“Back then it would pump out of the water for about 2 1/2 feet,” she said.

Thursday morning, the spring, which according to the Texas Water Development Board, receives water from the northern segment of the Edward’s Aquifer, barely rippled the surface of the water.

But that was more than it had done in quite some time.

For weeks, Scheumack spent her free time removing debris consisting of trash and gravel from a crevice that she said was about six feet deep.

Much of that was deposited during last spring’s flooding, but some of that gravel was deposited by hand, Scheumack said.

She took it upon herself and about six weeks ago, grabbed a shovel and a bucket and began her quest to clean up a childhood love.

For weeks, it was a common sight to see her wading knee-deep in the creek with a full bucket in her hand as her husband sat nearby.

“I’d say we dug out about a ton,” she said.

Her labor revealed a natural crevice about 18 inches wide where cold spring water bubbled as it had in her youth.

Before long the water pressure began to increase from less than a gallon a second over the dam to about 45 gallons per second.

She would have done more, but on Wednesday the work was involuntarily ceased after Scheumack received a letter from Salado Mayor Merle Stalcup.

In his letter, Stalcup thanked her for her efforts to beautify the creek, but ordered her to stop.

“The crevice that you have created is a danger,” Stalcup wrote.

He added that small children could potentially become trapped in the large crevice and drown.

Stalcup said in his letter that the village of Salado would be filling the crevice and smoothing the creek bottom.

The crevice Stalcup mentioned is not manmade, but a natural occurrence in the creek and the spring.

Meanwhile, Scheumack said that covering up the crevices with silt or gravel would be disastrous for the creek.

Scheumack said she has spoken with several environmental engineers who’ve indicated that plugging the spring would turn the pristine pool into a virtual sewer.

“If they pour gravel in the spring they can stop it,” said Salado resident Mark Rice. “If they stop the spring, then this will turn into a slime hole.”

Scheumack said she does not want that to happen and has looked into the possibility of installing a grating over the crevice and eliminate the danger to small children.

“I would pay for a grate to go over that,” she said.

The village, however, thought otherwise, and filled the crevice with gravel and sand.

“They stopped the spring,” Scheumack said.

Rice said it would have been advisable to seek an opinion from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

This would not be the first time the state weighed in on an issue dealing with the Edward’s Aquifer and its springs.

In 1998, the organization, then known as the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission, dealt with similar issues in San Marcos, and salamanders - deemed an endangered species - that were found to inhabit a nearby spring that flowed from the Edward’s Aquifer to the San Marcos River.

Lisa Wheeler, spokeswoman for TCEQ, said her agency had not heard from anyone from the Village of Salado, but would have been receptive to rendering an opinion on the spring if they were notified.