The field trip you will take is clarified by viewing the site in the light of history. As your tour guide, I quote from information from the website of the Greene County Historical Society and an excellent article written by Loring Bullard for the website of the Watershed Committee of the Ozarks (copyright 2001) to see where you are heading by looking at where others have been. Bullard's "The Springs of Greene County" describes the way Springfield was around 1833, when city-father John Polk Campbell had his vision of the future city for which, in 1836, he deeded fifty acres. Those Campbell Township acres became the square we now know as Park Central, from which Boonville Avenue extends to the north and South Avenue extends to the south--all the way through our SASS area where a creek or spring mysteriously disappeared.
The 50-acre site housed the county seat of then-fledgling Greene County. What Campbell saw was summarized in the naming of the town that is now the third largest city in Missouri; and whose unabated expansion could lead to I/I problems of devastating magnitude if not brought under control while it still can be, or so it seems to me. The original population of fewer than 400 has now surpassed 150,000 and is expanding as more and more development continues.
In the 1830s, springs abounded in the area and your day trip will take you into a section of the city that Campbell would undoubtedly experience as a dream-turned-nightmare if he could see it today. When you see it, you might get a grip on the reality of why the SASS area has not received more attention than it has, and, worse, what conditions might be like underground and out of sight beneath your streets and homes.
"...The name given to the town was Springfield" "Bullard writes, "relating to the circumstances of there being a spring below the hill while on top of the hill, where the main portion of the town lay, was a field. "
The hill is the high ground that rises off College Street a couple of blocks east of today's Kansas Expressway, and the site you will visit is the approximate location of Fort Number 2 which was erected during the Civil War to defend the city, and whose location was near Jordan Creek south of Fulbright Spring. This is the same creek that, east of Boonville Avenue, flows under and through Vision 20/20's gleaming new Jordan Valley Park. The sight-site you will visit is west of Boonville Avenue, and is one spot not disclosed in promotional material designed to lure people to visit or live here. It is the seamy side of the tracks which SASS Northwest member Albert L. Baker described as a "Hobo's Jungle" and I perceived as a having the look and feel of a toxic-waste dump.
I do not recommend that you get out of your car or poke around. Just drive through once, twice, or as often as necessary to get your fill of this little-known section of town. Please lock your doors, keep your windows closed, and run your air conditioner to filter the air Although Al Baker and I have taken a midnight tour, my recommendation would be to go during bright daylight hours. This is not an area where you would want to get stuck if the tire should go flat or engine might fail. If there is any truth to Ozarks superstitions about "haints" in the hills, this is one haunted place! Does the city's future hold more such sites? Does SASS?
Now let's look at the contrasting scene in our SASS area today, and as Bullard describes the way things were: In subsection "Spring Ghosts, Lost Springs" Bullard says: "...Most of the rural springs described a hundred years ago can be found today, although some have been modified and are hidden beneath an overgrowth of vegetation. Many, no doubt, have had their flows diminished by the pumping of groundwater through shallow-cased wells. Others have been drowned by the construction of reservoirs. The obvious disappearance of the springs or creeks that once existed in the SASS area is not a phenomenon solely modern or confined to the greater Sunshine/Holland Neighborhood in which SASS exists. According to Bullard: ...Even early settlers noticed that spring flows could be profoundly affected by changes in the local landscape, such as the removal of forests by logging. It is the urban springs that are most enigmatic..."
Part of the enigma is expressed in the question about how the west side, of Jordan Creek, which has not disappeared, got to its present state. Another aspect of the enigma is what happened to the creek or spring on South Avenue. Under the subtitle "Old City Springs," Bullard's feature states: "...The spring at the original Kickapoo Village, near the intersection of South and Madison streets, was destroyed by one of the city's early sewer projects." He also cites a memento by the youngest daughter of founder John Polk Campbell, Mrs. Rush Owens, who wrote: "There was a sunken spring east of South Street, one hundred fifty feet from Madison, where the Kickapoos used to get their drinking water. " According to Bullard, Mrs. Owen "recalled that when she was a child, she watched the Indians lean over and dip the water out."
Contamination of Springfield's water is not a latter-day phenomenon. The first reported incident of pollution occurred before the city's original water company was established on Water Street in 1883, at which time Fulbright Spring was tapped. Soldiers at the never-completed Civil War Fort No.5, near the present-day OTC campus around Chestnut Expressway and Sherman Avenue, washed their clothes in Berry (later renamed Jones) Spring. Suds from their laundry contaminated the water in the natural well three-fourths of a mile south in downtown Springfield.
According to the Greene County Historical Society's online description of Campbell Township: "Wilson's Creek (that portion running through Springfield's center city is known as Jordan Creek) has as its original source the springs flowing into it. Tributaries of Jordan Creek also include Fassnight, South Creek (also within the city limits of Springfield).
The Sunshine/Holland Neighborhood of Springfield is situated south of Fassnight Creek and north of South Creek. The SASS area falls within the Fassnight Creek Basin as sub-basins FC-10 and FC-11 in the rehabilitation and abatement program described in the next section of this Report. Does the spring-fed creek on South Avenue, destroyed by an early sewer, rerise enough to destroy our properties?
Crossover in City of Springfield's water, stormwater and sanitary sewer systems is not the only source of crossover which can cause contamination, because water from the various natural waterways also occurs. Bear this in mind when you take this day trip through town. When you arrive at your destination, try to visualize it as John Polk Campbell must have seen the creek when his vision was fresh, the water was clear and the future had not become tracks to be retraced in efforts to find out what went wrong and how to fix it so the same thing would not happen again.
As you take the recommended 3-1/2 mile round-trip, remember that everyone who visits this area is doing so at his or her own risk, even if that fact has not been disclosed. According to information shared with me by the man whose independent laboratory performed my soil tests after the flood of 2000, geologists and other scientists have predicted portions of Springfield, extending to Springfield Underground and the old quarry on North National Avenue, down through the Missouri State University campus area, and especially as far south as the Galloway area will eventually fall through sinkholes that open, or when unstable soils fall into caves or mine shafts left unreinforced when they were abandoned. He did not know when this will happen. or where, but he stated it will happen. According to a feature in the Springfield News- Leader a few years ago, a sinkhole exists approximately every 12 inches throughout Springfield, ranging in size from an inch in diameter to possibly hundreds of feet. The gentleman who told me about the expected collapse of parts of the city did not predict that the SASS area would fall through a sinkhole, or that the basin would become one, but neither did he rule out the possibility. His name is in my file and is available upon request.
Unfortunately, the prediction was made in conversation, not writing, and I am relying on memory instead of research notes, but feel it important to tell you as much as I recall. Water was to be involved, a lot of water that is predicted to come through the underground waterways, causing weakening of the surface from underground. Whether this water will arrive through storms of the 100-year or 500-year level, or come from some other mode of arrival, is unknown. But since we have had a droughtlike year, with no huge rainfall events predicted in the immediate future, now seems like a good time to make the field trip. Not only should it help you make personal decisions about the city where you live, it should assist the SASS Neighborhood Watch group reach a conclusion about where SASS wants to go--and how to get there.
During your SASS deliberations, please study the photograph on Page 17. Look very closely because this might be the only such photo you will ever see that shows in such colorful detail the intricate composition of undiluted urban sludge, known both as "soup" and "stew."
Then ask yourself if you would drink the water you saw in Jordan Creek west or eat the sludge if given the choice... because there is a chance that during periods of crossover, you've been exposed to or have ingested more of their like and kind than you realize.
In 1990 Sunshine Corners was built. With nearly the entire 200 block of East Sunshine Street, which slopes down toward our property, covered with hard surface, water was channeled onto our land from behind us, with the pavement acting as a stream bed between buildings; therefore, in heavy rain which does not approach the levels of 100-year and 500-year rainfalls, the entire block of South Avenue from Cherokee Street to our yards and on to Sunshine Street, becomes an above-ground stream like the one that once was visible enough to be included on a Civil War-era map. (See Page 72.)
Sunshine Corners' parking lot is 24 to 27 inches higher than the backyards at 201 W. - 203 E. Washita Street, my neighbors' yard and mine. When combined with water that rushes toward us on South Avenue, our basin fills in minutes, and will continue to fill,whenever rainfall events that deliver 4 or more inches of precipitation in an hour occur. If the ground is already saturated, a 2-3 inch downpour can cause flooding. Every home on South Avenue is susceptible, also, to varying degrees, depending on which side of the street it is on and its elevation.
I protested the erection of an IMAX Theatre on the Bass Pro campus for this reason: An 8-story theater means more hard surface will be laid down near SASS, and if the current Bass Pro-owned greenspace is used for parking during heavy rains, it won't be water that goes down the drain. It will be our property, our investments, our health, unless something changes.
2005 was a droughtlike year, but rains will return, SASS members will have decisions to make. This next section should help you decide what to do when your time comes to do something.
(Sludge, the solid portion of sewage, is shown here as viewed from the rim of the manhole that services 94 apartment units in Heritage Towers, 515 West Mount Vernon Street, Springfield, Missouri during a sewage backup that inundated the ground-floor level of the Springfield Public Housing Authority's high-rise building in April 2005. Al Baker, resident manager, shot this photo before the Department of Public Works pumped the sludge into a tank truck. Sewage gas is so toxic that DPW sewer maintenance employees must work in teams. Exposure to toxic sewer gas can cause unconsciousness, confusion, memory loss and temporary amnesia. Odors from sewer-gas build-up can escape through openings in manhole covers. If you smell strange, often-fishy odors that linger in the air, call DPW's sewer backup department at 864-1923 or, during evenings and holidays, 864-1955. Crews will be sent to check the closest sanitary sewer main. The service is free, and it's better to be safe than sorry. If you ever stand over a main filled with sewage like the sludge in this photo, cover your nose with a tissue or wear a mask.)