Salado Mayor Merle Stalcup authorized a truck to dump gravel into the creek to negate the cleanup work done by Patricia Sheumack.

Stalcup’s claim is a crevice in the creek is a safety hazard to swimmers. Ms. Scheumack says keeping the crevice clear keeps fresh water flowing into the creek.

With all of the back and forth, the question of ownership of the creek has arisen.

Stalcup said last week the property that includes the spring is owned by the family of the late Grace Rosanky Jones, who died in February.

The family agrees and Stalcup said the village has merely been maintaining it as part of an agreement between the village and the Jones family.

However, according to property tax information obtained from the Bell County Appraisal District, the property that runs from the rear of Rosanky’s on Royal Street (a Jones business) and encompasses more than 27,000 square feet stops about 25 feet short of the creek.

On Tuesday morning stakes marked the area about 25 feet from the banks of Salado Creek, and about 30 feet from where the family, Stalcup said, gave him permission to dump a load of gravel and rock into the spring.

After the gravel was dumped, Melanie Ellis, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said they should have been notified before the deed was done.

Ms. Ellis said the village was obligated to secure a section 404 permit in conjunction with the Clean Water Act before it dumped anything in what is considered a U.S. waterway.

“We have a nationwide permit that allows up to 10 cubic yards of material to be placed into the water without requiring a formal verification from the Corps,” said David Madden, a regulatory manager with the Corps.

“My guess is that this was a lot less than 10 cubic yards,” he said, adding he doesn’t expect Salado to get a fine for its lack of a permit.

Ms. Sheumack, who owns and operates a shop in Salado that sells small stones and Native American artifacts, didn’t have a dump truck when she decided the creek needed cleaning up, so in May she used a bucket and a shovel to remove gravel and other debris from a crevice where an aquifer feeds the creek.

Village authorities, she said, have confronted her several time about her cleanup, but she claims her intentions were good.

And she vows to continue her fight.

She said she intends to contact Gov. Rick Perry and Texas Attorney General Gregg Abbott to ask for their help.

“We’ve got people who come from all over Texas to look at the springs,” she said.