Thursday, September 19, 2024
AZLE — Ash Creek is a permanent, but not always prominent, feature in the backyards of many Main Street’s businesses. Deb Turpin, owner of Eagle Mountain Plaza at 300 E Main St. has a goal to preserve this natural resource for generations to come. Since buying the building in December 2023, Turpin has wondered who is legally responsible for maintaining the creek-side areas which have been overgrown and prone to damming up with trash and debris.
Turpin searched for answers for about 18 months. She called the Tarrant Regional Water District, the city of Azle, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, the Texas Department of Transportation and others. In most cases Turpin said the different entities would not know the answer themselves and they’d point her in another direction. Eventually, she found her solution through Parker County Environmental Deputy Mike Ingram. Ingram said Texas Water Code 11.086 dictated businesses and homeowners could not change the flow of water, but otherwise that section of the creek is her responsibility, and she has every right to clean it herself.
“People think you're going to get in trouble with the water board, the city and everybody because they just don’t know the facts,” Turpin said. “That's the only reason it's still sitting there like it is, because I couldn't get any answers for so long.”
With this confirmation, she went to work. Her and her employees claim to have spent about two to three weeks cleaning the spaces adjacent to and within the waterway. Turpin also motivated the owners of neighboring Hernandez Granite & Marble Tile to clean up as well. While she has made progress, there’s still no shortage of tires, plastic piping, downed trees and other debris along other sections of the creek. She hopes to now bring in the city government and other local business owners like Ryan Nelson of March Roofing to help.
“I think Azle is a beautiful place,” Nelson said of his motivation to get involved. “It's a beautiful setting. What it could be is what drives me. It’s why I want to help. I think it could be so much better. It's great as it is, but I'd like to put a bigger draw for people to be here, you know, so grow the community and anything like this, I think is a good start.”
Turpin took Nelson, Azle Mayor Pro Tem Randa Goode and The Tri-County Reporter on a tour of the nearby creek areas to assess how much manpower and what kind of equipment might be needed for the job. Goode said the recently created beautification board could even create grants for projects like this going forward and Nelson remarked they could start organizing to get an excavator, bobcat and large dumpsters for the project. The group hopes to make a creek clean-up a community-wide effort. By cleaning and better maintaining Ash Creek, Turpin hopes to prevent flooding issues at nearby lots and in the parks as well as preserve the area’s natural beauty and protect the health of the community.
“In addition to cleanup days in Azle, we could also just start working in sections (of the creek),” Goode said. “We can't do it all in one day, but we can a little bit here and there… This would be an amazing project to maintain and then the cities that do have creeks like this, they really do emphasize them.”
Azle’s first settlers relied on the local creeks for their survival. Some of the earliest homesteads, churches and other centers for colonial living were located on Ash Creek and Walnut Creek. For most of Parker County’s history, the area has been used as range and crop land. For Turpin, whose family has lived in the area for five generations, Ash Creek is a symbol of Azle’s past and its best possible future.
“My grandmother used to live at her home place on Main Street,” Turpin said. “I'd go visit her, and I lived on a creek off of Newsom Mountain Road, where I grew up. So, I was used to playing on a creek, and so I'd come see her. The first thing I would want to do is get down here to the creek and look at the fish and play in the water, which she didn't like because I had to go across what was then Main Street, which was Jacksboro Highway. We had a running gun battle trying to keep me out of the creek. I just remember how it used to look and how much I enjoyed it as a kid and as a young adult, and I think it can look that way again. I don't see why we can't. It’s not anything that's going to cost millions of dollars. It's not anything that's going to disturb anybody's property. It's already here and it should be looked at as an asset and not just ignored and say, ‘oh, well, when it floods Jacksboro Highway, TxDOT will yank the stuff out from under the bridge.’ No, let's fix the creek and make it beautiful again.”
