Birmingham Slapped With $2.9 Million Fine for Killing Endangered Fish
June 24th, 2010 |
| Glynn Wilson |
| A yellow-crowned night heron feeding on the section of Village Creek that intersects the Roebuck Golf Course, just down stream from the destroyed dam. |
by Glynn Wilson
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a Notice of Violations to the City of Birmingham Thursday for killing 11,760 watercress darters, an endangered species protected by the Endangered Species Act, and also for injuries to some 8,900 additional darters killed when a city park manager ordered a beaver dam removed on Village Creek in Roebuck Springs.
The Service is seeking a civil penalty totaling $2,975,000.
The Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources also has a claim against the City for $1,062,786.21 for the death of watercress darters, plus the deaths of more than two million individuals of a protected species of snail.
The ADCNR is contemplating a lawsuit against the City to collect that claim, according to a press release.
The Service’s action stems from an incident that happened September 19, 2008, when a City maintenance crew removed a beaver dam from the Roebuck Springs pool in Hawkins Park. The crew also breached an underlying earthen dam that formed the spring pool where more than 20,000 of the small endangered fish lived.
Breaching the dam quickly drained the spring pool and stranded and killed thousands of watercress darters among a mass of drying aquatic plants.
“The massive fish kill resulted in the loss of more than half of the largest known population of this species,” said Cynthia K. Dohner, the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Southeast regional director.
Watercress darters are listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act and are a trust resource protected by Alabama law. The only populations in the world are found in five spring pools and spring brooks in Jefferson County, Alabama, within the metropolitan area of Birmingham.
“Our ultimate goal at Roebuck Springs is to restore and protect the habitat of the watercress darter. That’s always been the plan,” Dohner said. “We want to do what’s best for the fish, and our work is far from over.”
Early negotiations with the City of Birmingham in an effort to restore and maintain the habitat of the watercress darter were partially successful. Initially, the city accepted responsibility for breaching the earthen dam and quickly cooperated on installation of a sandbag dam, aerator, water quality monitoring device and, later, installation of the permanent water-control structure and informational signs.
The Service position is that much more needs to be done to protect this endangered fish species, which continues to be threatened by City-controlled facilities and the surrounding urbanization.
The city has declined to take several additional actions that would help restore and protect the watercress darter at Roebuck Springs, including identifying the recharge area for Roebuck Springs and taking actions to protect the recharge waters from contamination, diverting or filtering storm sewer discharges into Roebuck Springs pool or diverting or filtering runoff from the City’s recreation center parking lot into the spring run, improving the habitat for the species in the spring run and in a second significant pool along the spring run, or conducting a public education effort about the species.
The City has 45 days to respond to the Notice of Violations by paying the proposed civil penalty, seeking informal negotiations with the Service, or filing a Petition for Relief pursuant to 50 Code of Federal Regulation 11.12. If the matter is not settled, the Service will eventually issue a formal assessment, which the City can appeal to an Administrative Law Judge, who will eventually hold a formal trial-type hearing on the matter in Birmingham.
For more information on watercress darters, hit the links here and here.
Related Coverage
Birmingham Faces Investigation, Fines in Fish Kill
Formal Investigation Launched into Roebuck Fish Kill
Roebuck Springs Fish Kill Update
Editorial: Major Price Should Be Paid for Fish Kill
Major Lawsuit, Penalties Expected in Roebuck Fish Kill
At Least 1,000 Endangered Watercress Darters Killed
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Tags: Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Birmingham, Birmingham Slapped With $2.9 Million Fine Killing Endangered Fish, endangered fish kill, Endangered Species Act, Hawkins Park, Roebuck Springs, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Village Creek, Watercress Darter
June 24th, 2010 at 4:14 pm
Who was the dweeb who ordered the dam busted?
June 24th, 2010 at 6:33 pm
The manager of Roebuck Community Center.
June 25th, 2010 at 2:42 am
Why would he want to breach the dam in the first place?
June 25th, 2010 at 10:32 am
You gotta read the coverage, man.
Somebody suggested it might cause a flood of the tennis courts that nobody ever uses.
June 25th, 2010 at 12:12 pm
I doubt that city maintenance people know a thing about environmental engineering.
Who in a city does? Maybe Huntsville, but in this case it’s a matter of a supervising maintenance person telling lesser maintenance to shovel out a dam – and they probably had no idea of the terrible consequences.
Without denigrating maintenance people at all, they are not required to have college degrees or the brains of a rocket scientist.
So who would know – or who should know?