This week’s column makes a feeble attempt to shame Mobile County into beginning to think about a real stormwater management plan - like Baldwin County. But it’s also true that BC is throwing the baby out with the wash through unrrestrained development, both residential and commercial. The Bass Pro Shop is an awful example of the problems created - and this is an “outdoors” firm that profits directly from having clean water?
There’s no doubt that south Mobile County needs domestic and industrial waste treatment capacity. That’s a given but to discharge partially treated wastewater into the highly productive waters of Portersville Bay, or any estuary for that matter, makes very little sense. ADEM doesn’t allow discharges into the Gulf. This is a good policy but may be flawed in comparison to policies that allow discharge into estuaries that have even less assimilative capacity than the Gulf.
Unfortunately the scenario that sends sewer lines all the way down either DIP or Bellingrath Road is also problematic. That will open up thousands of acres of natural habitat to expanded development - and increase the volume of treated waste at the head of Mobile Bay.
They need to be looking much more thoroughly at land disposal options that maximize the natural system’s ability to absorb and cleanse the water on its way to our wells and surface streams!