Sager Creek is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data
The National Map
accessed June 3, 2011 creek which runs through downtown

Siloam Springs Siloam Springs is a city in Benton County, Arkansas, United States. The city shares a border on the Arkansas-Oklahoma state line with the city of West Siloam Springs, Oklahoma, which is within the Cherokee Nation territory. The town was founded i ...

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...

, in the United States. It is a tributary of Flint Creek, which flows to the

Illinois River The Illinois River ( mia, Inoka Siipiiwi) is a principal tributary of the Mississippi River and is approximately long. Located in the U.S. state of Illinois, it has a drainage basin of . The Illinois River begins at the confluence of the D ...

, which in turn flows to the

Arkansas River The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. It generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's source basin lies in the western United Stat ...

and thus is part of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

watershed. Sager Creek is named after the man largely thought to be the founder of Siloam Springs, Simon Sager.

History

Simon Sager and family came from Lippe, Germany and landed in Baltimore, MD. They went first to a German community near St. Louis. They then moved to Westport, MO, just south of present-day Kansas City. From there they came down to Sager Creek. Simon Sager was the family patriarch and settled near Sager Creek, which was also known as Spring Creek according to Sanborn Fire Maps as late as 1897. The community is known as Hico. They later moved to near the present site of the Siloam Springs Municipal Golf Course on Box Springs where the Sager Cabin lay where Simon was killed. That cabin was abandoned but remained until late in the 20th Century. The original cabin lay on John Brown University campus and has been restored. Simon Sager was killed during the Civil War when Pin Indians (pro-North Cherokee) came to his cabin. Some of the Sager children were in the Confederate Army. Siloam Springs was known as Hico until after the Civil War. It was originally platted as Siloam City but quickly became known as Siloam Springs. Siloam Springs was a health resort in the early 1900s with a number of healing waters; Downtown Springs, Indian Healing Springs and a few others. The present-day town is reminiscent of its Victorian heritage. The original Sager Cabin is on the grounds of

John Brown University John Brown University (JBU) is a Private university, private, interdenominational, Christianity, Christian university in Siloam Springs, Arkansas. Founded in 1919, JBU enrolls 2,343 students from 33 states and 45 countries in its traditional und ...

in Siloam Springs.

Downtown Siloam Springs

Sager Creek flows through downtown Siloam Springs through a manmade channel built in the 1880s. Although many of the homes and businesses along the creek are located on high ground, the creek has flooded significantly several times over the years. A severe flood in 1892 damaged much of the early business district of the city, and a large flood in 1972 raised water in some commercial structures and caused three deaths.

Restoration

Siloam Springs has recently undertaken restoration efforts on Sager Creek. Phase one improvements were approved by the

Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality The Arkansas Department of Energy and Environment is a cabinet level agency in the executive branch of Arkansas government responsible for implementation of the rules and regulations regarding the management of natural resources and protecting th ...

(ADEQ) in 2008 and included removing a dam and installing boulder

revetment A revetment in stream restoration, river engineering or coastal engineering is a facing of impact-resistant material (such as stone, concrete, sandbags, or wooden piles) applied to a bank or wall in order to absorb the energy of incoming water ...

s, step pools and

riffle A riffle is a shallow landform in a flowing channel. Colloquially, it is a shallow place in a river where water flows quickly past rocks. However, in geology a riffle has specific characteristics. Topographic, sedimentary and hydraulic indica ...

s along the creek. Phase two sought to address algae that grew in the creek during the summer, causing aesthetic and odor issues. It also tried to restore original hydrology,

geomorphology Geomorphology (from Ancient Greek: , ', "earth"; , ', "form"; and , ', "study") is the scientific study of the origin and evolution of topographic and bathymetric features created by physical, chemical or biological processes operating at or n ...

and water quality. Jointly funded by the

Environmental Protection Agency A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale f ...

, the Arkansas Natural Resource Commission and the City of Siloam Springs, the project included channel redesign, stream bank stabilization and planting riparian buffers. Boulder steps and sloped vegetated buffers have allowed public access to the creek, which was not possible with the previous stream configuration.

Nutrient loading

Sager Creek feeds into Flint Creek, which ultimately feeds the Illinois River. This river has been the subject of much debate and regulation in recent years. As a tributary within this watershed, Sager Creek's nutrient loading has also been subject to research by environmental agencies in both Arkansas and Oklahoma, as early as 1978.

Phosphorus

The Siloam Springs Wastewater Plant, which discharges treated effluent to Sager Creek, currently has a NPDES permit allowing an interim total phosphorus discharge limit of 1 mg/L. This interim limit was the result of a lawsuit between Arkansas and Oklahoma that was taken to the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

. A

Total maximum daily load A total maximum daily load (TMDL) is a regulatory term in the U.S. Clean Water Act, describing a plan for restoring impaired waters that identifies the maximum amount of a pollutant that a body of water can receive while still meeting water quali ...

(TMDL) study is currently underway in the Illinois River watershed to determine the natural background loading of several key pollutants. It is anticipated that the final total phosphorus limits resulting from the TMDL study will be significantly lower than the interim limit.

Nitrogen

Sager Creek was listed as high importance on the 2012 ADEQ Impaired Waterbodies List ( 303(d) List) for a high

nitrate Nitrate is a polyatomic ion A polyatomic ion, also known as a molecular ion, is a covalent bonded set of two or more atoms, or of a metal complex, that can be considered to behave as a single unit and that has a net charge that is not zer ...

loading due to a municipal point source.

References

{{authority control Rivers of Arkansas Tributaries of the Arkansas River Rivers of Benton County, Arkansas Siloam Springs, Arkansas Illinois River (Oklahoma)