(bright music) - [Forrest] Try to write about things that are often overlooked.

- Everything was different down there.

All the rules were different.

- These people are often forgotten and that building is the most, like, hit you over the head metaphor.

- And it's forcing us to focus on something that maybe people have never really given much thought to.

- [Katy] You're in this other universe.

(bright music) (computer keys clacking) - When you're standing on the ground, sometimes you think, "Oh, this is as low as it gets.

Got my feet on the ground."

(mud squelching) After this story, I don't think that anymore.

It's all space going up and down.

There's this whole world underneath me.

Cavers think about that all the time.

They don't see the floor the way that the rest of us think of the floor.

My name is Katy Vine.

I'm a staff writer at "Texas Monthly," and I wrote "Deep, Very, Very, Very Deep, in the Heart of Texas."

I love writing about subcultures because it opens up whole worlds that are right in my backyard that I'd never thought about.

(bright music) In a subculture, what I'm looking for is a group that is extremely passionate to the point where it can be alienating to other people.

- Going back, we got three teams, so I'll be leading my team through Satan's Pit passage.

- The people who are in it are really into it.

They have their own language, habits.

- We're gonna go through the Valley of the Fallen Lords through the Moors and back through the Birth Canal.

- So, yeah, cavers are definitely a subculture.

(bright music) I had no idea caving was a thing in Texas.

I knew, of course, that there were big show caves, giant caves like Natural Bridge Caverns, but I did not understand that there were people who spend their weekends trying to explore and map out caves that are still not completely finished.

(rope creaking) (dramatic music) - [Caver] Off rope.

(bright music) - Bill Steele's a longtime caver.

Now in his 70s, he's been caving around Texas for decades, since the beginning of the caving movement in Austin.

Steele said he's not claustrophobic, he's claustrophilic.

He loves squeezy places.

He said it feels like Mother Nature's giving him a big hug.

- [Bill] Well, when I was a little boy, I found out about the explorers of, you know, the age of discovery and I just read all I could about that kind of thing and I dreamed about being one.

Then I found out about caves and I found out that there were unexplored caves.

You just had to find them.

- The Texas caving scene started to really heat up in the late '60s, early '70s, partly just because Texas was so close to Mexico and Mexico has great caving.

(bright music) That got a lot of cavers in other states excited and they moved to be here in Texas.

- This just seemed to be the place where it just was a magnetic attraction.

You know, I know when I was ready for a big change in life and I didn't know what was next, I decided, "Well, I'm just gonna move to Texas, you know, like Davey Crockett did and just cast my fate to the wind and see what happens," and I'm happy I did.

- In the '70s, Kirkwood Road, which is kind of northeast of the UT Austin campus, was where a lot of the cavers ended up.

- [Bill] This was the heartbeat of it.

This is where things got packed up and even conceptualized and planned.

- Those early years, you had all the major cavers coming through.

You had Peter Sprouse, Bill Steele, Bill Stone, Bill Russell.

At first it was kind of hard to keep them straight.

But most of the people who came through in the '70s and had anything to do with caving lived in those houses.

- So what happened here on this street was people with kindred interests got together and it was just wonderful to sit around every night and talk about it and make plans of what's coming.

And caves are mysterious in that you can't take a satellite photo and know where you're going, what ridge line to follow, like canyon mountaineering, and you don't know till you go.

You gotta go in there.

- [Brad] This is what cavers dream of, is closing the gap.

This right here.

- How it was explained to me is cavers are explorers the same way that a mountain climber is an explorer.

It's just in the opposite direction.

- [Bill] We're always looking for unexplored passages.

They can be behind a rock and you gotta look behind the rock to know it's there.

You never know when something might become really big.

- When I was reporting this story, I went caving with Bill Steele.

I was grateful to have him there.

This is somebody who is used to spending a lot of time with other human beings in close, dark spaces.

He's ambitious.

So he is willing to push the limit, as any explorer is, but he will also make sure that you are on board with what's coming next.

(dramatic music) You can be very physically fit, you can have all the elements that you think would be perfect for caving, but at a certain point, something that you can't control in your mind may take over and you need to bail.

Bill calls that not having a good time (chuckles).

People sometimes will say, "I'm not going any farther.

Just leave me here.

Leave me behind."

- And it's like, "Well, what are you saying?

What are you gonna do, stay here?

Die here?"

Uh-uh, not on my watch.

- So you want Bill in the cave with you or someone else who has a lot of experience with bad situations.

It's so dark and quiet, like a quiet you've never heard before.

And for some people, that's very comforting.

(mud squelches) Most cavers would say that the reason they continue to do this is because they're adventurers, they're explorers.

(gentle music) In 2019, Bill Steele went with part of a group to explore in Natural Bridge Caverns and found 600 feet of new passage, which is the most that anybody has found in Natural Bridge in over 50 years.

- There's unexplored places in Texas and the best one's right here.

- I didn't expect the world to change so dramatically.

(bright music) It just felt like someone was showing me something right in my backyard, but everything was different down there.

All the rules were different.

I mean, I had never seen translucent spiders and crickets.

These critters don't know that there is a world with grass and sun, which is so weird.

Kind of like there's people who don't know that they exist.

It's just funny how you sort of flip a switch and then you're in this other universe.

(mud squelches) (gentle music) When you come back out of the cave, I think you just are sort of changed.

You just see yourself in space differently.

I didn't think about the layers of ground underneath me the way that I do now.

There is just a world under our feet that most people, myself included, didn't give much thought to.

There's great value, I think, in looking beyond.

It elevates your experience and your awareness.

(bright music) You think that your world is everything that you can see and really you're only seeing half of it.

(pages rustling) (bright music) - When I visit a restaurant, I'm always looking for a place with a good story, really good food, or both.

Hallelujah!

BBQ was one of those places that had both.

They had the great barbecue, of course, and then they had this great story about how it's run.

(truck whirring) I'm Daniel Vaughn, barbecue editor at "Texas Monthly," and I wrote a profile on Hallelujah!

BBQ in El Paso.

I first heard of Hallelujah!

BBQ from Blake Barrow.

I had met him earlier and he had told me about this catering operation that he ran in El Paso, and when he opened up the brick and mortar, I decided to come visit.

- So the shelter is right here.

- Blake had said that he runs the Rescue Mission in El Paso and that most everyone who worked at the catering operation was housed at the Mission and that when he opened up Hallelujah!

BBQ the restaurant, that the same situation would be in place where their employees there are people who are housed at the Mission.

- Uh-huh.

Yeah.

This is Kenny.

Hey, Kenny.

Hallelujah!

BBQ is a vocational rehab program for the Rescue Mission.

Rescue Mission is a shelter for folks who are homeless.

We've been around since 1952.

I started as the CEO in '97, and by profession, I'm a trial lawyer.

So it was quite a change, a wonderful change.

I love it.

The homeless folks that we have, they have lots of abilities, lots of talents.

Do it like that.

They just, you know, stumped their toe somewhere and they need a little help and if they're gonna make it in life, we've got to be the one to give them the vocational training.

I'm gonna put them on the stove.

We're gonna grill 'em.

The idea was if we're gonna change the perception that the world has of who people are who are homeless, let's create a business, we'll hire only people who are homeless, and we'll make an absolutely first quality product and market it as made by people who are homeless so that when the customer looks at it, they go, "Wow.

You're telling me homeless folks made this?

I must have been wrong about who they are."

- I'd never heard of anything that operated quite that way.

The fact that they draw in all of their employees, you know, not just a small fraction, but truly make it the mission of the restaurant to be an employer for people at the Mission.

- The way to teach people how to succeed, you're gonna make the very best product and provide the best service, and if anybody ever leaves here and says, "That wasn't bad.

It's almost as good as Rudy's," you're a failure.

Why wouldn't they just go to Rudy's?

So if it's not perfect, we're not gonna serve it.

- Yeah, so as a journalist, I can go into a place like that and be thankful that there's a good story to tell, but the general public wants to go in and make sure that they have a really great meal.

And so Blake had to make sure that they've got the right equipment and they've got the right recipes to really put out great barbecue and great food that people wanna come back for.

You know, there's lots of different options for the barbecue.

Baby back ribs are so good.

Juicy brisket.

The one that stuck with me, though, is the 13 Habaneros Sausage and it's called that because they use 13 habanero peppers in every large batch of sausage that they make.

You know, it's not super spicy, but it's got that kick for sure.

And then the sides, like, if you want, like, pure comfort in the sides, they combine carbohydrates and cheese in, like, beautiful ways.

They've got David's Beans, which is a recipe of someone who worked at the Mission.

And then there's cheesecakes.

There's a different one every time you come in.

You never know what you're gonna get, but whatever it is, it's gonna be great.

So, yeah, it's gonna remain an important barbecue joint in Texas in my book.

(bright music) I think running any restaurant with staff that is gonna be temporary is really tough, right?

It's hard enough to train up staff that you plan to keep on for several years, let alone staff that you know is probably gonna be gone in a year, that the entire goal is to get them out of that restaurant and into a life of independence.

So what he's done using that sort of staff to actually produce great food day in, day out, is something to be applauded.

(gentle music) And it wasn't until I talked to Blake later that I learned that there's even more depth to it on the building that the restaurant is actually within.

- So I come to El Paso in 1988, was hired out of Baylor Law School by a big firm here, and been here a week and I'm coming back up Cotton Street and I drive right in front of this building and it was all boarded up and I go, "Wow, what an interesting building just wasting away.

What a shame."

You see from the pictures there were holes in the roof.

There had been at least two fires in the building.

I love taking an eyesore, an old, rundown building, and turning it into a work of art.

It's beautiful now.

And in fact, the building restoration was done by people who were living at the Rescue Mission.

- Refurbishing the building would be a strong message to the community that things that maybe they've just driven by and not paid any attention to, maybe it's still got some potential left if you just put in the effort.

(bright music) As a forgotten part of the city landscape, like, that building is the most, like, hit you over the head metaphor for the mission that they have of, you know, really rehabilitating the lives of a forgotten population.

(bright music) (birds chirping) - They gave me a whole chance to start my life again.

You know, they employed me.

Now I have my own car.

I'm working on getting my own apartment.

It gives you the tools to actually reintegrate into society so that you can actually start your life again that you don't end up back on the streets or back on drugs.

- I mean, we're not bad people.

We just made bad choices.

I mean, that's most of us, you know what I mean?

What I needed was, I guess, direction and probably somebody that was willing to help.

I'd probably be either dead or still in jail or in prison rather than being alive and working, you know, and doing something different and giving back to the community.

- You know, they see a lot of these people that are homeless and, you know, they don't know the story behind all these people.

They're broken.

They're hurt.

They don't have no one, you know, to look for help and, you know, they're lost and they need that attention and that love that, you know, they lost somewhere around, you know, the line.

Coming here was the best thing in my life.

(bright music) - So what have we done?

(chuckles) So I have totally altered the view of what not only city government, but all of El Paso society thinks of us, the work that we're doing, and the people that just happen to be homeless here in El Paso.

(bright music) (pages rustling) (gentle music) - It can be really hard to write about water issues.

I mean, frankly, you say water issues and people, myself included, are probably bored to tears.

Like, what does that mean?

It sounds like a problem, but I don't really know how it affects me or what it looks like.

Who cares?

Jacob's Well takes all that and really distills it down to this literal hole in the ground.

It is the canary in the coal mine of the overall health of this aquifer that hundreds of thousands of people depend upon.

My name is Forrest Wilder.

I'm a writer with "Texas Monthly" and I wrote, "Who's Killing Jacob's Well?"

(gentle music) (bright music) So I went to high school in Wimberley and we lived not too far away from Jacob's Well.

Wimberley's filled with all these awesome swimming holes, but this is one of the best and is, like, a really special place because of how the water comes from deep underground in this cavern and this one little chasm at the surface.

(water sploshes) You know, when it's healthy, there's a force to it.

It's flowing.

It's pulsing out from underground.

There's not too many spots like that that I've ever seen in Texas or maybe even the world.

But these days it's just kind of in a diminished state.

Jacob's Well's just kind of stopped flowing for long periods of time.

I remember visiting for the story that I did, I think it was July of 2022.

You know, I hadn't been to Jacob's Well in a long time, and seeing it, I compared it to visiting a loved one in hospice.

(gentle music) It was kind of heartbreaking to see how much it had declined and diminished and so I just had to wonder, like, you know, how did this happen?

(gentle music) People think of the hill country.

Yeah, they're thinking about the rolling hills, the wildflowers, but the other part of it is the water, these spring fed streams that are just, like, iconic that, by and large, they're fed by aquifers.

So there's aquifers all over the state of Texas.

We can't see them and so they're kind of mysterious, although they are the source of drinking water for millions of people.

They're the source of water for farmers, for agriculture.

These aquifers come to the surface in the form of springs and seeps.

So Jacob's Well is the expression of the Trinity Aquifer at the surface.

So what it's telling us is not just this natural feature is being destroyed, it's also telling us that the regional water supply is under threat and in jeopardy.

- Yeah, so there's no flow coming out of Jacob's Well at this level.

You can see the normal gauge height is here.

- Wow.

- This is as low as it gets really.

- Low as it gets.

David Baker is the patron saint of all things water related in the Wimberley area and the founder and longtime leader of the Watershed Association.

- It's very concerning.

This spring has flowed for millions of years and 2000 was the first time it stopped flowing.

It's basically we're pumping out more than is going in.

So it's like a bank account, we're spending more than we're depositing, and part of that is drought, but a big part of it is the pumping for the development.

(gentle music) - Texas is booming, right?

We have this huge population growth.

Hayes County is kinda like right in the middle of all that.

So it's one of the fastest-growing places in the country.

And so as this area has boomed, one of the consequences has been a lot of additional pumping on this aquifer that is a pretty finite resource.

And, essentially, you have this water utility that's providing water to thousands of homes, but they're doing it out of wells that are tapped into the same part of the aquifer that Jacob's Well is.

In 2022, Aqua Texas pumped nearly twice its permanent amount, and then in 2023, it massively overpumped again.

In 2024, same problem.

So you can see that there's a consistent issue here.

- Here's Jacob's Well no flow.

This is normal flow.

This was a year and a half before.

But why is that happening?

Well, when Aqua turns their pumps on, you can see the correlation between the pumping and the spring flow.

And so every day, you know, Aqua Texas turns their pumps on three times and you can see that gauge go down as they pump.

This is going on every day, and as you add more homes there, you add more water that's coming out of the aquifer.

- In 2023, I spoke to Aqua Texas's president.

They said there were a number of things that they were doing to reduce pressure on the aquifer around Jacob's Well.

(dramatic music) One is they were gonna crack down on wasteful customers to the extent that they can under Texas law.

(computer keys clacking) They were investing money in improving their infrastructure so they'd have fewer leaks.

And that they were also seeking alternative water supplies, specifically trying to open up new wells just outside of the Jacob's Well Groundwater Management Zone.

As of January 1st, 2025, they're still massively overpumping and Jacob's Well continues to be dry.

Unfortunately, this overpumping problem extends well beyond just Jacob's Well and the area serviced by Aqua Texas.

What's happening is as the aquifer is drawn down due to overpumping and drought, people's water wells are starting to fail.

So there's people in the Wimberley area, for example, whose wells are now unable to produce adequate water for their household needs.

And that's a big problem.

Unfortunately, we continue to have huge population growth and droughts are getting worse.

So the problem looks like it's likely to continue to worsen.

(gentle music) There is a conflict here of values.

(gentle music) Texas values free enterprise and development can kind of happen at will, and that's one reason I think that the state is booming.

On the other hand, water is essential to life.

We rely on these aquifers for drinking water, for industry, for everything that makes modern life here possible.

Jacob's Well, it's telling us that this aquifer is under stress, that it's essentially being depleted and mined slowly over time, and the consequences of that are immensely important.

Jacob's Well is forcing us to focus on something that maybe people have never really given much thought to.

- There's great value in looking beyond.

It makes me think hard about my day-to-day life.

- A huge part of my job is just paying attention.

These people are often forgotten the same way that that building had been for decades.

- [Forrest] It's important to write about things that are often overlooked.

- [Katy] It opens up whole worlds that I'd never thought about.

(bright music)