Parks and Wildlife Commission weighs a 7,500-acre addition to Powderhorn on the coast

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission meets Wednesday and Thursday to start the public process on roughly 9,200 acres of new state land — the largest piece a 7,500-acre addition to the Powderhorn wildlife area on the Gulf Coast. Comment on the two hunting rules it votes on Thursday closes at 5 p.m. Wednesday.

Powderhorn is the state’s showpiece coastal buy. In 2014 a coalition of conservation groups and the department paid $37.7 million for a 17,351-acre Calhoun County ranch, nearly all of it from the fund that distributes criminal settlement money from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. About 15,000 acres became the wildlife management area; the rest was set aside for a state park that remains in planning and has never opened. Another 7,500 acres would enlarge the wildlife area by roughly half.

What the commissioners are asked for Wednesday is narrower than it sounds — permission to begin the public notice process, not authority to buy. Purchases return for a vote at a later meeting, and the department has not said who is selling or for how much. The land talks themselves are set for closed session. Five other tracts ride along: 800 acres at Justin Hurst in Brazoria County, 170 at Mason Mountain, 50 at Elephant Mountain, 27 at the unopened Post Oak Ridge state park, and 3 in Nacogdoches County. Only one acquisition gets a vote this week, about 650 acres in Henderson County.

Thursday’s action list is mostly rules and money — the operating budget for the year starting September 1, and two hunting rules. One would let landowners in four North Texas counties use firearms rather than only archery on enclosed, managed properties. The other would let the department set the means of take on the permits it issues to landowners whose property wildlife is damaging.

The briefing to watch is Wednesday’s, from the executive director. He is set to report on the New World screwworm, the flesh-eating fly confirmed in a Texas calf in June; on oysters; and on July’s Hill Country floods, in which game wardens reported 153 rescues in the first days. No detection of the fly in Texas wildlife has been confirmed.

Meeting at a glance

Commission members

• Paul L. Foster, El Paso — chairman; investor and former University of Texas regents chairman.
• Oliver J. Bell, Cleveland — vice chairman; West Point graduate; former prisons board chairman.
• Wm. Leslie Doggett, Houston — founder of a truck and equipment dealership group.
• Anna B. Galo, Laredo — cattle company executive with oil, gas and ranching interests.
• Dr. John A. McCall Jr., Crockett — optometrist and former mayor of Crockett.
• Robert L. “Bobby” Patton Jr., Fort Worth — lawyer and investor; co-owner of the Dodgers.
• Travis B. “Blake” Rowling, Dallas — president of the parent company of Omni Hotels.
• Dick Scott, Wimberley — co-owner of a railroad transportation company.
• Timothy Timmerman, Austin — investor; chaired the Lower Colorado River Authority board fourteen years.

The roster follows the agency’s commissioners page and the governor’s appointment releases, with two corrections: that page still shows a February 1, 2025 term for Bobby Patton, who was reappointed on April 16, 2025 to a term ending February 1, 2031, and it still describes Dick Scott as vice chairman, a post Oliver Bell has held since November 2, 2023. Lee M. Bass and T. Dan Friedkin serve as honorary, non-voting chairmen emeritus and are not counted in the nine. Composition and terms are set by Parks and Wildlife Code Chapter 11. David Yoskowitz has been executive director since October 2022. Staff contact for these meetings: James Murphy, general counsel, (512) 389-8877.