Five Mile Creek Greenway - Jefferson County, AL

Overview

The Five Mile Creek Greenway project applied an innovative approach to brownfield redevelopment by converting multiple brownfield sites along the creek into usable greenspace, establishing a powerful framework for a 28-mile greenway system through Jefferson County, Alabama. The greenway protects water quality and restores the creek as an asset to the five cities through which it flows—Tarrant, Fultondale, Birmingham, Brookside, and Graysville. Restoration of the Five Mile Creek watershed by these cities required a combination of innovative thinking and partnerships as well as pooling their collective talents.
The cities along Five Mile Creek share a history of mining and foundry work. The industrialization of Five Mile Creek led to years of neglect and pollution of large segments of the watershed, earning it the nickname of “Creosote Creek.” The cities have struggled to survive economically, in large part due to the negative reputation of the creek. As a result, it was imperative to generate a new public image for the stream by improving recreational opportunities and taking steps to protect the aquatic life sustained by the watershed. A significant component of this effort involves assessing and remediating several properties on the banks of Five Mile Creek to mitigate the continued discharge of contaminants into the watershed. Successful management of the select sites will provide a roadmap for future cleanup activities benefiting multiple communities.

Participants
• Freshwater Land Trust
• Five Mile Creek Partnership

Primary Reason for Redevelopment
This area was selected for redevelopment by local leaders who were willing to work together to turn a polluted stream into an asset and amenity. When the redevelopment project was initiated, residents from all of the communities along Five Mile Creek participated in public meetings. They identified the major environmental concerns in each city and then selected priority sites that were of greatest local concern.

Approach

Working through the Jefferson County Commission, a meeting was arranged to bring the five cities together with other interested stakeholders to discuss improving Five Mile Creek’s health. The result was the historic signing of an official memorandum of agreement (MOA) between the cities, the Jefferson County Commission, the Birmingham Regional Planning Commission, the Freshwater Land Trust, and the Cawaco Resource Conservation and Development Council, a local non-profit working on water quality issues. The MOA stated that the partners would work together to clean up the creek by creating a series of parks and greenways along its 28-mile corridor.

The MOA proved to be a catalyst for momentum. Local leaders worked with their Congressional delegation to secure $1.2 million in transportation funding for the first leg of the greenway. Federal partners, including the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), matched private funds raised by the Freshwater Land Trust for water quality and flood studies. The Alabama Power Service Organization (an employee association) adopted the Five Mile Creek Greenway as a volunteer project and began conducting regularly scheduled workdays along the creek. In addition, private landowners began giving land or offering it for sale to the partnership for the park and greenway system.

Through the Freshwater Land Trust, the Five Mile Creek partners applied for and received a $200,000 assessment grant from EPA’s brownfield program. The land trust organized a series of public meetings in each community along the creek, which allowed hundreds of residents to identify on maps the locations of abandoned mines, former coke oven sites, dry cleaners, and other brownfield sites. The information was compiled, and the partners worked with USGS experts to select the top-priority sites for environmental site assessment in each community. Assessments were completed on six brownfield sites along the stream.

Innovative Techniques

The Five Mile Creek Greenways Partnership used land conservation as a strategy to encourage stream cleanup while promoting community revitalization and economic growth. Because the financial resources of the cities were limited, the partnership joined stakeholders to create one voice. This partnership raised public awareness and began to garner favorable attention from the media, elected officials, grant makers, and federal, state, and local agencies. The partners have tapped a variety of economic and environmental programs to accomplish their goals, including land and water conservation funding; EPA brownfield grants, Five Star grants, and Smart Growth Initiative tools; interns donated from the federal Office of Surface Mining; Rails to Trails; transportation enhancement grants; and others. Private land donations and private foundation gifts also have been used to develop the greenway. Recognizing the importance of the stream to their mutual welfare, partners in the MOA agreed that all development conducted as part of the greenway would incorporate the highest design standards to protect water quality.

Challenges

The greatest obstacle to redevelopment was erasing the image of the Five Mile Creek as a contaminated stream and devising an approach to address contamination. As environmental controls became more effective, discharges into the stream were minimized, and aquatic populations began to recover. But the long history of contamination has left its mark. Many people had problems trying to save a stream that they equated with acid mine drainage and creosote contamination. Convincing them that this distressed stream could have a healthy and productive future as a recreational and food source was difficult.

Benefits

The recovering stream and the growing greenway network are attracting new visitors to the area to canoe, camp, hike, and cycle. Increasingly, residents are taking advantage of the new recreational amenities as well, which is stimulating other new activity in the region. Brookside is building a new city hall. In addition, a new business in town is providing services to visiting canoeing enthusiasts. Tarrant is in active discussions with business representatives looking to develop the Vulcan Rivet and Bolt property near the new Billy Hewitt Park, which was built by 200 volunteers in a single day as part of the greenway development. Fultondale and Graysville have new park and housing developments underway. Greenway events are generating new tax revenue, and property values have stabilized. Perhaps even more importantly, residents are now looking to stay. It will be years before the full economic impact of the greenway is realized, but all partners in the Five Mile Creek project agree that the greenway has brought new development, a new image, and new economic life to the area.

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