Have a Nice, Cool Glass of…Silt?
On November 29th, Chuck Geiss at the Black & White, not exactly a bastion of wild-eyed liberalism, pointed out serious problems with the proposed route for Birmingham’s Northern Beltline.
Concerns that the construction of the Northern Beltline may harm the environmentally sensitive headwaters of the Cahaba River, which supplies 60 percent of Birmingham’s drinking water, have now intensified following a lawsuit against the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) over a road construction project that is polluting Mobile’s water supply.
On November 13, the Mobile Area Water and Sewer System (MAWSS) filed suit against ALDOT seeking a halt to all construction on a highway widening project along U.S. 98 in western Mobile County. According to reports in the Mobile Press-Register, the legal action comes two weeks after transportation officials were forced to apologize to Mobile residents for allowing massive amounts of sediment to flow into Mobile’s drinking water sources. Apology aside, silt from the construction site continues to pour into Big Creek Lake, one of the city’s primary reservoirs. The newspaper has also documented that ALDOT crews continue to work within environmentally sensitive areas without standard protections in place.
ALDOT, whose favored route for the six-lane Northern Beltline is the one rated by the Environmental Protection Agency as “the most environmentally destructive option”, has “argued that it can build the highway and be environmentally sensitive to the fragile Cahaba tributaries”. I’m afraid this story in today’s Mobile Register (again, not a left-wing rag) doesn’t support that assertion. ALDOT has made a mess of Mobile’s water supply, and the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (that would be the agency with the Wonder-Plane) didn’t even notice. It took complaints from Mississippi officials to draw attention to the situation.
Mississippi officials alerted the Alabama Department of Environmental Management to problems at the U.S. 98 work site in August and cited concerns from Alabama citizens who said ADEM ignored complaints about runoff from the west Mobile County project.
The warning came in e-mails written three weeks before the Press-Register published articles and photographs documenting large deposits of mud in the creeks and wetlands that feed Big Creek Lake, Mobile’s drinking water source, and the Escatawpa River, which eventually flows into Mississippi.
E-mails and other state documents obtained last week by the newspaper through a records request also indicate that ADEM and the Alabama Department of Transportation were aware that more than 50 dump truck loads’ worth of mud had inundated wetlands and creeks along the project by June of this year.
…In an August 28 e-mail, a Mississippi official asked ADEM to investigate mud flowing into the Escatawpa River and wrote, “I’m getting a number of calls and some people are not real happy about all the sediment going into the river.”
An ADEM official, noting that Mississippi mentioned raising the issue with federal environmental officials in Atlanta, forwarded that e-mail to coworkers in charge of monitoring the U.S. 98 site.
But there’s no record ADEM inspected until after a second e-mail from Mississippi was sent to ADEM on Sept. 6, more than a week after the first e-mail. An ADEM official forwarded that message to coworkers, noting, “This is Mississippi DEQ’s second request concerning this site.” That e-mail included a map from the Mississippi officials, “in response to our query to properly identify” Scarbo Creek, which crosses the new U.S. 98 roadway three times.
On Sept. 7, nine days after the first e-mail from the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, ADEM conducted an inspection and noted no problems along the eight-mile project.
When Press-Register reporters visited the Escatawpa River and Scarbo Creek about a week after the second Mississippi e-mail, a 2-inch layer of loose mud was caked over the normally white sand bottom of both streams.
Residents who live along the proposed path of the Beltline are right to be concerned, and the rest of us should be as well. The last thing we need when we’re in the midst of a severe drought is a river full of mud. Perhaps the Mobile lawsuit will give Birmingham citizens the time and the impetus to force a reconsideration of the Beltline route — and more stringent enforcement of environmental protections.
December 12th, 2007 at 8:43 am
I thought they had their tails permanently between their legs after the fiasco down here. Obviously not.
December 12th, 2007 at 11:11 am
Arghhhh… I’ve got no words for how angry this crap makes me feel.
Although I must admit that first sentence cracked me up — “wild-eyed liberalism” — indeed NOT.
December 12th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Glad you liked it, Tricia. I thought I’d better point that out for readers who might not be aware that they regularly publish columns by the likes of Michelle Malkin, Mark Steyn, and Charles Krauthammer — without any progressive counterpoint. If the B&W editorial staff is worried about the environment, the situation must be dire.
December 13th, 2007 at 10:50 am
“If the B&W editorial staff is worried about the environment, the situation must be dire.”
Kathy, yes, I know that the B&W runs the columns of multiple conservatives, but Black & White has covered local environmental issues when The B’ham News wouldn’t; e.g., Chuck Geiss covered the supersewer story much, much earlier and more consistently than the B’ham News did.
Thanks for posting this. I wish more citizens were aware of this egregious Northern Beltline route. If ALDOT does succeed in getting this segment run through the headwaters of the Cahaba River, then our water rates may be headed for the stratosphere and the river will be toast.
December 13th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
the only people who think b’ham even needs a northern beltline are people who build highways for a living.
December 13th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
Wheeler, I hear ya! I used to think that we needed a loop around B’ham for the truck traffic (I HATE being on the interstates with the ginormous trucks!), but after reading Edge City and seeing the consequences of the development around the southern loop of I-459, I really don’t think we ought to continue the project. That’s heresy to the “economic development” types. But this conservative doesn’t buy into the “economic development’ argument that Bettye Fine touted as a “need” for the supersewer or the same for the Northern Beltline. We’ve already got more development than our watershed can handle, and ratepayers and taxpayers are paying dearly for the rubber-stamped building permits handed out to developers over the last decade. Whenever we hear that a new development will aid economic development, we ought to demand to know WHOSE economic development (developer’s?) at WHOSE expense (John Q. Citizen’s?)! But, of course, we’ll get fuzzy “answers.”
December 13th, 2007 at 10:52 pm
Kathy, thank you for calling attention to the almighty Northern Beltline.
Chuck Geiss has done a great job of reporting on the beltline. This is his second report. (First one here.)
Yep, those who favor the Northern Beltline are primarily those who stand to gain financially — corporate land owners; those in the construction/developer industry; all who benefit from development, including utility companies; roadbuilders, etc.
Also, elected officials, who are operating under the misguided notion that “economic development” is more important than our drinking water sources and other natural resources and who are driven by corporation/developer ties.
For more information on the Northern Beltline and its destructive impacts, go to http://www.sourceonbeltline.org.
December 14th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
I heard today that some citizens of New Orleans physically delayed the planned demolition of some public housing that had been scheduled for this week. That’s public housing undamaged by Katrina but sitting on property that developers want. Maybe Birmingham residents should consider a similar action to stop the Beltline. It may be the only thing that will persuade our elected officials to listen.
December 17th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
When is man going to wake up and realize that clean water is far more important than urban sprawl and interstates, particularly one (The NORTHERN BELTLINE) that cannot even receive regular federal funding because it is not necessitated by traffic. Constantly we are subjected to the apologies of government offices because they did not heed the advice and warnings of concerned citizens who present them with documented information that the routes being pursed will jeopardize people’s clean water supply. A perfect example is the disgrace that has taken place in MOBILE at the hands of the ALDOT. In an article in the Mobile Register dated 12/11/07 entitled ALDOT lawsuit filed, I quote:
“During the Tuesday news conference, MAWSS Board Chairman Wesley James said that when the water system challenged the proposed route in its 2004 lawsuit, ALDOT officials had said that Mobile County would lose all of its state highway funding if the new U.S. 98 spur was not built.”
If this is not a perfect example of dirty politics at play, I don’t know what is. In fact, some of our local officials in Birmingham and its surrounding counties have made similar statements regarding the Northern Beltline route. Obviously the good ol boy mentality is alive and thriving in the SOUTH. Just throw out a few veiled references to holding other transportation projects in a city or county hostage and all good judgment and facts about drinking water is swept under the table. What should be noted is that the US EPA did not recommend the current proposed route (ALTERNATE A of the NORTHERN BELTLINE) as far back as 1997 due to it being the most environmentally destructive of all routes considered.
Seems to me at this point ALDOT would learn from their mistakes in Mobile and go back to the drawing board to make certain that the proposed route of the Northern Beltline does not go through the headwaters of the CAHABA RIVER and further destroy a drinking water supply of millions of Alabamians. This certainly would be more responsible than having to issue apologies after the fact, having tax payers foot the bill for the cleanup and the lawsuits that will result because ALDOT is pursing a route never recommended in the first place by the U.S. EPA.
But silly me, that would be using common sense. I sure hope ALDOT has a good “water witching stick” they can use to find all the water resources this city is going to need when Birmingham has depleted its water supplies in 2025. They had better start pulling some off of trees as we speak!
December 18th, 2007 at 10:39 pm
Common sense? If only…
January 4th, 2008 at 1:36 am
[...] this post from about three weeks ago, all about how the Alabama Department of Transportation had botched [...]