I’m not talking sugar in your tea. I’m talking coal in the Daphne politico’s Christmas stockings. With the holidays just behind us, I figure Daphne’s leadership got enough coal to run Alabama Power’s generating stations until mid-June. At least they should have.
And why, might you ask, should Santa have punished these folks with coal instead of gifts? That’s easy – go look at the Yancey Branch stream “restoration/flood control” project in the formerly close-to-pristine wetlands of Village Point Park. Where once there were stands of mature trees and shrubby underbrush with a meandering stream passing though it – home to a diverse population of native plants and animals – we now have something that resembles a drainage ditch in the middle of a parking lot under construction.
Wow – how could this happen in a community that professes to value preservation of natural habitats and ecologically sound practices? We may never know because determining responsibility has already fallen prey to the denial and diffusion process. Everything was done right for some sort of good reason. It’s just some chronic grouches who are claiming the whole project was a bad idea – one that has been even worse in its execution. Everything is actually fine and will be lovely once a few little details are taken care of. So some say.
Ken Eslava, is quoted in the Press-Register as saying, in effect, that everything that was done was fully approved and compliant with all laws and regulations. It was just a stream restoration project to remove sediment build-up caused by Hurricane Katrina. Once some plants are installed along the stream and where there is truck damage, everything will be just fine. I guess it’s all in the eye of the beholder.
The city council’s self-proclaimed Green-guardian of the Ecosystem, Cathy Barnette, said it wasn’t a restoration project, it was flood control. When asked what homes had flooded she was described in the same article as saying she couldn’t identify any – but it seems there was some water standing on some homeowners’ property sometimes. No big surprise as the area surrounding the stream is a designated floodplain.
It is Barnette’s defense of what was done that is especially galling. She waves the Green flag of ecological correctness when working to block projects her constituents oppose. But when confronted with what sure seems to be a local eco-disaster, she talks about the destruction of Yancey Creek being justified in order to prevent some private property from getting too wet – and not even somebody’s house, just some of their land.
The consulting engineering firm, Hutchinson, Moore and Rausch, is reported to have taken the position (as represented by partner and project engineer Scott Hutchinson) that this wasn’t a flood control project, but a restoration project. That last statement makes little sense when looking at pictures of what was done – unless of course Yancey Branch originally ran straight and true into Mobile Bay, neat and uniform and at a fixed width, with sandy banks as desolate of plant life as the middle of the Sahara Desert.
If you can’t agree on what you are doing, it’s not likely it will be done right. And if nobody’s in charge, things just happen. Both conditions seem to apply in this situation, yet the approval and oversight processes visible to the public at hearings or work sessions would seem to prevent this run-amok situation. Perhaps what has happened proves agonizing micromanagement of routine stuff doesn’t necessarily translate to good judgment and control over the more unusual or complex activities of a city.
But what amazes me is the same city leaders who can take years (literally) with repeated decisions and revisions, to establish height requirements for condos yet to be built, can so casually overlook something happening here and now. The council members seem to pride themselves in being guardians of the quality of life on Hamburger Hill – if there can be said to be “quality” in an area that is mostly fast-food outlets, gas stations and low-rise commercial sprawl. But when it comes to a pristine ecological treasure right in the middle of Daphne, they have shown they care not a bit about what is being done to it.
Daphne’s mayor – he’s the boss of the public works director – has the time and inclination to advocate secession from the Baldwin County school system. He can develop a complex scenario that causes him to assert there is some sort of evil intent in the county’s plan to rebuild a decaying school within his city – surely not a simple task and one that involves time, serious thought and imagination of future outcomes.
But somehow this major earthmoving activity in the ecologically fragile Village Point Park, apparently sails past without his notice. Everything must be going well – nobody has told him of problems and I guess he never looked or could not imagine it might be otherwise. Or maybe he and his advisors were aware, but thought it was A-OK. Can’t tell at this point, but one thing is apparent, regardless of who knew what or when (if ever), nobody in Ken Eslava’s chain-of-command or on the city council did anything to prevent this from happening.
So for Christmas 2006 it was – or should have been – “Lumps of coal for the whole gang of them.” Coal what they deserve – or perhaps a nice federal or state investigation, maybe even an indictment if responsibility for wrong-doing can be affixed. Of course none of this will help the wetlands – at this point, perhaps nothing can.
Contact Pete Gleszer at jubilee@lagniappemobile.com.
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