WICHITA FALLS (KFDX/KJTL) – A local creek has Wichita Falls torn between locals wanting to keep it, and the city saying it has to go to prevent detrimental flooding possibilities.

This project has been on the city’s mind for a while and is now putting their plans into action, but some locals are still hoping they reconsider on how to execute it.
This is the view that residents and local businesses are used to seeing every day.

“We’d like to see the city, back up and do what’s right, and that’s to work with the community and find a way to solve the problems for flooding, which we haven’t had flooding here, and we’ve been here for 19 years so that’s not an issue,” President of 3-T Technologies, Ty Thacker said.

In a statement, Chris Horgen with the city of Wichita Falls says that removing the dam and completing the improvements to the channel between Midwestern Parkway will reduce the risk of roadway flooding and the flooding of adjacent properties.
The dam from Midwestern Parkway had been holding back water towards Maplewood and Kemp.

“Do an updated stormwater runoff calculation, plead an environmental impact study, get the army core engineers in here when they do their Sikes Lake study, and include quail creek and see if we can come up with an answer that protects the esthetic value with this area, as long with answering the questions with water runoffs,” Thacker said.

In the continued statement, goes on to say the quail creek drainage area was fully studied and presented to the city council in April of 2019.
The study analyzed several possible improvements throughout the drainage area and 13 improvements were selected and prioritized for implementation.

Thacker says he isn’t opposed to the drainage at all, but by taking away the creek, will dispose of more trash into sikes lake just on the other side of the street.

“Ask the city, what are they going to do about the debris that they are sending into Sike’s Lake, Grey creek, Holliday Creek, Wichita River, and ultimately Red River,” Thacker said.

Along the creek, plastic plates, cups, and water bottles can be found debris that Thacker says the creek prevents from spilling into Sikes lake.

“We get trash, we get debris, we get sentiment, I suspect we get pollutes as well, this impacts a lot of bodies of water, it needs to be looked at as a whole not just a little piece of one,” Thacker said.

For the city of Wichita Falls, this is just the beginning phase of a very extensive drainage project… and is expected to take multiple years.

The portion of the dam that has already been removed is part of the dewatering process to assist with the aquatic relocation and reduce the recolonization prior to the construction of this section of the channel.
The project is set to include improvements from the downstream at Midwestern Pkwy to Maplewood Ave. and more.