. . . But not in my Backyard

    Friday, 10 December 2004 - Mud, mud and more mud.

Muddy creek coming from directly from the new shopping center heading toward Adelsheim. West side of Dialsdale Drive.

   The recent rain has created quite an interesting situation for not only the developer of the new shopping center behind us but also for the residents downstream of the construction. Just when we thought the slow destruction of our home and neighborhood was becoming unbearable, we didn't consider that others might be in an even more perilious situation.

   The homes that make up Adelsheim, the subdivision just down the road from us, have been suffering quite heavily for several months. We didn't find out about this until some of these friends came to purchase from our neighborhood yard sales and told us of their difficulty in working with both Drinkard Development and the City of Cullman. The ditch that collects all runoff from the area around us has been working overtime draining the latest precipitation fairly quickly and with quite a bit of the loose mud turned up by the construction of the new shopping center and theater.

   We were told from some of the residents of Adelsheim that the city brought in some small sand bags for them to place around their doors to keep the water from running into their homes. This is considered as a Band-Aid to a problem that will only get worse with time. One of the residents informed the Mayor's office that if his home flooded once more that he would be forced to sue for neglect after they were told this had happened previously.

   A small secondary catch-pond has been constructed adjacent to Adelsheim to prevent this from occuring again. My question is, "when the parking lot is paved with asphalt, not just some of the rain as before but all of the rain will immedately be sent into the catch-pond behind the theater. What is being done to prevent flooding from happening again? The primary catch-pond has been reworked several times but is still way too small to provide the necessary job of retarding the overflow of water into the drainage ditch which begins just north of Swafford Road. This in turn dumps into the already insufficient ditch behind Adelsheim and will certainly overflow once again into the homes with even more damage. Compare the size of the Wal-Mart parking lot to the new shopping center parking lot and then compare the size of the catch-ponds.

Adelsheim in the background with the new catch-pond to help keep their feet dry. East side of Dialsdale Drive. Photographs were made before December 13th, 2004.

   A great deal of mud has been running into the ditch with the ever present color of brown mustard indicating to those downstream that the city has given permission for more 'progress' to occur. The Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) has strict regulations against the negative impact this has but despite their citations for several infringments, the problems still persists. What will happen if the long pipe on Dialsdale becomes clogged with mud and spills over into the yards of my neighbors and floods the road?

   The wetlands where all this 'progress' has occurred have been removed and we are now seeing the result of our 'intellect' over Nature. The city must set aside areas of non-inhabitance to provide for the sponge effect of our wetlands and realize the value our beautiful land has that our Indian and German predecessors saw when they called Cullman home.

   I'm convinced that the large theater is painted white for good reason . . . Cullman has a new "white elephant".