07/21/2012 - Three Mile Creek Watershed

Header Image. The Mobile City Council just approved an almost $500,000 stormwater management contract with the Mobile Group. Do you think Mobile Group is going to use any of that money to start removing this garbage? Does that mean $500,000 of taxpayer money was spent and the area waterways will STILL be full of trash? That ought impress ADEM.

I had to endure a light 20 minute sprinkle on this humid morning.

No sunrise this morning but later in the morning the sun tried to come out.

There are still herons hatching in the rookery.

This is an older juvenile blue heron with a funny looking hair-do.

There were plenty of large spiders hanging out in the web.

A crab waves its claw in surrender to the human garbage.

Speaking of garbage, today's trip was to see if anyone has removed any of the garbage along the City of Mobile property in Maple Street Canal. No change.

Garbage is not only floating on the water, it is also littering adjacent properties, densely! Since this is the public's garbage, the public needs to be taxed so the City can afford to send a crew out to clean up the public solid waste because this waterway is not an approved landfill.

The EPA, ADEM, the County of Mobile and the City of Mobile can play their little word games all they want. "Piles of litter aren't illegal dumps." Okay, if you say so. "I can't get my 42 foot yacht up One Mile Creek therefore it isn't a navigable waterway therefore I am not responsible for maintaining it." Okay, if you say so. "Floatables are not part of our NPDES permit." Okay, if you say so. "We can't respond to complaints if not provided with a physical address." Okay, if you say so. Look at photo 8 again. If this isn't pollution, what is? There are consequences to all actions including not keeping area waterways free of garbage. That is why there are Environmental Lawyers.

This garbage, some of which has been documented to be hazardous to the environment is a little over One mile from Mobile Government Plaza. That should be embarrassing to the City Council, especially William Carroll because this garbage rots in his district. Most progressive cities use their water resources to attract tourists, not make the tourists run in the other direction. Mobile does not have that many waterways in the downtown district to maintain.

Several City of Mobile garbage containers can be found on the shorelines or in the waterways.

To reduce the amount of litter in the water and on the shorelines someone needs to be removing it. To leave this garbage rot in the water is wrong. It is time for ADEM to start fining the City of Mobile daily until they get this trash removed. The idiots finding loopholes in EPA, ADEM, Municipal and NPDES code so they can ignore the trash may not realize ignoring the trash may have negative consequences.

Mobile Baykeeper just had a big Apple Snail Killing party three weeks ago. In this photo you can see 8 egg clusters in this one small area, so, despite the killing party, the snails are as plentiful as ever.

An apple snail egg cluster laid on a floatable (also known as public garbage). The negative consequence to ignoring garbage in Mobile Urban waterways is that the floating litter could end up being the vector that transports the first Apple Snail eggs into the Upper Delta by way of tidal influences and wind. The longer authorities ignore the trash in the water the more likely apple snails will hitch a ride on litter and escape beyond Mobile River into the Delta. This is not the first time I've seen apple snail eggs laid on storm water litter. Wind could easily influence where this cooler ends up once the tide takes it out to the big river.

Amidst all the trash, vegetation along the creeks continues to bloom. These were just some of the flowers seen in bloom today.