By Elliott Nace | Staff Writer
Beyond two viewing points by Brooks Flats and the Baylor Sciences Building, running underneath university infrastructure and then into the more notable Brazos River is the Waco Creek.
Between Waco Creek’s on-campus utility and merit as a local representation of a much larger ecosystem, the small body of water shapes campus itself.
Much of Baylor’s design conforms to the layout of the creek. Dr. Caleb Robbins, an assistant research scientist at the Center for Reservoir and Aquatic Systems Research, said that even when harnessing Waco Creek, its presence dictated surrounding construction.
“It used to just be a creek bed all the way through campus … Everything you see about Waco Creek on campus is basically an engineering decision,” he said.
According to Gary Cocke, senior director of sustainability at facilities management, the creek’s occasional unpredictability ensures that the university takes proper precautions when building around it.
“Although Waco Creek is a small, slow-flowing creek at most times, it can also transform into a fast-flowing waterway that can become dangerous during storm events,” Cocke said in an email. “Baylor takes care to ensure that stormwater can flow from the watershed into Waco Creek and that water quality is not negatively impacted by construction activity.”
Cocke said that the most pronounced practical use of the creek is its role as a drainage system for much of campus.
“There are outfalls along the creek that carry stormwater from the watershed into the creek,” he said.
According to Robbins, the creek acts as both a tool and an existing feature of nature –– a natural landmark caught up in the need for a self-sufficient community.
“Waco Creek is an urban stream, and it represents a story of this tension between high population density, the needs of humans and this natural stream function,” he said.
From the viewing area by Brooks Flats and the BSB, Robbins acknowledged that the creek looks small, unassuming and at first, unappealing.
“It’s essentially a concrete bottom and concrete sides, and for all intents and purposes, quite unnatural … And then it moves downstream. It goes below ground, underneath the Baylor Energy Complex, and emerges on the other side, where it’s basically the Brazos River,” he said.
The creek’s visible path, however, misrepresents its greater importance. Robbins said that Waco Creek’s vastness and beauty expands from a significant chunk of the local area all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.
“It’s like 12% of the land area of Waco,” he said. “[The creek is] flowing into the Brazos and then ultimately down past Bryan, College Station and all its communities, down to the Gulf of Mexico. So we are connected to the Gulf of Mexico through Waco Creek.”
An ecosystem consisting of aquatic life also exists along the creek.
“There’s an aspect of biodiversity there that’s both aesthetically interesting –– it’s pretty to not just look at a concrete bottom –– but it’s also harboring fish and aquatic insects that are part of a food web that actually can feed birds and bats that are in the area,” Robbins said.
Waco Creek offers the university a chance to put its commitment to sustainability into practice, both at a professional and student level, Cocke said.
“HES, Baylor’s grounds service provider, removes litter from Waco Creek manually on a regular basis,” Cocke said. “Students from the department of environmental science and from Baylor Students for Environmental Wildlife Protection, among others, regularly perform cleanups along Waco Creek.”
Robbins explained how the creek’s unique features, such as its narrowness, provide it with an educational angle that can be demonstrated to students.
“In the past, when I was a graduate student, I used the upper portion of Waco Creek to do some hydrologic stuff –– teaching [students] how to measure stream discharge,” he said.
Further developments to creek conservation and safety, which promise to mitigate Waco Creek’s potential risk and preserve its environment, are currently being explored by the university.
“Baylor has partnered with the City of Waco, Keep Waco Beautiful and Keep Texas Beautiful for a grant application that would provide an innovative mechanical litter removal system for Waco Creek along with partnerships for watershed protection programs,” Cocke said.
Waco Creek acts as a connective element of the campus atmosphere that not only shapes construction and safety measures, but gives Baylor a responsibility to protect it, Robbins said.
“If you enjoy walking along that walkway and seeing the water that’s given to us from upstream, then maybe we have a responsibility to what happens to that water when it’s on our watch and moves downstream,” Robbins said. “We’re connected. That’s what water does –– it connects us. So we have to be mindful of the fact that we’re neighbors that are directly connected by this flowing thing.”
