Sep. 12--SAN MARCOS -- After more than a decade of trying, the city of San Marcos is getting out of the business of developing a habitat conservation plan.

More exactly, the city council recently decided that the latest incarnation of the proposed San Marcos River Habitat Conservation Plan (SMRHCP) be submitted to be merged into the larger process of the Edwards Aquifer Recovery Implementation Plan (RIP).

"We were on our fifth or sixth iteration of this plan," Director of Community Services Rodney Cobb told council members. But, he added, each time the plan had been submitted to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department, "it keeps coming back."

Cobb said the idea to merge the two efforts came from that agency as well as Dr. Robert Gulley, program manager for the RIP, and that officials at Texas State he had spoken with approve of the merge. "Mike Abbott and Andy Sansom say they're supportive of putting their portion of the HCP into the RIP process."

The Legislature has set a deadline of 2013 for the plan to be developed. Cobb said because the RIP plan would probably be approved before the city-developed HCP that's a "pro" for the merger.

He said the move would also "open the potential for assistance in funding some other projects along the river," including bank stabilization and removing the sandbar that has built up just upstream of the University Street Bridge.

"If we can keep moving on that, it may be more powerful than being forced into that and not being able to negotiate some things the city needs," said Laurie Moyer, assistant city manager.

Cobb said he was also trying to pursue the bank stabilization issue outside the HCP process because it "needs to be done as quickly as it can be." The sandbar, he noted, is scheduled to be removed by Fish and Wildlife. "They've taken that on as their charge. They are going through the process."

There was not a vote on the issue but rather just a consensus of the council.

The Edwards RIP, Mayor Susan Narvaiz noted, is "about much more than just the San Marcos River, it's about our entire region and water and rivers and basins and the aquifer."

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