Rowlett Creek Watershed Protection Plan | Texas A&M AgriLife Ecological Engineering Program

Rowlett Creek flows through the DFW Metroplex cities of Plano, Garland, McKinney, Frisco, Allen, and Murphy, which constitute a highly urbanized watershed. The creek also flows to a major water supply reservoir owned by the City of Dallas. The majority of the creek is within the city limits of Plano. The City of Plano is the ninth most populous city in the state of Texas (2010 United States Census). Land uses in Plano consist of industrial (6%), commercial (23%), residential (66%), and agricultural (7%).

Rowlett Creek was placed on the Texas 303(d) list in 2014 for bacteria. Rowlett Creek is also listed as having a concern for nitrate. The water quality problems to be addressed are the bacteria impairment and concern for nitrate, as well as any other parameters stakeholders select. This project is part of the TCEQ’s 303d Visioning Project in the Upper Trinity River Basin.

Rowlett Creek, Segment 0820B and its tributaries make up a significant portion of the East Fork Trinity River drainage and Lake Ray Hubbard watershed. With continuous growth in the region, Rowlett creek is exposed to water quality and habitat degradation caused from human activity, urban runoff, and erosion.

Spring Creek and its tributaries, Pittman Creek and Prairie Creek, make up a significant portion of the Rowlett Creek basin that drains into the East Fork Trinity River and Lake Ray Hubbard. The City of Plano makes up the head waters of the Spring Creek basin, eventually flowing downstream through other Texas cities including Richardson and Garland. The land surfaces making up the Spring Creek drainage in Plano are mostly impervious, including roadways, alleys, buildings, parking lots, driveways, and sidewalks. Due to the lack of pervious surfaces and natural buffers in this drainage, over 90% of the precipitation that falls here flows to the stream, rather than being absorbed by the historical natural prairie habitat. Because of this Spring Creek is exposed to water quality and habitat degradation caused from human activity, urban runoff, and erosion.

The project will benefit from cooperation with the North Texas Municipal Water District that developed the Lake Lavon WPP and the City of Dallas who owns Lake Ray Hubbard. It is expected that the expertise of these two entities and the other cities in the watershed will be an asset to the project and coordination with all these groups will be an essential part of the project.

General Project Description:

The Rowlett Creek Watershed Protection Plan (WPP) project intends to build on the water quality sampling and modeling in the Phase I watershed characterization project (TCEQ Contract No.: 582-19-90199) which will be completed in August 2022. Texas A&M AgriLife, in collaboration with the project partners, will develop a full nine key element WPP that is stakeholder driven and will provide best management practices recommendations based on modeling results to the stakeholder group.

The results from the watershed characterization phase including the stakeholder coordination efforts will be used to develop load duration curves for E. coli, nitrate, ammonia, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, total suspended solids, and other water quality parameters deemed important by the stakeholder group.

Stakeholder involvement in Phase II will build upon the stakeholders meeting held in Phase I of the project with the help of the City of Plano and the North Texas Municipal Water District. Stakeholders meetings held in this project (Phase II) will focus on the necessary steps to develop an appropriate set of recommendations to include in the WPP to meet water quality targets set in Phase I.

The results of this project (modeling and stakeholder input) will be the basis of the WPP. Cities, water districts, and council of governments in the watershed have expressed a strong desire to develop a WPP to improve water quality and restore the stream segment.