Cutting back cedar not best approach to saving water

From statesman, August 31, 2008...

For most of the past 25 years, if you saw a cedar tree you grabbed a chain saw. Unless you were a golden-cheeked warbler.

The little birds that nest exclusively in Central Texas — using long strips of cedar bark to build their nests — long have seemed to be the only residents of the Hill Country carrying on any kind of love affair with the squat evergreen we call cedar. It's technically the Ashe juniper, but cedar will do.

European settlers found little cedar when they came to the Hill Country in the 19th Century; however, fire suppression, over-grazing and invasive species combined to allow cedars to establish the huge colonies we now call breaks.

As the breaks grew, water disappeared, leaving most Central Texans with the belief that cedars were drilling deep down into the water table and sucking out the water that had flowed from springs. Ranchers and farmers went to work clearing as much of the cedar as they could, hoping to free the land for other purposes and maybe renew water sources.

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