Texas: The State of Springs Preview Transcript
[Narrator]
The following is a presentation of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. "Texas: The State of Springs" is funded in part by Shell Oil Company, which is committed to sustainable development and works hard to make a difference in the environment in which people live, work, and play.
(music, water rushing)
[Robert McCurdy]
I cannot think of any of our senses that don’t take delight in a spring.
[Tootsie Herndon]
Well, everything depends on water. Everything on God’s planet depends on water.
[man]
Out of rock flows this crystal clear water. To hear it, that sound of the flowing water. The taste and the smell that tie in together. My gosh, it’s a delightful thing.
[Tootsie Herndon]
Water is life to everything.
[Tom Beard]
People that live in the city, they turn on their faucet and water comes out and they don't even think about it. You look around and see this body of water that exists in nature. Don't we have to do something to protect that? I think we do.
(music, water flowing)
[Narrator]
At one time in Texas springs flowed all over the state. From the dense forests of East Texas, to the vast deserts of the Trans-Pecos in the west, springs meant the very essence of life. As humans adopted Texas as a home, springs were never far away.
[Helen Besse]
You will almost always find an Indian encampment next to a spring in west Texas. And that you can trace their trails going from spring to spring as they went out on their hunting expeditions or scouting expeditions. When the Spanish explorers came in, the Indians led the explorers to the same springs and so their trails pretty much follow the Indian trails. Then you move forward another century and get into the 1800s and you have the ranchers, same thing.
[Narrator]
"The Springs of Texas" by the late Gunnar Brune documented the springs in 183 of the 254 counties in Texas. The trends that Brune observed disturbed him.
[Helen Besse]
Gunnar said in 1981 that there had been a definite decline in springs. He documented 281 major and historical springs, he said that about half of those had either failed or were failing.
[Narrator]
The names of many Texas towns reflect the abundance of springs that once flowed there. Today in many places the name is the same, but the springs, for the most part, are gone.
[Todd Darden]
We're in Big Spring, Texas at the historic location called the Big Spring. This is the spring in which we were named after. When William B. Marcy came through here marking the trail of this part of the world, water was what got them and led them through the area.
(train whistle)
[Narrator]
In 1881 the Texas and Pacific Railroad came through Big Spring. They used water from the spring to fuel their locomotives. The town and the railroad flourished, but the spring alone could not sustain this growth. Wells were drilled to access more water but by 1925 the Big Spring and all the wells around it, were pumped dry.
Tune in on Thursday, February 15 at 8 p.m. on your local PBS stations.
www.texasthestateofwater.org
