern cedars are native to the grassland, Cody said, but they now grow far more densely than they would naturally and draw up large amounts of water. Crews go in with hand saws to remove some of the trees and other vegetation, an approach she described as nature-based work meant to imitate natural processes rather than bring in heavy equipment.
So far, she said, just over 500 acres have been treated, returning about 90 million liters of water to the ecosystem. She cautioned that the water does not necessarily flow straight to the Trinity River; instead it can be absorbed back into the ground and the atmosphere.
