BAMBERGER, 1: A man with a dream brings his little piece 
of Hill Country heaven into balance ... we'll explain on 
Passport to Texas.

PTT from TPW and the Wildlife Restoration Program

Forty years ago a soil conservation service technician told 
David Bamberger he'd purchased the worst piece of land 
in Blanco County. But Bamberger had a plan.
 
We were wanting to demonstrate and try to develop a model that 
perhaps other people could follow. :06

Bamberger, and his late wife Margaret, created a 
conservation model by dedicating themselves to 
restoring ecological balance ... including flowing water ... to 
their fifty-five hundred acre ranch. 

Let me tell you, there wasn't a drop of water here. There wasn't 
anything in the way of wildlife. I drilled 7 water wells 500 foot 
deep; I never got a drop of water. :09

With careful land management, including the removal of 
3-thousand acres of "wall-to-wall" cedars and seeding the 
land with native grasses, the land revived.

So, over this forty years, as the habitat was improved, we got 11 
springs that started to run; after 7 years we had two creeks that 
were running. Today we have 22 ponds or tanks that weren't here 
when I came. Two of them we call lakes because of their 
significant size. :18

This 81 year old award-winning conservationist's latest 
project also involves water.

The idea behind this project is to capture all the water that falls 
here, and keep that little perched aquifer charged up. :09

We'll learn more about that tomorrow.

That's our show ... made possible by a grant from the 
Wildlife Restoration Program ... supporting habitat 
restoration in Texas ... For Texas Parks and Wildlife ... I'm 
Cecilia Nasti

Total sound bite time:			0:42.0
Maximum Script time:			0:43.0	 	 Suggested show time: 86.0 = 1:26