Citizen Complaint Covington Villas ALR164521.

Citizen Complaint Covington Villas ALR164521.



No NPDES
NPDES expired in March 09.
A warning letter was issued by ADEM
City of Tuscaloosa continues to issue building permits despite expired NPDES.

No BMPs around construction areas
Lack of cover on slope grades
Offsite tracking
Failure to contain construction debris and trash.
Lack of vegetative cover throughout the entire construction area.
Failure to install and maintain curb inlet protection.
Failure to provide and use proper gravel entries in many places through the site.
Concrete trucks wash out in drains and over the back of the cul-de-sac directly into the unnamed tributary to Cottondale Creek.
Failure to maintain sediment basin.
The one shown in the photo has completely filled in and has trees growing with heavy grass inside. This has greatly reduced the retention time for storm-water and is now just a pass through for sediment.

Trick Construction and Burns Construction are jointly building here. Both are chronic violators with history with ADEM and EPA.

Trick also owns Easton Place under “Trickster Construction” Burns owns Jamestown Villas, Barrett Trace, Mimosa Park, all with previous violations for BMPs and non permitted activity.

Mr. Joe Don, EPA region 4 confronted this developer during a recent site visit. He warned Trick to install BMPs and keep them in place. Obviously My Trickster has little concern for EPA and your warnings. When are you going to enforce the regulations and penalize these chronic and willful violators?

It should be noted here that all of the violations listed here are from sites permitted by the city of Tuscaloosa building department while the NPDES is invalid. Tuscaloosa claims it is not responsible for enforcing state permitting regulations. I disagree. No building permit should be issued to any developer without verifying a valid NPDES. The city does have certain responsibilities to enforce BMP regulations and deter offsite deposition of pollutants into waterways of the U.S. By continually issuing building permits to developers known to be chronic violators and not enforcing BMP codes, Tuscaloosa City is in effect violating their own storm-water permit.

I have photographed an inspector truck on Sundays there on more than one occasion. He has possibly taken up residence in this location. It is parked among some of the worst violations in the complex and has to drive through it daily to and from work. I take that as an insult to the community and a strong indicator of Tuscaloosa's unwillingness to enforce the codes. Inspectors have been given the authority to issue warnings, stop work orders, and citations. They were trained at taxpayer expense on more than one occasion to perform the task.

EPA must take action in light of the chronic nature of these complaints and failures.

 John L. Wathen
Hurricane Creekkeeper,
Friends of Hurricane Creek

Members of
WATERKEEPER Alliance
http://www.waterkeeper.org

Who has the authority to say someone else
is not being a good steward of the environment?

Anyone who notices.