stink creek

You have to be a naturalist  to want Stink Creek to become a walking and hiking trail, because Stink Creek is Monahans Draw, downstream from the Odessa sewage processing facility. Tertiary treated water is released in the draw. In mid-summer it does not even run as far as Farm-to-Market Road 1788 (about 10 miles), but in wet winters it has flowed past Rankin Highway south of Midland. In one really wet year, it even flowed to the eastern Midland County line.

A number of folks have hunting leases along the draw, and I have been blessed by being invited out. One such lease also has been studied by the Midland Naturalists group for 30 years. At this lease, a colony of long-billed thrashers -- normally only found in the lower Rio Grande valley -- were present for almost 20 years before dying out and disappearing again. When one of the group members collected a specimen for Texas A&M's collection, other members became upset and quit in protest, questioning the necessity of specimens in these more modern times.

Fishermen seem to like to dump leftover bait and catch into bodies of water, so there is a somewhat diverse fish and turtle population in the draw. There was also an alligator in the draw. It grew to almost 10 feet before it was hauled off to East Texas. Much of the draw is filled with cattails, so skulking marsh birds such as least bitterns, king rails and Virginia rails have been found along the draw as well -- and no place else in Midland or Ector County.

A dense thicket of salt cedar has grown up to 40 feet away from the water course, providing great cover for both mule and white-tailed deer. This also provides some lease income for the landowners. This "riparian" area is also a likely place to see mountain lions that will sleep in the draw thickets but range far from the draw at night. Javelinas also are seen along the draw and, once in a while, a member of the local hunting community will tell a tale of feeling hemmed in by a group of them.

Feral hogs also are sometimes found in the Stink Creek environment. I believe there are pulses of wild and feral animals in the fall and winter of each year -- brief periods when more are present, when there is more activity. I dream of figuring out a way to setup some game cameras along the draw to test out this hypothesis.

Local professional biologists and high school honors biology students could make it happen. The group could set up a Facebook page and show all the animals seen at the different camera stations, and give presentations at the junior high schools to interest the younger kids in field biology. Kids interested in television journalism could go along with a television crew and be featured doing stories on the discoveries.

In some years the water runs far enough to reach a place where it creates a good sized shallow lake, where sandhill cranes spend winter nights. The Midnats have had permission to visit this location in those years, and have also found unusual birds often associated with water, from bald eagles to black skimmers.

Despite the many years of fun of trying to learn a little bit about how a lot of sewage water changed the environment, I hope in the future Odessa will consider a way to recycle their sewage water. Midland should, too, instead of pumping it 20 miles and then spraying it on fields where cattle graze. Big Spring is making drinking water out of their sewage water. Why aren't Odessa and Midland doing that?

As the son of a birdwatcher, I often had to spend hours in a hot car at Rose Acres and Flushing Meadows, otherwise known as the Midland Sewage Ponds. My mom loved to observe the behavior of its residents and visitors, such as the lively avocets and black necked stilts that nested there. What a stink! Stink Creek never has stunk that bad.