At Least 1,000 Endangered Watercress Darters Killed
September 23rd, 2008Illegal Dam Removal in Roebuck Springs Under Investigation
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| Glynn Wilson |
| The scene of destruction at Roebuck Springs on Village Creek, where at least 1,000 endangered fish were killed by the illegal removal of a dam. |
by Glynn Wilson
ROEBUCK SPRINGS, Ala., Sept. 23 — Ignorance kills.
Regina Nummy, the director of Roebuck-Hawkins Park, apparently took it upon herself to authorize a crane operator (not a backhoe as previously reported) to dig its way into a protected pond on Village Creek last Friday and destroy a dam, without contacting federal or state officials for a permit or permission of any kind. The incident appears to be a clear violation of the federal Endangered Species Act, resulting in the death of at least 1,000 endangered watercress darters.
On the crime scene behind the tennis courts in East Birmingham Tuesday, along with a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service investigator and two Alabama Department of Conservation officers, attorney Mark Martin of the Black Warrior Riverkeeper environmental group indicated that whoever authorized the destruction of the dam should be prosecuted.
Getting rid of the dam was a “significant and dangerous draw-down” of the water level that clearly killed the fish, he said. “It looks like a criminal act to me. I think it should be prosecuted.”
A family of beavers built a dam last summer on top of a man-made rip-rap berm as part of the storm runoff drainage system designed for the development, creating a small waterfall which led to a drainage pipe. From there Village Creek cuts through Roebuck Golf Course on its way southwest. Both the natural and artificial barriers were clearly removed with heavy equipment judging by tracks in the stinking mud left behind.
Without knowing what they were doing, the workers who destroyed the dam killed at least a thousand endangered watercress darters and thousands of snails important to science and the ecosystem.
But the decision resulted in a vibrant creek and pond of about 50 yards wide and 100 yards long, leading to an old grist mill and water tower by the old boys reform school, being reduced to a trickle and a puddle by Monday, with dead fish and snails stranded in the mud and grass.
A federal wildlife biologist and two state biologists were surveying the scene on Tuesday, taking measurements and gathering samples of dead species. The feds focused on the endangered darters, while the state officials collected snails.
Rob Tawes, supervisor of the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Daphne Field Office, and the federal investigator on the scene, told me Tuesday the agency is seriously looking into the fish kill.
“We’re in fact-finding mode. It’s something that we’re extremely concerned about,” Tawes said. The agent on the scene declined to be identified or interviewed, but said the Atlanta field office would be putting out a statement soon.
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| Glynn Wilson |
| Thomas Tarpley and Michael Buntin with the Alabama Department of Conservation examine dead snails in the mud left behind from the illegal dam removal. |
Michael Buntin, an investigator with the state Conservation Department, said the site is an important place where endangered wildlife can survive in the heart of an urban area. The creek and pond are surrounded by a golf course on one side, a road leading to a juvenile detention facility on another, and tennis courts, a community center, and a parking lot.
“It shows that nature can survive even in the middle of a city, until something like this goes wrong,” he said. “It looks like the draw-down of the water by the removal of the dam caused a serious impact to me. It’s certainly a surprise that this would be allowed to happen considering the importance of the site.”
The darters themselves, bright blue and spotted with red and orange when alive, and known to exist only in four locations around Birmingham, had fled into the grasses upon the shock of rushing water flowing out of the pond, dooming them to die when the grasses dried up. Scientists say they may have lived if they had gone with the flow downstream, but that is not their nature. When threatened, they hide in the grass.
“Watercress darters thrive in spring pools,” Bernie Kuhajda, manager of the fish collection at the University of Alabama, told a reporter for The Birmingham News. “This was the ideal habitat for them.”
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| Dr. Patrick O’Neill, Fishes of Alabama |
| A rare watercress darter, etheostoma nuchale, unique to Birmingham. |
Ms. Nummy admitted to the News reporter that she authorized the dam’s removal without consulting federal authorities, claiming the pond has flooded the park’s tennis courts in the past.
Yet I play golf there regularly and periodically check in on the family of yellow-crowned night herons that nest nearby and have never seen the water rise over the tennis courts. And there is no evidence that “thousands of dollars” in damages have been repaired as a result of this alleged flooding, as she told the News.
Ms. Nummy, who was not in her office Tuesday and was reportedly in a meeting downtown for most of the day, told the News it “never crossed [her] mind” to consult the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or anyone else.
“I did not realize it was an issue until [a USFWS official] called a little while ago,” she reportedly said.
Don Lupo, of the Mayor’s Office of Citizens Assistance, told the News the city has been committed to protecting the darter, including posting signs along the spring below the pool notifying everyone of a ban on pesticides near the water. But on Monday, he was not aware that the dam removal had killed any darters.
“We have orders not to get into that creek and not to do that stuff,” he said.
Causing the death of fish listed as endangered species under federal law is punishable by fines of up to thousands of dollars for each one killed, which is one of the reasons the feds collected as many as possible. Criminal charges may also be brought against individuals involved in the fish kill.
It is not yet known who operated the equipment that destroyed the dam, whether it was city workers or contracted out to a private operator. But one investigator on the scene said that will be looked into as part of any national or local investigation.
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| Glynn Wilson |
| The same scene at Roebuck Springs on Village Creek earlier this year. |
For more photos, check out this slide show. Look for the icon that makes it pop up in full screen mode for the best viewing. Use the mouse to roll over the text to read the full cutline.
Tags: Endangered Watercress Darters, Roebuck Springs, Village Creek
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Looks like Regina Nummy has taken onto herself a new role
model who also despises the natural gifts we have been given and figures she can do any damn thing she wants to do with those gifts, including destroying them.
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Not to cause trouble, but how is an artifically-created pond a “natural gift”? Aren’t some of the groups expressing outrage and alarm here the same ones insisting that all natural barriers be removed from other streams in the area to “restore” their free flow?
Seems to me that its a case of dammed if you do, dammed if you don’t.
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Also, looking at the aerial imagery on Google Maps, it looks as if the claim that the pond had flooded the tennis courts is believable. There appears to be quite a wash of sediment over the courts, just above the dam.
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:52 pm
The pond is created both by the spring that flows into it and the minor impediment placed there at some point in time due to the impact of the development. The human development is what initially got in the way of the natural stream. If you look at how a lot of small rivers and creeks make their way through urban areas, they need a little human help to survive after the development comes in.
So this does not qualify as a giant dam placed on a major river for the purposes of creating hydroelectric power, and doing damage like making salmon extinct.
If not for the pooled area, which occurs naturally on many streams, these particular and rare fish would not be there. And now they are dead. Which is a violation of the law.
As for the tennis courts, with the drought conditions that have existed here for the past few years, it would take a miracle of nature to cause a flood there. I guess you just have to see it up close and in person on a regular basis. Google ain’t always the definitive source for everything. It’s certainly no substitute for an on site investigation.
And that’s what’s in progress. We will be watching this one.
But I will say this. As far as being damned if you do, or damned if you don’t, it’s quite obvious that whatever you do, you do not authorize a backhoe to go into a swamp containing rare and endangered species without the proper authorization from federal, state and local authorities.
I will also say this. If Birmingham has any government at all, and/or if the Bush Fish and Wildlife Service has any teeth left at all in enforcing the Endangered Species Act, this women and whoever her crew was are goners and someone is going to have to pay to fix the site.
It is now so screwed up that it will have a ripple effect on the entire ecosystem, including bird populations.
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:11 pm
So John, are you a stakeholder here? You weren’t driving that backhoe, were you? : )
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Nope, no stakes. Just asking questions. Thanks for providing more explanation.
I’ve added a brief account of this incident to the relevant articles at Bhamwiki:
http://www.bhamwiki.com/w/Watercress_darter
http://www.bhamwiki.com/w/Roebuck-Hawkins_Park
September 24th, 2008 at 12:37 am
All this because of flooded tennis courts? Once again man’s ignorance seems more important than searching for solutions that can benefit endangered species and a bunch of schmucks in shorts playing sports. Of course she did not ask for permission that would not have been given. She just didn’t count on the LFJ!
Good work, Glynn.
September 24th, 2008 at 12:51 am
No, the courts weren’t flooded, and they are rarely used anyway. The tennis boom has been over for about a quarter century now : )
That is a lie, I think we’ll find. I’m wondering who the brother-in-law was on the backhoe? And how he got a no-bid contract?
September 24th, 2008 at 1:38 am
John:
Cool. BhamWiki. Thanks for the link back too.
You know they won’t like you on the Finebaum show. They don’t believe in WikiPedia!
(An inside joke. You had to hear me on the show recently : )
September 24th, 2008 at 7:42 am
Though I have taken steps that will hopefully make Bhamwiki more consistently reliable than Wikipedia, the site still functions best as a guide to primary and secondary sources rather than as an authority.
I can definitively say, however, that Bhamwiki is a more reliable source of information than the Finebaum show.
September 24th, 2008 at 11:07 am
LOL!
I suspect you are right, John. I’ll have to link to it more often and maybe even help you out now and then with some editing.
I think you will agree that the Locust Fork News-Journal is a more reliable source on many issues than any other online news site or blog in Alabama, and certainly better than the conservative newspapers much of the time.
Of course there are five of our critics who disagree, those anonymous Republican commentors at the Political Parlor, which is useless over time because all the Alabama newspaper links die after a few days.
One of these days they may figure out what we mean by a FREE free Web Press archive and open source : )
September 25th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
I live in the area and have tried to make myself knowledgable on this issue. The pond was once a much larger body of water with springs and a country club attached in the early parts of the 1900’s. When the city built the rec center, including the tennis courts and golf course, it contained, restricted and channelized the springs. although the size of the pond is man-made the existence of the pond is natural.
In the late 1990’s, for quite a few years, the tennis courts were dug up just above the dam for some reason. The city let it sit for a long time then suddenly filled it in and repaired the tennis courts.
As for Regina Nummy, although she stated what she did, the way that city government is set up, she would not have the power to direct ANY construction crews to do what they did. She would have had to file a request with her department head then he would have, upon approval of the action, forwarded it on to the department head for the work crews.
With that being said, there was no markers or id’s posted by the city or the environmental agencies declaring that a protection zone or that an endangered species resided there and was under federal protection laws.
Don Lupo’s token pesticide sign is way on the other side of the parking lot, where the golf course comes down to the stream. There has never been any notice posted anywhere in the vicinity of that pond or stream bed leading from it. In retrospect, the darter protection zone follows the stream bed all the way to the West Boulevard bridge, where the stream crosses out of the golf course. Yet, there are no notices posted anywhere. And city crews have been doing erosion control, which is severe, along the stream bed of the golf course, due to the city piping storm drainage into that waterway.
In no way do I excuse Regina’s action. I just highly doubt that she was the one to make the call. There is a system of checks and balances and the Parks and Rec. Director should take administrative culpability for being so stupid as to green light a project he should have had the knowledge and the good sense to red flag.
The administrative leads at City Hall should resign due to overwhelming stupidity for ignoring their duty to secure the environmental assets of this City. Once again, no one in this local government gives a DAMN about anything of true substance in this city.
September 25th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Interesting observations. I just got back from more fact-finding in the area and will have a new post later this evening. The true story is emerging.
For starters, and to correct one thing here, it was a crane and not a backhoe that took out the dam. Not sure yet if it was really city workers, as the Birmingham News has reported, or a private contractor. As I say in the current story and editorial, it may take a lawsuit to find out what really happened. But no matter what that shows, the word “moron” will be associated with it.
September 26th, 2008 at 7:55 am
I have a minor correction to Kim’s account. The pond was created by constructing the dam or weir in order to establish a reservoir for the Alabama Industrial School for Boys at the turn of the century.
The golf course was developed as a private country club in 1911. If the channel below the weir was channelized at this time, it was by private hands, not by the city. Birmingham took possession of the golf course shortly after the 1929 stock market crash.
I’m eager to learn more about the park’s history, so please let me know about any references you’ve found.
http://www.bhamwiki.com/w/Roebuck-Hawkins_Park
September 26th, 2008 at 11:06 am
It is an interesting park and I would also be interesting reading more about it.
In addition to being interested in the ecosystem itself and the bird populations, I am a huge fan of old public golf courses of the early 20th century era.
When I lived in New Orleans (2000-2004) I played the Uptown Audubon course a couple of times a week. It was built a few years before Roebuck and had an interesting icon from Birmingham preserved on the course, a large chunk of iron ore from Red Mountain, transported by train for a World Fair of sorts in the late 1800s.
I wrote a story about it for Gambit Weekly, the alternative weekly in New Orleans.
While I was there, however, the Audubon Foundation and the city spent $6 million to turn it into a so-called “executive course” with 12 par-3s — and screwed up the original design instead of just fixing it up, which would have been preferable from a player’s stand point and for historical purposes.
I hope that never happens to Roebuck. Now that the golf boom is over, maybe no greedy developer will get their hands on it like they did Highland Golf Course on Southside.
Also, a note about the juvenile detention facility. Growing up in these parts, we called it the “reform school,” and parents would use it sort of like Jesus and Santa Claus to control rebellious behavior on the part of teen-aged boys. If we were ever caught acting up or doing something for which we did not have permission, like Huck Finn or something, they would threaten to send us off to “reform school.”
Fortunately, I made it through adolescence without having to do a stint there : )
But I did play on a championship church basketball team that used to play the “boys club” team every year.
I suspect with the more violent nature of today’s urban youth, the detention facility is more like a jail than a school.
I suggested the other day to one of the board members of the Black Warrior Riverkeeper group that they might want to work with the school to get some of those youth educated about science and nature by helping to clean trash, especially tennis balls, out of the pond.
He seemed to like the idea. Stay tuned…