BAY MINETTE, Ala. — The Baldwin County Commission decided in June 2014 to turn down a request from the state that the county take responsibility for removing debris deposited in state waterways by a devastating April flood.
The commission voted 4-0 to notify the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources by letter that it would not take on the removal work, ending weeks of back-and-forth over who should shoulder a job estimated to cost millions of dollars.
A costly, months-long undertaking
Baldwin County Engineer Cal Markert estimated that the debris removal would have cost between $5 million and $10 million and would have taken four to six months to complete. The county, he said, would have had to hire a contractor to carry out the work.
Markert said the affected waterways included the Fish, Bon Secour, Magnolia, Styx and Blackwater rivers, with vegetative debris posing the main problem. In the Fish River, he noted, the flood had left behind a house and a car.
Commissioners balk at the responsibility
Several commissioners made clear they did not believe the cleanup was the county’s job. "I’m not even in favor of us managing this," Commissioner Frank Burt Jr. said. "It’s an awesome responsibility and no reason that we, little old Baldwin County, should handle the state’s responsibility."
Commissioner Tucker Dorsey agreed. "We always want to keep our place as nice and dolled up as we can," he said. "This is not our responsibility."
Reimbursement dispute
Money was at the center of the impasse. The state had proposed that the county recoup part of its costs by seeking a 75 percent reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and a 12.5 percent reimbursement from the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.
The commission, which discussed the proposal during a work session the previous week, disliked the prospect of not being made whole. The county attorney countered with a plan that called for 75 percent from FEMA and 25 percent from the state department. In the end, commissioners decided the county should play no role at all.
State to proceed on its own
Jeff Byard, coordinating officer for the Alabama Emergency Management Agency, said that with Baldwin County declining to participate, the state would go through its own contracting process to find someone to do the work. He stressed there was no ill will between the county and the state.
"A lot of times counties, local governments know their areas better than the state," Byard said. "All disasters begin locally. We wanted to explore that avenue. It was no negative in the fact that they didn’t do it, so we will move on to plan B and start getting the debris out."
The debris was a legacy of an extraordinary storm. More than 20 inches of rain fell in Baldwin County on April 28-30, with 10 to 15 inches falling on April 29 and 30 alone, triggering flash flooding and river flooding across the region.