Pat Scheumack, who had worked for several weeks to uncover an aquifer-fed spring into Salado Creek only to see all of that work undone, was approached by Salado Mayor pro tem Michael Cooper as she and her husband, Mason, were sitting by the creek Wednesday night.
“He wants a pow-wow,” Scheumack said. “They want to get a committee together.”
Scheumack said Cooper indicated the committee would be tasked with discussions about opening up the spring, which in the past was known as Big Boiling Spring.
Potential committee members include John Rosanky, who owns property adjacent to the spring; sculptor Troy Kelley, who created the Sirena statue that sits in the creek near the spring; and village officials, both Scheumack and Cooper said.
The parties other than the Scheumacks have expressed the belief that the spring should stay as it is - covered.
Cooper said he spoke with the Scheumacks about the formation of the committee, but was still trying to contact everyone else in the hopes of having the first meeting sometime next week.
“I did speak with the Scheumacks and told them that it was our desire to address the issue in a constructive way, with some degree of education of what we are talking about,” Cooper said. “A lot has been made of this thing, much more than it needs to be.”
Kelley agrees with Cooper that the whole issue has been overblown and needs to be resolved.
“I feel like this is much ado about nothing,” Kelley said. “She dug out the creek and created a dangerous hole for all the little kids that come down there to wade and swim.”
The hole is part of a larger spring that runs through an underground cave beneath the Stagecoach Inn.
According to an article in the Telegram last year, the cave was discovered shortly after the Civil War, and back then it was not uncommon for children to wander into that cave where they’d drop apples into the water, then run out to the spring to watch those apples emerge from Big Boiling Spring.
Of late, rumors circulated of children trying to swim into the crevice, only to become trapped, or re-emerge gasping for air.
“That’s not true,” Salado Police Chief Alan Rogers said. “At least not that I am aware of.”
Rogers said there have never been any incidents like that on the creek in the eight years he’s served as police chief.
“I’d think that I’d know that,” he said.
Regardless of whether or not anything dangerous has happened at the now-covered spring, it is the city’s stance that the Schuemacks created a hazard when they dug out a spring on public property without the city’s permission.
“She was not authorized to dig in that creek. She did it on her own and that is what started all of this,” Cooper said.
