Clean-up of fouled Hamilton Crk starts

AUSTIN (KXAN) - More than three years after botched subdivision construction job sent tons of silt and sediment roaring down Hamilton Creek in area straddling Hays and Travis Counties, the clean-up is finally underway.

Crews are using small equipment like bobcats in the more accessible parts of the six-mile-long section of the creek that was fouled by the pollution. In many places, though, the tools in use are brooms, rakes and fire hoses. Eventually, they will work their way down the creek and tackle a similar problem in the beloved Hamilton Pool, itself.

"There was immeasurable amounts of silt and sediment that flowed down the creeks and the receiving watershed for Hamilton Pool and into Hamilton Pool, turning it to akin to a cup of coffee," said Dr. Victoria Harkins, a civil engineer with Espey Consultants, who is serving as project director for the clean-up for Travis County.

The disaster was discovered in May of 2007 when Travis County staff people were doing a helicopter survey of some new park land. They were horrified by the what they saw when they looked down at the pool, part of a nature preserve the county controls.

Following a heavy rain, creek water pouring into the pool was a sickly coffee color. The chopper headed upstream and six miles from the pool, they found heavy equipment at work on the ground on a road through a new subdivision. Crews had brought in tons of dirt for the project and protective barriers had not held. It was, in the words of county officials, nothing short of catastrophic. Now choked with silt, the creek is overgrown with non-native vegetation.

As the clean-up proceeds, hardened sediment on top is cracked open and fire hoses wash the stuff downstream.

"We have temporary sedimentation ponds built in along the creek so that we hold the water and then we de-water, clean the silt out as best we can and move down to the next section," Harkins said.

"Already, the crews are clearing whole sections of the creek exposing bed rock, while leaving undisturbed the natural gravel that was once entirely covered in silt. The cleanup of the entire span and of the pool itself should be completed by the first of the year.