Revealing the Roebuck Springs Manhole Culvert
April 4th, 2009B’ham moron engineering on display…
by Glynn Wilson
That headline is written with no small measure of sardonicism. I could report that seeing the scene below Thursday made me so sick I didn’t know what to say. They say a picture is worth a thousand words.
This is a shot of the beaver dam at Roebuck Springs, the headwaters of Village Creek, in East Birmingham, Alabama, in early 2008.
In September, 2008, I was sick to report this story.
Then, after we investigated the case and wrote this editorial demanding major legal action, we heard nothing else out of the Bush Fish and Wildlife Service or the city.
The other day, we did a routine check of the scene, and to our chagrin and outrage, this is what we found.
A concrete manhole culvert stuck sideways where the beaver dam used to be, with an ugly plastic pipe rammed into the drainage area under the tennis courts, and some unbelievably awful carpentry holding the pipe in with 2x4s, then concreted in place.
This is a close look at what happens when rainfall raises the water level high enough for it to drain into the side. No endangered watercress darters visible anywhere near this. In fact, we didn’t see much in the way of any fish or bird life in this pond valuable to the area’s eco-system. The yellow-crowned night herons are not back there this year, at least not yet. They fed on the fish and the crayfish, and most of the invasive species of crayfish have now been removed.
The colorful fish only lives in four or five places in the world, all of them right here in Jefferson County, Alabama. And now many of them are gone, upwards of 10,000, and their habitat looks even more like part of a city’s drainage system than a natural spring, feeding a tributary of the Locust Fork and Black Warrior River.
To learn more, here’s one history in BhamWiki.com.
We’ve already put out the call for action in this case, but if you know anymore to call and raise hell with, do it. I am ashamed to say my native city is run by complete morons. I have honestly not heard one single good idea out of anyone since I moved back a few years ago after living all over the place.
This is absolutely disgusting. Someone should be forced to pay for this crime against nature. Heads need to roll. Fines should be levied.
It’s now time for the Obama Fish and Wildlife Service to assert itself here. Most of the policies of the Bush EPA have been obliterated. When will we begin to see those changes at Fish and Wildlife, at Justice, and for that matter at the FCC? We’ve got some major issues to take on there over the next four years too.
Bring on the good change, faster than the bad change. I mean bring it on…
