Salado Creek Foundation

Salado Celebration

Nov 10, 2002

It takes a special group of people to turn a 15 million gallon sewage spill into a reason to celebrate, but that's exactly what happened Sunday, November 10, as members of the Salado Creek Foundation hosted a luncheon for San Antonio Water System (SAWS) employees.

The barbaque dinner with all the trimmings took place on the banks of Salado Creek at the Alamo KOA Kampground. The use of the beautiful creekside facility was donated by owners Ron and Susan Rohde and the party was a way to say thank you to the workers who toiled late into the night under treacherous conditions to contain a massive sewer system failure in south Bexar County very near the Salado's confluence with the San Antonio River.

General Eugene Habiger, SAWS President and CEO, attended the party and said he was delighted with the well-deserved recognition for the hard working crews.

"What's remarkable about this event..is that this is a drastic reversal from what we normally see. Usually, we have phone calls from people beating us up, articles in the newspaper telling us what a bad job we're doing. Well, we're trying to change all that, and what you see here today with this outing, this food, and the spirit of appreciation, is very much appreciated," said Habiger.

SAWS believes that a 24 inch sewer line that crosses Salado Creek began to fail around October 12. Because the break was in a remote and isolated area, it wasn't discovered until four days later. They say as workers were trying to repair that pipe, a 42 inch line also ruptured. Officials say the problems were caused by erosion from heavy rains this year.

Because SAWS took immediate action, members of the Salado Creek Foundation who live near the break said they were happy witht the prompt, professional response from repair workers.

Foundation President Charles Bartlett said, "We are very happy that we can depend on SAWS personnel to do the right thing, and do it quickly. We're glad Salado Creek in in good hands."

Bartlett said water quality tests show that fast action and additional rain in the area prevented what could have been an environmental disaster.

"Repairs are well underway and we hope that lessons learned from this event will help SAWS do an even better job in the future of protecting one of the city's greatest natural assets," Bartlett continued.

The celebration was made possible by generous support from Green Haven Industries, Betty Burke, Sue Calberg, Ernie Garcia and Jennifer Westerman.

Full details about the spill and the clean up effort can be accessed on the SAWS website at:

http://www.saws.org/latest_news/NewsDrill.cfm?news_id=81