The very hot afternoon of June 18th found Michael Thomas, president of the Highland Meadows Neighborhood Association, slogging around in Dixon Branch Creek.

It wasn’t because he was cooling off in the stretch of water that runs through his neighborhood on the eastern-most edge of Lake Highlands, like so many neighborhood children do.

It was to investigate the unappealing sights and smells that lead him to the creek.

The Highlands Meadows Neighborhood Association is bounded by Northwest Highway, Plano Road, Walnut Hill and Jupiter. There are two creeks that run through the neighborhood – the more prominent one being Dixon Branch, the other, McCree East Creek.

Both are part of the White Rock Lake Watershed.

Recently some of the neighbors of the almost 1,400 homes in Highlands Meadows began thinking there was a broken sewer pipe near the creek, based on the strong sewage smell in the air.

There was also the appearance of a white substance that began flowing from the storm drain just south of Walnut Hill, as well as gray water with white particles moving further south toward Northwest Highway and White Rock Lake. Neighborhood members reported it to the city on June 15th.

Just last Friday, Water Utilities crews were lined up at McCree Park investigating well into the evening, then back at it again early Saturday morning.

Their investigation included the use of underwater cameras, as well as attempts to follow and track the contamination by driving up and down the creek to find the source.

It now appears that this is not a case of a broken sewer pipe, but of illegal dumping.

Dumping in our neighborhood

Thomas is dismayed. "We are blessed to have two creeks that make their way through Highland Meadows – Dixon Branch and McCree East."

"But there have been problems, and now there’s a very immediate problem if this is illegal dumping. This is a roughly 700 foot stretch of contaminated water with a very high PH level."

"This has to be addressed as soon as possible, and since Water Utilities have determined it’s not a sewer issue, the responsibility now lies with Storm Water Management to determine the source of the contamination."

If illegal dumping has occurred, Dixon Branch Creek will need specialized help. And if the perpetrators are apprehended, the enforcement guidelines of the Texas Water Code Chapter 7 are tough.

Penalties for illegally dumping into water, and the dumping of hazardous waste, medical waste, motor oil and lead acid batteries can be as high as 30 years of confinement with fines of up to $1,000,000 or more.

According to Thomas, Storm Water Management representatives have been in touch with him over the course of the weekend and are aware of the situation.

Background on Dallas Watersheds

Dallas County has 38 Watersheds. A watershed is the land that water flows across or under on its way to a lake, river, stream, or in this case, a creek.

Rivers, lakes, estuaries, wetlands, streams and even the oceans can serve as catch basins for the surrounding land.

A watershed is basically nature’s way of dividing up the landscape – a division which sometimes fails to coincide with the political, social, and economic boundaries of a community.

In essence, everyone lives in a watershed, and people's actions greatly affect water quality, as well as impact the land, air, plants and animals.

The belief of the Environmental Protection Agency is that many water quality, human health and ecosystem problems are best solved at the watershed level rather than isolating and treating problems in a specific body of water.

Once the contamination in Dixon Branch Creek is addressed, the ongoing problems that the creek has suffered over the past 50 years due to an aging infrastructure, an increased volume of storm water runoff, and poor soil management can be addressed as the EPA suggests: at the White Rock Lake Watershed.