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…
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Tags: Dam Update, Fish Kill, Roebuck Springs, Village Creek
April 4th, 2009 at 3:17 am
Twice I watched City of Birmingham street dept. crews spray mosquito poison directly into the stream near the city golf course in that neck of the woods, called ADEM, called Feds, got nowhere with anyone. Took photos of employees doing that. This was 12 or 15 years ago. One pic showed crew spraying shit right beside a sign describing the creek as an ecologically sensitive area and a quick rundown about the darters. I gave up.
I gave it all up – years of volunteering, of shadowing similar crews both public and private industry and photographing violations of environmental laws taking place, spending hundreds of dollars a year on film and processing, donating all the spare money I had to NGOs, seldom seeing anything but a brief slowdown in destruction at a few popularized and governmental noise making spots. I cannot express my sorrow, my anger or depth of resignation to seeing every wild place I’ve known in this state degraded. Want to talk about Dauphin Island? I don’t.
April 4th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
The 13th century Japanese sage Nichiren wrote that there is no land which is “pure or impure of itself” that the difference lies “in the minds of the people.”
Another way to state that is that no matter what the laws happen to be, the dominant culture – the ideas about right and wrong, what is valuable, what is not, etc. – will determine outcomes. “Dominant culture” equals “minds of the people” or more precisely, “of most people” since there are, obviously, people like Glynn and Tom outraged by wanton destruction of the environment and life.
Laws and regulations have been on the books for decades designed to protect the environment and endangered species. But there continue to be many violations of those laws, precisely because the “minds of most people” are “impure” and they are either conscious participants in degrading the environment, don’t care or don’t care enough to take notice of what’s going on.
Until a significant number of people “purify” their minds, the environment will remain under attack, no matter how many laws and regulations are passed.
Education – and Locust Fork does a fair amount of that calling attention to these outrages – is the key to changing the dominant culture and the “minds of the people,” so please keep at it, guys.
April 5th, 2009 at 2:21 am
Now a commenter, finebammer, has shown up to serve as the voice of ignorant America. Birmingham News can’t hog all the drunk chicken humper LTE writers, can they?
April 9th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Just heard back from Fish and Wildlife. Report coming soon…
April 10th, 2009 at 1:28 am
And don’t worry, Tom. He was banned and deleted…