Turns out you don't need the online research card to search the newspaper, just your regular library card. This is really useful information for me.
Anyway, here is an article from 1996.
Questions raised on financing, location of baseballstadium Wetlands cover most of site
Mobile Register (AL) - February 2, 1996
Author: BILL FINCH, Environment Editor
Standing water and a swampy forest cover most of the 30 acres where Mobile hopes to build a baseball stadium .
Some fear that construction there could raise the cost of the project, intensify runoff in the already-stressed Dog River basin and damage wildlife habitat and water quality.
The city filed a public notice Jan. 22 with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, proposing to fill 19.6 acres of a 40-acre wetlands for the stadium and parking. Another third of an acre would be filled to build an access road.
The wetlands are in a 180-acre parcel owned by a limited partnership, McGowin Properties Ltd. The partnership has offered to give or lease this particular 30-acre tract to the city.
In its request for permission to fill the wetlands , the city said it would build 17 acres of ``forested/marsh wetlands '' near West Fowl River.
Pat Robbins of the corps says the 19 acres designated for filling in the city's request was ``above average, but not the largest we've ever done.''
Mayor Mike Dow said Thursday that ``there are not a lot of unknowns on this'' and he wasn't expecting problems, because the corps has been doing work on the parcel since early January.
City engineer Bob Vogtner said he couldn't answer questions about the suitability of the wetlands for construction, or the costs of filling them. He said he ``had nothing whatever to do'' with the site-selection process.
But he said the city hired Thompson Engineering to start geo-technical surveys this week to determine suitability for construction. Results are expected back within two or three weeks.
``Unless it's a perfect situation, you're going to have earthworks involved,'' Vogtner said.
Outside the 40 acres described in the public notice as wetlands , the rest of the McGowin tract appears to be relatively dry and well-drained, invaded by thickets of Japanese privet and a smattering of oaks and loblolly pines.
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But the wetlands where the stadium would sit, tea-colored water stands ankle-deep. Ruts left by timber trucks have cut deep into mucky, black organic soil.
Walking through much of the wetlands requires hopping across the small islands of soil formed around the swelling butts of the trees. Water tupelo and slash pine and clumps of flowering sweet bay, red bay, possumhaw viburnum and titi trees and shrubs found almost exclusively in swampy wetlands cover much of the 40 acres.
Based on the soils, the standing water and the vegetation, corps researchers have determined that the area is a wetland , said corps spokesman Pat Robbins.
But Robbins said the corps has also determined that it is not ``a high-quality wetland '' because it has been affected by surrounding construction and man-made drainage ditches.
Judy Stout, biologist with Dauphin Island Sea Lab, said she believes that even an isolated, 40-acre patch of wooded wetlands can have multiple values.
From the perspective of Mobilians, ``it may have value in terms of ground water recharge and ground water purification and perhaps water detainment in times of high rainfall,'' Stout said.
But it also retains some value as habitat for Mobile's wild plants and creatures, she said. ``If I were a raccoon, I would want to live there,'' Stout said. Raccoon tracks covered the roads leading into the site.
Stout said there's not much probability that rare or threatened plants would be found there. But she said that the trees and other plants are integral to keeping the wetlands healthy.
George Crozier of Dauphin Island Sea Lab said he was concerned about what might happen to the water that drains off the new parking lots and roadways that would serve the stadium , particularly if the wetland buffer is destroyed.
``Any increased drainage ain't going no place but Dog River,'' Crozier said. That's a big problem, he said, in light of the recent study by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, which showed Mobile's urban runoff is polluting Dog River with silt and chemicals.
``We can no longer add surface-water discharge,'' Crozier said. ``I think we've stretched the system to its limit.''
City Councilman Clinton Johnson said Thursday that detention ponds to remove sediment and improve water quality were being considered in the stadium plan. Crozier noted that ``10 acres of detention ponds do not replace 40 acres of swamp.''
Johnson left open the possibility that the city could ``request a different part of the property,'' if there are structural or environmental problems with the wetlands .
Dow said the city would seek another location only if this one proves unsuitable.
Before settling on the McGowin property, the city examined 12 other sites around the city. The old Monroe Park between Broad Street and Mobile Bay was one of those, but Dow said negotiations with the Alabama State Docks on the price are stalled.
Crozier said that the wetlands could be an education tool for the public, and speculated that preserving wetlands at the stadium could be linked to other projects.
For example, Crozier said he has tried to encourage Alabama highway officials to channel excess water into reconstructed wetlands at the nearby Interstate 65 interchange. At present, the contaminated road runoff is directed into concrete culverts that run straight to Hall's Mill Creek.
Photo
BILL FINCH /Mobile Register Wetland trees and shrubs grow where the city plans to build a baseballstadium .
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