Bringing Back Comanche Springs
June 25, 2020Texas Highways, Jan. 22, 2020
Conservationists have a plan for how to enable the springs to go from an occasional to a year-round stream, and it involves paying landowners to curb their irrigation practices.
During the growing season in the Chihuahuan Desert west of Fort Stockton, pumps are engaged to irrigate fields of pecan, wheat, alfalfa, hay, and cotton. That has left nearby Comanche Springs, once the largest complex of freshwater springs in West Texas, a jumble of dry rocks within a metal cage by the edge of the Comanche Springs swimming pool. Only during the summer does water materialize, and it’s chlorinated city water for the pool.