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.

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Glynn Wilson

by Glynn Wilson

ROEBUCK SPRINGS, Ala. — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has not finalized a federal investigation into an endangered fish kill of 11,000 endangered watercress daters by the city of Birmingham, but the agency now under a new president who values science more than his predecessor has approved the city’s immediate plan to control the water flow and save what population is left.

Birmingham workers destroyed a beaver dam last September and nearly drained the entire spring pool near the headwaters of Roebuck Springs, which feeds Village Creek and the Black Warrior River watershed.

We broke the story the other day with photos of the approved structure, which we now know was installed March 18. It is a modified manhole culvert, souped-up to control the water flow to keep a healthy amount of water in the pond, and to drain before a 100-year flood comes along and potentially over tops the tennis courts.

In retrospect, the tennis courts should not be there so close to this valuable waterway, since for a stretch the creek is a mere drainage pipe running under the asphalt. The colorful watercress darter only lives in four places in the world, all of them in Jefferson County, Alabama, and they are listed as an endangered species under the law.

Rob Tawes, deputy field supervisor for the agency, confirmed Thursday that it was a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approved design, submitted by the city, with a Corps of Engineers permit.

“It was the result of our legal negotiations with the city,” he said in a phone interview.

The purpose is to bring the level of the spring pool back up.

“Now is the spawning season for the darters,” he said.

The level now is only 10 to 12 inches. The goal is to get it up another five inches or so.

Unlike the previous structure, a natural beaver dam, he said, “this one can’t be torn down by a backhoe, at least not as easily.”

It was designed by the city, reviewed by the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, he said, and has flash board risers in the side to control the water elevation. The black pipe connected to the old drainage pipe is a beaver drain, with holes to allow rushing water through and foil the ravenous rodents, which are sensitive to the sound and moving water.

The 2x4s are part of a temporary structure holding concrete in place and will be removed, another Fish and Wildlife public relations spokesperson confirmed in a return call.

As for the status on the darter, Tawes said: “We have a long way to go to before the habitat gets back to the way it was.”

The agency doesn’t yet know how well the remaining population is doing, but Tawes said they are sure at least some survived and are still there.

The agency also used traps and removed most of the invasive species of crawfish out of the pond, and continues to have an ongoing and active interest in the environmental health of the area.

As for legal penalties, one source with the city says the state may propose fines of up to $1 million, but the federal agency is still finalizing it’s investigation and could do more.

“At this point, that’s all under discussion,” he said. “We are in discussions with them over a lot more restoration than you see out there.”

Related Links:
At Least 1,000 Endangered Watercress Darters Killed: Illegal Dam Removal in Roebuck Springs Under Investigation
Editorial

Glynn Wilson

This is a shot of the beaver dam at Roebuck Springs, the headwaters of Village Creek, in East Birmingham, Alabama, in early 2008.

by Glynn Wilson

ROEBUCK SPRINGS, Ala., Sept. 24 — It may take a lawsuit to get to the bottom of why and how the director of a city park came to destroy a dam in the habitat of endangered fish and illegally order the excavation of wetlands without a permit on Village Creek, since Birmingham officials are now mum in the growing controversy over the watercress darter fish kill.

Stock Photo/Glynn Wilson

No sign of the yellow-crowned night herons in Village Creek on Wednesday

Regina Nummy, the director of Roebuck-Hawkins Park, has not been seen in her office at the newly renovated gym in East Birmingham for the past two days. A secretary-receptionist referred media inquiries to Kenneth Blackledge at Legion Field, strangely, since he has apparently now taken over as head of the park and as the chief point of contact for the major controversy now receiving a widening circle of news coverage.

He did not return a phone message to contact us Wednesday afternoon.

The Roebuck Springs fish kill was the top story at 6 p.m. on Fox 6 News Wednesday night. And indications are that other national news organizations are researching the story.

Tom MacKenzie, the spokesman in Atlanta for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, told me Wednesday that the federal agency issued an emergency order Tuesday and applied for a permit for city workers in Birmingham to build a temporary dam out of sand bags to begin restoring the pond on Village Creek, the healthiest of four locations where the darters exist in Jefferson County.

The agency told city officials not to use any more heavy equipment near the pond or do anything else to cause more damage to the ecologically sensitive area.

“We’re still in the middle of the investigation,” MacKenzie said. “But judging by the before and after pictures I’m seeing, it’s a real tragedy.”

During the day on Wednesday, after bringing in a load of sand to begin the sand-bagging repair operation, agency scientists determined that damming the creek back up may cause more damage. Dying vegetation upstream would release an excess of nutrients into the water and cause a low oxygen situation, which could kill more fish.

Glynn Wilson

A pile of sand for sand bags behind the Roebuck tennis courts.

MacKenzie said both civil penalties of $1,000 for each dead fish — which could be as high as 10,000 fish and $10 million — as well as criminal penalties for those responsible, are still possible recommendations in one of the worst fish kills in the region that can be directly traced to specific human activity.

Aquatic kills in the past have resulted in fines and restitution of between $25,000 and $1.5 million for private individuals and companies. Apparently there are not that many examples of local government officials so blatantly and moronically running afoul of the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

Meanwhile, the Alabama Rivers Alliance and the Black Warrior Riverkeeper environmental groups are considering their legal options, sources say, and will issue statements soon. A lawsuit and judgement against the city could provide funds for local habitat restoration work.

The Birmingham News once again published the false cover-story Wednesday saying the beaver dam and man-made berm were destroyed to stop the tennis courts from flooding. But another close inspection of the tennis courts and the surrounding area today revealed no evidence of flooding or damage from flooding.

Some local bloggers have passed around an old Google map satellite photo showing what appears to be mud on the courts that presumably came from water overflowing the pond. It was published in our comments section Tuesday.

But an in-person, on-the-ground inspection today shows those dark markings to be dirt gathered in low spots on the courts where water tends to stand in pools when it rains. The courts are not used that much and no one sweeps the pools of water away after it rains, so over time, the spots become dirt-stained.

The tennis courts are actually on a high point on the property. One observer pointed out that if the tennis courts had flooded, the entire parking lot would have been under water, since it is several feet lower. And there have been no such floods in the past five years since the Birmingham area has faced drought conditions.

Joe Eldridge, who has been playing tennis at the Roebuck courts periodically for the past seven years, said he has never known the courts to flood.

I asked him Wednesday while he was hitting balls with his young son, “Have you ever seen the courts flood?”

He smiled slyly and said, “Uh, nope. Never. Not sure where that’s coming from.”

The bright blue-green watercress darter with striking red and orange markings can grow up to about two inches long. They are found in Powderly’s Seven Springs, the Watercress Darter National Wildlife Refuge in Bessemer and Glenn Springs, also in Bessemer, as well as the Roebuck Springs pond on Village Creek.

According to this history published in the BhamWiki online encyclopedia, there have also been sightings in Pinson.

Scientists say the Roebuck location was the largest and healthiest site, until Friday, when the unauthorized destruction of the dam by city workers killed at least 1,000 and perhaps as many as 10,000.

Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford and Don Lupo of the Mayor’s Office of Citizens Assistance were overheard Wednesday saying the city could not comment due to the expectation of “a major, massive lawsuit.”

Glynn Wilson

A new view from Wednesday of the fish kill zone in Roebuck Springs on Village Creek.