Friar's Creek;
A Central Texas Urban Stream
Rehabilitation Study
Steering Committee Members:
Concerned Citizens:
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Mrs H.K Allen
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Mary Lynch
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Cynthia Gorham-Test
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Mike Wilson
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Tony Owen
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Earnest Lynch
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Dr. Ed Bellens
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Dr. C. N. Verheyden
Professional Staff:
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Dr. Dennis Hoffman (TAES)
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Dr. Wes Rosenthal (TAES)
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Dr. Robert Doyle (Baylor)
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Melissa Mullens (Texas Parks and Wildlife)
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Jim Herrington (EPA)
Public
Participation
To
achieve the project’s goal, public participation is critical. Efforts to
obtain public participation are addressed at several levels. First, the
project will utilize a variety of interested local agencies and entities
to obtain a true grass roots effort. Second, at the outset of the project
a general awareness campaign will be implemented to make the community
aware of the project and to garner interest in the project’s goals.
Third, the demonstration projects will be high-profile demonstrations in
the area and will stimulate interest in BMP adoption. Finally, a rigorous,
focused technology transfer and education task will provide a variety of
programs to demonstrate the value and benefits of adopting demonstrated
BMPs and will provide technical assistance as needed, and incentives where
appropriate, to help increase public participation. Special emphasis will
be placed on seeking out programs, which can provide further incentives to
landowners for BMP adoption.
News Release
March 16, 2005
Partnership
Sets Out to Restore Creek, Wetlands
Writer: Edith Chenault, (979) 845-2886, e-chenault1@tamu.edu
Contact: Dr. Dennis Hoffman, (254) 774-6040, hoffman@brc.tamu.edu
TEMPLE
– "This is my Walden," said Raye Virginia Allen, sweeping her
arm around to the Central Texas creek lined with oak and pecan trees and
cedar.
"I used to ride horseback through here, and the changes I've
seen," said the 75-year-old Allen. "I value it emotionally and
aesthetically. I am getting to know it scientifically."
The creek is Friar's Creek, which runs through Temple to the Leon
River. It was named for the Spanish monks who explored the area centuries
ago. Allen's "Walden" – her land – has been in her family
since 1939, but dates back to a Mexican land grant circa 1827-1834.
The land along Friar's Creek is the focus of a partnership between
federal, state and local officials, and community volunteers. They are
working to restore a portion of approximately 10 square miles of stream
banks and wetlands along the creek.
In recent years, Temple – a Central Texas city of more than
50,000 – has created a flood control zone and lined one section of the
creek's channel with concrete and turned additional areas into
flood-control structures. That did an effective job of channeling water
away from residences and businesses, but increased erosion and flooding
along the unlined portions in the southern end of the city. And that's
where the Allen family resides, said Dr. Dennis Hoffman, research
scientist with the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station at the Blackland
Research and Extension Center.
Too often, creeks are only thought of as drainage areas for cities,
Hoffman said, and not the living entities they are. Friar's Creek is home
to an amazing variety of fish and the water quality is good, he said.
"Many of the landowners and residents downstream from the
impacted areas have a special passion for the tranquility and beauty of
the stream and are dismayed with the increased flooding and erosion along
their property," he said.
"The last big rain we had, the water came within a foot of the
bridge" on the highway next to the Allen's property, said Sam
Unberhagen, a consultant who is helping protect the nature preserve on the
property.
He criticized the "non-flora" items on the land thrown
out by passers-by on the highway. "We could spend full-time just
picking up the trash."
The Owners and Friends of Friar's Creek, led by Allen and her
husband, H.K., before he passed away, got in touch with Hoffman.
Shortly after, a "Stream Team" of representatives from
the Environmental Protection Agency, National Resource Conservation
Service, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Baylor University,
Experiment Station, and city officials and community volunteers was put
together. Similar teams had been used in other areas of the United States
to restore wetlands.
Their goal: to educate local residents and city officials about
rehabilitating the stream and to restore damaged areas. Cooperators have
attended city planning and zoning meetings and consulted with city
officials to help determine future growth options for the city.
A recent workshop taught Central Texas officials on ways to
rehabilitate stream channels. The key point of the workshop was to let the
stream maintain its natural state rather than channelizing the stream.
With the advice of the Stream Team, the city established grassy
filter strips along the creek to protect banks and to help slow water
down. That reduces erosion.
Dr. Wesley Rosenthal, associate professor with the Experiment
Station, is helping to design stream bank alterations that will stabilize
the channel and restore and preserve vegetation. To maintain the natural
shape of the meandering stream, portions of the channel will be widened.
Wetland vegetation will be transplanted in the expanded channel bank.
Well-established stream bank vegetation is essential to protect the
stream from further erosion. Jim Herrington, EPA Region 6 wetlands
specialist, is overseeing changes and providing plant selection expertise.
Wetlands and small streams play a vital role in the conservation of Texas
water quality and supply.
Teams from Baylor and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department did an
"inventory" of plants and fish species in the area. Hoffman and
other researchers started a nursery of native plants to revegetate more of
the creek's unlined areas this spring.
"It is our role to be land stewards," Allen said. "I
want to save a little piece of God's work that we have a deed to."
March 15, 2005