 Texas Rivers Center: A Partnership The Texas Rivers Center represents a partnership that brings together the River Systems Institute with branches of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the National Park Service in a newly renovated educational and research facility located on the grounds of the Aquarena Center on the Texas State campus. In April 2007, the Rivers Center celebrated a grand reopening to mark the completion of the $3.1 million renovation project that began in 1999 with a master plan to transform the former landmark resort hotel into a major facility devoted to the study and protection of Texas waters. One tangible result of the Texas Rivers Center partnership is that Texas State has deposited 33,108 acre feet of its San Marcos River water rights into the Texas Water Trust in perpetuity. “This unprecedented partnership…has resulted in a kind of rivers incubator, with scholars, researchers and biologists from Texas Parks and Wildlife, the National Park Service and the university all working together in the same building,” says Texas State University President Denise M. Trauth. “The partnership is evolving toward permanent protection for one of the largest springs in the United States and a state-of-the-art environmental education program for rivers and springs.” |
 Aquarena Center: The Heritage and Restoration of a Unique Aquatic Resource
In 2004 the area that now comprises the Aquarena Center, was placed under the direction of the River Systems Institute at Texas State University-San Marcos. The area surrounding the center, where the San Marcos Springs emerge from the Edwards Aquifer to fill Spring Lake and form the San Marcos River, is a portal into Texas history, geography and ecology. Archaeological research indicates that the area surrounding the springs has been inhabited for some 12,000 years. | |
 Diverse Ecosystem The heart of the site is Spring Lake, which runs clear above the approximately 200 springs that lie below and provides a stable environment for eight federally listed endangered or threatened species: the San Marcos salamander, the Texas blind salamander, the fountain darter, the San Marcos Gambusia, the Comal Springs riffle beetle, Comal Springs dyopid beetle, Peck's cave amphipod, and the threatened San Marcos salamander.
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| | is ideally located for its mission of studying and safeguarding river systems and monitoring crucial issues concerning water resources. Headquartered at the newly renovated Texas Rivers Center, the Institute overlooks San Marcos Springs and Spring Lake, the headwaters of the crystal clear San Marcos River, which winds its way through the university campus. The Institute is dedicated to studying, preserving and interpreting the remarkable aquatic system that surrounds it as it extends that attention and concern to freshwater systems across the state, the nation and the world. Given that the Texas State University campus is only 30 miles southwest of the State Capitol building, this location also affords the Institute considerable access to the many policymakers concerned with finding solutions to real-world water issues. |
Off-Campus Collaboration Partners at the Texas Rivers Center include:
The Rivers, Trails, and Conservation Assistance Program, also known as the Rivers & Trails Program or RTCA, is the community assistance arm of the National Park Service. RTCA staff provide technical assistance to community groups and local, State, and federal government agencies so they can conserve rivers, preserve open space, and develop trails and greenways. The RTCA program implements the natural resource conservation and outdoor recreation mission of the National Park Service in communities across America.
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