Environmental Commission commemorates former chair

At its Oct. 18 meeting, the Environmental Commission voted unanimously to approve staff’s recommendation to rename the Slaughter Creek Management Unit as the Mary Gay Maxwell Management Unit, after the former chair of the commission who died last year in a car accident. Kevin Thuesen, environmental conservation program manager at Austin Water Utility, explained that the site had been chosen because it was among the first water quality protection lands included in the city hiking guide that Maxwell had spearheaded. The Slaughter Creek Management Unit is one tract of the 15,000 acres in the Barton Springs segment of the Edwards Aquifer that the city purchased in 1998 to help preserve the quality of the city’s main water source. “We hope after it goes to Council to have a celebration out there for Mary Gay,” said Sherri Kuhl, Austin Water’s environmental conservation division manager, at the meeting.