ALDOT HIGHWAY 98 PROJECT POLLUTES

MOBILE DRINKING WATER SOURCE -

PROVING THAT WATER QUALITY CONCERNS ABOUT

BIRMINGHAM’S NORTHERN BELTLINE ARE JUSTIFIED

For the past 2 months, the Mobile Register has broken numerous stories about serious water quality damage caused by the Alabama Department of Transportation's 4-lane U.S. 98 road construction project near Big Creek Lake, Mobile's primary source of drinking water.  See story links below.

These problems underscore the Cahaba River Society's concerns that ALDOT is not adequately designing the Northern Beltline to prevent similar water quality damage to the upper Cahaba River and sensitive Black Warrior streams.

What can you do? Talk with local officials, business leaders, and civic leaders in your community and ask that they press ALDOT to stop buying Northern Beltline right-of-way until the agency properly designs the highway and establishes management procedures to prevent damage to our streams and drinking water source. ALDOT has not been able to assure Mobile that their highway can be built without further damaging their drinking water, and the Mobile water agency intends to sue for an injunction. We cannot afford similar mistakes to degrade the Cahaba.

MORE:

The Highway 98 project has loosed a flood of mud into area streams and the reservoir - despite a prior legal settlement in which ALDOT committed to construct the project in a way that safeguarded Mobile’s drinking water source.

Reasons cited by the Register and admitted by ALDOT include poor design by ALDOT, inadequate right of way, poor construction management, a lack of basic sediment controls, and weak oversight by ADEM. In response ALDOT has delayed 23 road construction projects around the state to review its environmental practices.

The Register reported on November 13 that the Mobile Area Water and Sewer Service (MAWSS) plans to file suit against ALDOT, seeking an injunction that would stop all construction work on the U.S. 98 project, because the water agency has lost faith in ALDOT’s ability to build a road that will not continue to pollute Mobile’s water source for decades to come.

Just days after Joe McInnes, ALDOT’s director, delivered an apology to the people of Mobile via the Register, saying ... "I'm here to fall on my sword, to grovel, to apologize profusely," the contractor was still operating along streams without sediment controls in place and more mud was seen flowing into the region’s previously pristine Escatawpa River.

MAWSS also plans to pursue legal action against ALDOT's road building contractor, W. S. Newell & Sons, Inc., for neglecting environmental protections at the site. CRS has heard that this same company is under consideration by ALDOT to construct the Northern Beltline.

According to the Register, the damage from poor road construction practices include: a plume of sediment into Big Creek Lake that may require extra drinking water treatment and could reduce the lake's capacity and add to drinking water costs; red mud from construction up to 2 feet deep damaging nearby streams and wetlands and 2 to 3 inches of mud into parts of the Escatawpa River, one of the nation’s pristine sandy streams. 

 

ALDOT officials admit that the road was not adequately designed for water quality protection, which led to inadequate right-of-way being purchased and not enough room for features to minimize and contain mud.

This underscores a chief concern of the Cahaba River Society regarding the Northern Beltline. The stretch of road through the Cahaba watershed and sensitive Black Warrior streams in the Dry Creek and Self Creek areas also is not being designed for water quality protection, in terrain that is much more steep than Mobile’s project.

ALDOT should halt right of way acquisition on this stretch of the Beltline pending incorporation of effective water quality protection measures in the roadway design, to avoid a repeat of the Mobile drinking water pollution. CRS and partners have tried to work with ALDOT for two years to improve the Beltline's design.  However, ALDOT has proposed a highway through the Cahaba watershed that incorporates none of the low impact design suggestions. We ask ALDOT to come back to the table, seriously commit to low impact design of the highway, and incorporate these concerns into ongoing environmental studies.

Since the Mobile Register broke the story on September 19th, the Department of Transportation has spent $2.2 million attempting to bring the Highway 98 project into compliance and added one mile of additional silt fencing. Yet continued mud runoff has prompted the water agency to seek an injunction.

ALDOT also claimed that ADEM had inspected the U.S. 98 project 16 times and had not found any problems of concern.

 

HIGHWAY 98 POLLUTION STORY LINKS ON al.com:

Below is a series of links/stories describing this environmental mess in Mobile County, with summaries.

MOBILE REGISTER'S SERIES OF STORIES SINCE SEPTEMBER
http://blog.al.com/pr/2007/09/muddy_98.html

 

Story summary, links to past and current articles and photographs

Most recent:

LAWSUIT WILL ASK FOR INJUNCTION TO STOP U.S. 98 WORK

http://www.al.com/news/press-register/index.ssf?/base/news/1194949135192480.xml&coll=3

Director of the Mobile water agency says their confidence in ALDOT is “severely shaken,” asks for independent review of the highway design. Statements of Don Vaughn, ALDOT's chief engineer, included that runoff problems were the result of poor design work by ALDOT and that some “slopes created by the construction work were so steep that controlling runoff from them would be difficult if not impossible.”

RUNOFF CONTINUES AFTER APOLOGY FROM STATE HIGHWAY OFFICIALS, WHO SAY NEW PROJECT MANAGER HAS BEEN FIRED
http://www.al.com/news/press-register/index.ssf?/base/news/119451737020600.xml&coll=3

Just days after ALDOT apology to the people of Mobile, Press-Register reporters saw the ALDOT contractor, W.S. Newell & Sons Inc., running heavy construction equipment along stream banks without environmental protections to keep sediment out of streams – sediment protection devices were piled up nearby but not installed. “The leadership at the department is not going to tolerate any additional improper management of that project…" according to ALDOT's spokesperson.

REGISTER'S EDITORIAL
http://www.al.com/opinion/press-register/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1194171520227800.xml&coll=3

 

Quotes ALDOT Director Joe McInnes about what went wrong: ALDOT didn't buy enough highway right of way for the contractor to implement erosion control measures correctly; the local ALDOT office did not oversee the job properly; ADEM did not raise any alarms, so ALDOT assumed the project’s mud controls were adequate (despite its own inspections). ALDOT officials recognize that the department's credibility is damaged “and that the public may be suspicious about future promises that major highway construction projects can take place without major environmental damage.”

MOBILE IS GIVEN ALDOT APOLOGY

http://www.al.com/news/press-register/index.ssf?/base/news/1193994981231370.xml&coll=3

 

WITH US 98 FAILURE, ALDOT BREAKS TRUST - Editorial

http://www.al.com/press-register/stories/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1192699735303400.xml&coll=3

Repeats and dismisses agency excuses. ADEM inspections had not revealed a problem, and an ADEM official said that it is hard to keep up with such a big project. In reply to ALDOT’s excuse that it is difficult to build a highway in tough terrain while protecting wetlands and wildlife habitat, the Register noted that ALDOT “recommended the route over several others, and pledged that it could handle the construction without damaging the environment or Mobile's drinking water supply.”

(CRS note: ALDOT also chose the Northern Beltline route that has the greatest potential for environmental and water quality damage, according to EPA, and ALDOT officials continue to minimize the environmental concerns for this stretch of the Beltline.)