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Photo by Erin Nelson Sweeney.
Dr. Peter DeFranco talks about the influx of sediment that flows from Scout Creek into Scout Creek Lake behind his home in the Scout Creek subdivision on June 10.
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Photo courtesy of Dr. Peter DeFranco.
Developers are carving up land along John Hawkins Parkway for commercial and apartment developments. Here is part of the worksites on May 27.
Dr. Peter DeFranco and his wife bought their property in the Scout Creek section of Trace Crossings in 2014 with hopes of enjoying the lake next to their backyard.
But instead, Scout Creek Lake has become the subject of much frustration for them and some of their neighbors. As commercial construction has occurred in western Hoover, erosion problems have repeatedly filled Scout Creek Lake with sediment, leaving them with cloudy water and a muddy mess, preventing them from enjoying the lake.
DeFranco blames poor stormwater regulations and lax enforcement and is pushing the city of Hoover and the Alabama Department of Environmental Management to tighten up regulations and increase fines for developers who break the rules.
The city’s engineering staff is working on tweaks to the city’s stormwater ordinance, but Mayor Frank Brocato said while the city wants to protect residents and waterways, he doesn’t want to use a heavy-handed approach.
Scout Creek Lake receives stormwater from a wide basin in western Hoover. Problems were evident as far back as the development of The Grove shopping center. Later, more problems arose with construction of The Shoppes of Hoover, which includes the Sprouts grocery store.
Things improved for a while thanks to a detention pond built by developer Will Kadish for the first phase of Stadium Trace Village, but the muddy water began flowing into Scout Creek Lake again late last year, DeFranco said.
DeFranco points the finger at two particular projects — a roughly 10-acre parcel that Charles Kessler is developing for commercial use next to the UAB Medical West freestanding emergency department and a 30+-acre parcel right next to it being developed for 475 apartments in unincorporated Jefferson County by the Dobbins Group.
After a heavy rain this past Christmas season, Trace Crossings residents experienced a heavy flow of muddy water and sediment into Scout Creek Lake. DeFranco said he has filed at least 60 complaints with ADEM over the Kessler and Dobbins properties since Christmas Day.
ADEM issued violation notices to both the Kessler and Dobbins properties in January. The notice for the Dobbins property said slopes were not property stabilized, erosion rills were observed on site, and sediment was observed leaving the site and being deposited into a culvert to I-459. However, “the discharge was not great enough to significantly impact the turbidity of the receiving waters, a UT (unnamed tributary) to Scout Creek,” the notice said.
Photo courtesy of Dr. Peter DeFranco.
Developers are carving up land along John Hawkins Parkway for commercial and apartment developments. Here is part of the worksites on May 27.
ADEM spokeswoman Lynn Battle said Forestry Environmental Services, the erosion control site contractor for the Dobbins Group, made appropriate adjustments and resolved the matter without any enforcement action by ADEM.
David Ball, a principal partner in the Dobbins Group, said his company has been an open book and is doing everything it can to fight runoff.
“There is no evidence that Scout Lake has suffered sedimentation due to runoff from our property at all,” Ball said.
There were some problem issues identified, but Forestry Environmental Services addressed those immediately and has passed every inspection from Jefferson County, he said.
“We’re a bit confused as to why we keep getting dragged into this,” Ball said. “Nothing’s perfect in a site under development, but we have been very, very careful about runoff. … any sediment that has run off our slopes was caught at our silt fence boundaries, and we basically came back in and resolved it. You’re going to get colorization of water, but that’s very different than wholesale sediment running through and adding to what Dr. DeFranco claims is happening.”
Kessler’s company, Baronwood Property, does have an enforcement action pending, Battle said.
The violation notice for Kessler’s company noted numerous problems, including slopes not properly stabilized, stormdrain inlets without proper protection, no treatment or setting time for water prior to being discharged through an open culvert, slopes tracked in the wrong direction, silt fences not properly maintained, erosion rills observed on site, excessive sediment accumulation against silt fences, sediment accumulation downslope of the site and untreated turbid water discharged from the site.
“A substantial visual turbidity contrast was observed in Scout Creek as a result of the facility discharge,” the violation said.
Photo courtesy of Dr. Peter DeFranco
Runoff from Scout Creek into Scout Creek Lake in April 2024.
Additionally, Kessler’s contractor had not posted pre-construction inspection information, rainfall records or daily best management practice logs, the violation notice said.
Kessler said his company has been given a proposed fine by ADEM. He wouldn’t say the amount, but said he plans to fight it because it’s excessive.
Normally, he pays a fine for stormwater runoff violations if he gets one, but this time he believes his company is being blamed improperly and thinks the fine is too much, he said. His company has spent tens of thousands of dollars on silt fences and other erosion control measures and has acted quickly to address problems, he said.
There have been at least two significant rainfall events that caused sediment to escape since Christmas, but given the amount of rainfall, “there’s no way we could have prevented that,” Kessler said. Yes, there was brown water, but “we did not cause anything to get into Scout Creek that was mud.”
Kessler claims DeFranco tried to extort money from him — that if his company would pay $25,000, DeFranco would stop his complaints.
DeFranco said he has never seen or spoken to Kessler and never tried to extort money from him in any way. And even if he stopped filing complaints, there are other people filing complaints, and “I sure don’t control them.”
“He must be crazy,” DeFranco said. “Twenty-five thousand dollars would not even cover the cleanup. The cost of cleaning up that lake will probably be $100,000 to $150,000. Twenty-five thousand dollars won’t even touch it!”
DeFranco said 100% of the problems with Scout Creek Lake since December have come from these two developers, though he said the Dobbins Group has done everything it can to correct issues.
Both ADEM and the city of Hoover issued temporary orders to stop work, but work resumed once corrective actions were taken.
City Engineer Chris Reeves said while some of the sedimentation in Scout Creek Lake is a result of nearby development, there is also some natural erosion that takes place along Scout Creek.
DeFranco said the city of Hoover’s engineering staff has its hands tied. Current city regulations only require developers to handle rain events of a quarter-inch or less, but he said that’s not enough. And the current $100 fines from the city aren’t sufficient to deter developers from improper controls.
Also, the engineering staff is underfunded and undermanned, DeFranco said. He believes that’s intentional because city leaders don’t want to slow development.
The mayor said DeFranco is inappropriately painting the city with a broad brush. While DeFranco and others bought property on a lake, any engineer will tell him that lake was created to capture sediment and keep it from getting into the lake below him, Brocato said.
“It is not the city’s responsibility to clean out and take care of his lake,” the mayor said. “That is something the developer who built that lake should have built something to protect Scout Lake, and that wasn’t done.”
The city, working with ADEM, is doing everything it can to address problems with construction sites upstream, Brocato said. The city also is taking care of stormwater issues on public rights of way, but “the city of Hoover is not responsible for every square inch of the city of Hoover when it comes to stormwater.”
The mayor said the city wants to have good regulations and address violations by developers, especially with repeat offenders, but “you hate to get to a point where you always have to be punitive.”
Reeves said his staff is working on revisions to stormwater regulations, such as requiring developers to put up a bond to cover off-site erosion remediation. The amount could be $100,000 or $250,000 or more, depending on the size of the site, he said. He hopes to have something for the mayor and council to consider by the end of the summer.
