the EAA to regulate pumping from the aquifer, implement critical period management restrictions, and pursue measures to ensure minimum continuous spring flows of the Comal and San Marcos Springs are maintained to protect endangered and threatened species to the extent required by federal law. In 2013, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approved Edwards Aquifer Authority's Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP), which is a regional 15-year plan designed to protect the water flow and species in the Edwards Aquifer region. The HCP supports three major project groups of habitat protection measures, flow protection measures, and supporting measures such as applied research, ecological and biological, and water-quality monitoring. HCP project examples include minimization and mitigation of the impacts of low flow, by restoring native riparian zones in order to benefit the Comal Springs riffle beetle by increasing the amount functional habitat and food sources (i.e., root structures and associated biofilms). The method of riparian zone establishment will include the removal of non-native, followed by the replanting of native vegetation that may be considered representative of a healthy, functioning riparian zone. Although implementation of the HCP exists primarily within the EAA, a broad group of stakeholders plays a role in the management of the Edwards Aquifer. The National Research Council (NRC) committee, formed by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), released the first of three scientific reports in 2015 that evaluate and make recommendations for Habitat Conservation Plan programming of the Edwards Aquifer. Legal activity In the past conflict existed between the Sierra Club and US Federal and State agencies, cities, and industrial water users. The conflict is between groups that want to pump more water from the aquifer for human use and those that want to keep water in the aquifer, to feed springs which provide habitat from endangered species. This conflict tends to emerge after periods of drought in 1988 and in 1995-1996 In the initial lawsuit was Sierra Club v. Babbitt in 1991. The plaintiffs included environmental groups (Sierra Club), water districts (Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority and Bexar Metropolitan Water District), municipalities (City of San Marcos and City of New Braunfels), and utilities (Green Valley and Atascosa Rural Water Supply corporations). The defendants included, government agencies (US Fish and Wildlife Service, State of Texas, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department), City of San Antonio, and multiple industrial water users. In Sierra Club v. Babbitt the plaintiffs claimed that the defendants were not