This is Completely Unacceptable

 Since my first report of ongoing violations at the "Quick Trip" Jippy mart on Buttermilk Road I have seen some really drastic off site impacts to local residents and Cottondale Creek.

The first report was filed July 26, 2021. It showed some pretty dramatic off site violations by the Quick Trip (QT) car wash and jippy mart.  I have been doing this a long time but never have I seen this type destruction of taxpaying citizens property and have it virtually ignored by the City of Tuscaloosa building code enforcement as well as Alabama Dep. of Environmental Management (ADEM). They are our first line of defense against egregious polluters like this one.

Tuscaloosa inspector 08/16/21

The city inspections dep has been aware of this site for months. Residents tell me that the inspector is out there regularly and is seen taking photos. He even told one landowner that he would get something done about the pollution. That was over 2 months ago and still no response. My calls for action by the city council have fallen on deaf ears. I guess It's time to pay a call of Mayor Walt Maddox again. I should note that one of the first meetings I had with him when he was first elected was about this very issue, noncompliance. 

 

Same location as opening photo nearly a month later

Either the inspector is not reporting as he should or his supervisors are withholding the reports from enforcement procedures. Either way, Tuscaloosa planners approved the plan, City council members approved the plan, City inspections and lack of enforcement of required erosion control measures are allowing the construction activity to cause severe damage to off site properties, clogging up our drainage system. The city is just as responsible for this as the developer. The folks at QT know that no one is going to enforce so why bother with following the rules? 

I got the county Commissioner, Jerry Tingle to come out and look at the situation with just one phone call. If only we could get people in the city to respond so quickly. He was quite alarmed to see the wanton disregard for tax paying citizens in the county impacted by QT It seems that Valley Lake Road is in the county and their engineers were not notified of the construction or destruction depending on how you look at it. Within an hour he had called the county Civil Engineer out to appraise the situation. She sent a few emails and within minutes got the response from city engineers that they simply forgot to notify the county. I find that extremely hard to believe. 

Left side County / Right side Tuscaloosa,

One of the problems we face out here is being in the Police Jurisdiction (PJ). We get little or no benefit from being in the PJ but we get the absolute right to pay taxes and fees to a city who for the most part ignores us. I like to refer to the PJ as "The bastard stepchildren of Tuscaloosa". Case in point is this project. Most land was in the county until it was annexed into the city up to the road. That gives the tax revenue to Tuscaloosa and the headaches of fixing the drainage and maintaining the ROW to the county.

The county has no jurisdiction over the construction activity, that falls on Tuscaloosa and ADEM but I now believe that since the county is involved there will be some improvements to the road and drainage system QT intends to use as a waste conduit to Cottondale Creek. The Point of discharge was placed in a manner in which it will increase net gain runoff to the point where the drainage ditch will not handle it.  The drainage needs to be increased and placed in a culvert all the way to Cottondale Creek with at least one drop inlet in front of residential property. I also believe that the Tuscaloosa County road department should not have to spend a dime. This nightmare was created by the Tuscaloosa Planners and the developer in my opinion. Prove me wrong.

Offsite impacts from QT 08.01/21

Since the first complaint, I have been in constant email contact with ADEM water division. There was a notice of violation (NOV) issued after a follow up complaint from me. In that notice there was a requirement for QT to respond. "Not later than ten (10) days from the receipt of this letter, the owner/operator is required to submit the following to the ADEM's Field Operations Division, Attn: Evan Roberts at Birmingham Branch, 110 Vulcan Road, Birmingham, AL 35209: "

This is all from the sprinkler system!

 

Around this time I had to file yet again for offsite violations but not due to rain. The violation stemmed from them watering the grass for crying out loud. If their erosion control plan was not strong enough to control the sprinklers it certainly isn't strong enough to handle rain event which was proven the very next day.

 

Concrete washout sign, left corner

On the 13th  I filed a complaint about offsite sediment and turbid water but it was not raining. This time I found the concrete trucks washing the excess concrete out on Valley Lake Road. That is also a condition of the permit QT failed to install. The permit requires a concrete washout to be constructed in a matter as not to allow it to migrate offsite. Although there is a sign in front of the office that says "Concrete Washout" but there is no concrete anywhere in sight, it's all in the street.

Concrete covering Valley Lake Rd.

 

 

 

 

As of 4:36 PM Friday, ADEM had not responded to any of the emails I sent asking if the response had arrived. At 4:37 I filed another complaint against QT for what I consider flagrant violations of their permit and the ADEM NOV. When you look at the first complaint filed and the last one several weeks and a NOV apart, there is very little change. It's time for ADEM to issue a stop work order for all construction activity until every point in the NOV has been addressed. The county and the city need to come together and hold the developer accountable for future flooding that could certainly arise due to the poorly thought out engineering plan.

I know ADEM is tired of seeing the same issues week after week but nowhere as tired of it as the community!

 

Please accept the following complaint on behalf of John L. Wathen, Hurricane Creekkeeper and Friends of Hurricane Creek against the Quick Stop construction activity located at the intersection of Buttermilk Road and I-59 in Tuscaloosa County. N 33.17065 W 87.44712

 

NPDES permit number ALR10BHQ0.

 

This complaint will be almost a verbatim copy as the first since conditions are still failing miserably at the site. I noted many discrepancies in my first complaint including offsite impact to adjacent landowners including sediment deposit in the yards and roads, and in their homes. There is consistent failure to address failed and or nonexistent BMPs and still today, NO NPDES placard posted at the gate. That may seem like a small detail but they have been cited for it and their PE has been onsite along with many other employees who could and should have taken care of this detail. That is the Identifier people in the community must see in order to know who and what is going on. It's not our privilege, it's the law. The fact that it has been ignored is just a symptom of the complete disregard it seems this company has for Alabama law or the surrounding community.

 

ADEM must act and act decisively in a way that will deter any further offsite impacts. The BMP plan implementation is horribly inadequate.  Looking through the files I can see where there were many things drawn in that were never installed, like a properly constructed temporary sediment basin. The basin they have now is large but still not built to the specs shown in their engineers plan. There is no fair cloth skimmer, inadequate slope cover and some sort of spillway that is not in the plan.

 

There are NO BMPs along the northern end of the site where it discharges to the I_59 ROW. There hasn't been since the first complaint 07/26/21

 

Today, 08/20/21 is the last day of the extended courtesy deadline to respond to the NOV. As of an hour ago, I observed no one addressing BMP issues. There was plenty of other activity but nothing was being done about issues cited in both Mr. Roberts NOV, or my complaints. Does ADEM have access to the engineer’s compliance reports? Can they be added to the e-file? It would be interesting to see if the reports reflect an accurate account of what’s happening on the ground.

 

On 08/19/21/ I visited the site twice, once at around 11:00 AM.

 

1.     I found red muddy water and sediment build up in the private drive across from the Quick Trip construction site (QT) it was coming from the newly grassed slope along Buttermilk Road where the sprinklers had been left on long enough to swamp the new grass and flow past the drop inlet, under the silt fences all the way to the private property previously noted. It was NOT raining. All of the red mud and turbid water was generated through negligence and failing BMPs. (Plates 01-08)

2.     I returned around 1:00PM with still no rain and found the sprinklers had again sent a sheet of red mud and turbid water across the road and private property. Again, I say that if the BMPs will not hold back the flow from a sprinkler system there is a serious problem with the BMP plan and or it’s implementation.

3.     At around 2:30 it began raining. The following photos were taken between 2:31 PM. and 3:04 PM. This is a seriously disturbing turn of events. Every rain event and now even their sprinklers are causing offsite discharge of large amounts of sediment. (Plates 08a – 018)

4.     Plate 017 got shuffled out of sequence but it is an aerial of the lack of BMP controls at the northernmost part of the permit.

Nothing has been done there to correct the deficiencies while all other building activities continue as usual.

 

Minimal effort has been shown to many of the issues first reported. I invite ADEM to look back at the complaints filed and see the same things mentioned time after time. The photos are almost identical. In my opinion this company has demonstrated a pattern which shows that they have no respect for the permit rules or ADEM, the city of Tuscaloosa, Tuscaloosa County, or members of the community.

 

ADEM seems to be bending over backward to make it as easy as possible for the polluter to respond all while QT seems to be completely ignoring the NOV citation issues. It’s time for ADEM to take decisive action up to and including a stop work order until QT takes the BMP requirements seriously enough to correct long ongoing violations.  

 

“performed by: Evan Roberts
8/20/2021

Comments:
NOV sent previously. Site was in compliance period at the time that the complaint was received.”

 

That’s from the file and should show how little concern they have to still be this badly out of compliance.

 

John L. Wathen,

Hurricane Creekkeeper
Friends of Hurricane Creek
 
Creekkeeper is a member of
Waterkeeper Alliance
www.waterkeeper.org
 
Who has the authority to say someone else
 is not being a good steward of the environment?
 
Anyone who notices

 

 

 

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