Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Bham News Article on CRS Annual Meeting
Projects include ways to capture, filter runoff
Thursday, January 25, 2007
DAWN KENT
News staff writer
Environmentalists and developers will come together tonight as the Cahaba River Society introduces an award for projects that have features designed to protect the river and its watershed.
At its annual meeting, the society will present the Blue-Green Design Innovation Award to businesses involved in two projects: The Shoppes at River Run in Mountain Brook and St. Vincent's One Nineteen Health and Wellness in Hoover.
"We want to show that these are practical and feasible measures," said Beth Stewart, the society's executive director. "We hope that more and more projects will begin to be built this way."
At St. Vincent's One Nineteen Health and Wellness, a technique called bioswales reduces stormwater pollution and flooding effects of parking lots. The bioswales use landscaped islands in parking lots to allow runoff to seep into the ground, filtering pollutants. The facility is near Lake Purdy.
St. Vincent's Health System and St. Vincent's One Nineteen Health and Wellness will receive the award, along with general contractors Brasfield and Gorrie and landscape architect Ross Land Design.
Bioswales also are in use at The Shoppes at River Run, on the banks of the Cahaba River. In addition, the development uses a Baysaver, a trademarked water filtration system, in the parking lot to catch and filter runoff.
Moss Properties, Stewart Perry Company Inc. and Ross Land Design will receive the award for the project.
Other awards presented at the meeting will recognize volunteer and public service efforts to protect the river and its watershed.
The meeting, which will be at the Alabama School of Fine Arts, is open to the public. Beginning at 5:30 p.m., there will be interactive displays of existing or upcoming developments with watershed-protective design. The 6:30 p.m. program will feature the awards and comments from Vestavia Hills Mayor Scotty McCallum and Trussville Mayor Gene Melton.
E-mail: dkent@bhamnews.com
Friday, January 19, 2007
Volunteer Corps~ Opportunities to serve in Bibb County
2007 Schedule (as it currently stands):
JANUARY- DONE This Saturday- 9:30 Italian Catholic Cemetery on Primitive Ridge Road Lunch provided
FEBRUARY- DONE Acid Mine Drainage (AMD)- Workshop on AMD, West Blocton, City Hall; field trip to ID Sites; Bibb County Canoe Trip
MARCH- DONE Coke Ovens Volunteer work- Help us ready the park for Lily Day and River Ramble!
APRIL- Earth Day! 8:00, April 21st Clean up at the Cahaba River National Wildlife Refuge with The Friends of the Refuge, the Cahaba River Society, Fox 6, and Alabama Power
MAY- Lily Day! (26th) and the ~Cahaba River Ramble~ more details to come...
JUNE- The Smithsonian comes to Bibb County! A Traveling Smithsonian Exhibit, Between Fences will be set up in West Blocton for the months of June and July~ Opening day: June 22nd in conjunction with Wild West Blocton Days the 29th and the 30th
JULY-
AUGUST-
SEPTEMBER- Public Lands Day~ Clean up with the US Forest Rangers from Centreville
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Alabama State Council on the Arts funds Blocton Coke Ovens Restoration
------------------------------------Walter Sansing gives us a tour of the Ovens
For Immediate Release:
The Town of West Blocton Receives Grant for Blocton Coke Ovens Park
The Town of West Blocton is pleased to announce that it has received a grant of $4,500 from the Alabama State Council on the Arts (ASCA), the state arts agency. This grant will provide part of the money needed to design a conceptual plan for the Blocton Coke Ovens Park. The rest of the monies will be donated. This conceptual plan is necessary to show future grant sources (federal, state legislators, and similar agencies to ASCA) what is needed to make the park a showcase of our coal mining heritage, a cultural center for the town, as well as a key component of the regional Cahaba tourism plan with some of the most well preserved Coke Ovens in the region.
ASCA grants are awarded through a multi-faceted competitive review process. This grant signifies that The Town of West Blocton, the University of Alabama Center for Economic Development, and the Americorps OSM/VISTA Program through the Cahaba River Society, Cahaba River Authority, and the Bibb County Citizens for Wildflowers are providing programs to serve the needs of the community.
This grant, awarded by the Alabama State Council on the Arts is made possible through funding from an annual appropriation from the Alabama State Legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts. This public Support enables our project at the Blocton Coke Ovens Park to reach new audiences, foster community development, and demonstrate the importance of arts as a component for quality of life in Alabama.
Monday, January 8, 2007
New- Helena's Coke Oven Park!
History is foundation of new Helena park
Friday, December 29, 2006
MARIENNE THOMAS-OGLE
News staff writer
Though time has destroyed the roof, the massive stone retaining walls still stretch their original 175 feet in length and 20 feet in width, their 12 oven openings intact.
The Billy Gould coke ovens, used in the 1800s to transform coal into coke to fuel iron production, lie in the Helena woods at the fork of Buck Creek and the Cahaba River. They seem to be in the middle of nowhere, but Helena officials plan to make them the centerpiece of a public park linked to area neighborhoods by a greenway system.
The Gould site would be the latest in a series of properties from the Birmingham area's iron and steel history to be reclaimed for use as public attractions.
Developer Kendall Zettler is deeding the city about 60 acres near his Riverwoods subdivision off Shelby County 52. A six-acre section contains the ovens and an adjacent coal mine, with the balance of the land on the opposite side of Buck Creek.
"This is a beautiful, peaceful spot that many history buffs and Civil War re-enactors are very interested in," Mayor Charles "Sonny" Penhale said. "We want to clean up the area and add some picnic locations, but keep the area as natural-looking as possible."
The ovens, whose massive fieldstones were quarried near the site, lie parallel to the bed of an abandoned railway once used to transport coal and coke, Helena historian Kenny Penhale said.
"The abutments that held the railroad trestles over Buck Creek and the Cahaba still stand and will eventually be used for pedestrian bridges as part of the greenway being planned through Helena," he said.
The date of the ovens' origin is unclear, said Jack Bergstresser, an industrial archaeologist and historian who has long advocated the preservation of the Gould site.
According to Bergstresser, Billy Gould came to Alabama from England as a prospector, miner and engineer. An owner of the Helena mine, he is acknowledged to be the first person to make coke from Alabama coal, and old documents tell of him building early coke ovens.
"When the era of coke blast furnaces got started in the 1870s, ironmakers used the beehive or dome-shaped design, while this style (in Helena) was used prior to that, possibly the 1860s," Bergstresser said. "Either way you cut it, whether built during the Civil War or the 1870s, these are some of the earliest in the U.S. and, as far as I know, some of the rarest in design."
Kenny Penhale said that while the city plans to clean up and fence the coke oven site soon, the area won't be open to the public for at least two years.
"We're getting ready to apply for placement on the state and national historic registers and seek preservation grants from both the state and federal governments to help with the project," he said.
Zettler said the city's enhancement of the site means a great deal to him and his family.
"My father, Phil Zettler, owned the Vulcan Engineering Co. in Helena from 1969 to 1999, and we've been in the iron and steel industry for years," he said. "Our interest in this is doing what's best for the stewardship of the land and the history of Helena."
Bergstresser said he is "delighted that the city is taking over the ovens."
"This is an important historical and archaeological site," he said, "and it's exciting to think that Gould comes to Alabama when the old technology is still in use and builds one isolated pocket of history in Helena."
E-mail: mogle@bhamnews.com
Thursday, January 4, 2007
CRS Annual Meeting - Thurs., Jan. 25, 2007- Birmingham and Upcoming Meetings
**3rd Bibb County Tourism Meeting- January 18th
**Cahaba River Authority meeting- January 18th
**Bibb County Citizens for Wildflowers meeting on the Presbyterie Camp- Next Tuesday, January 9th Brent Centreville Library
**Italian Catholic Cemetery Cleanup- West Blocton, January 20th
Contact me for details: lizalt@gmail.com
Really cool Web Newsletter... Creek Clips!
Issues, Support, Celebration
(Click on the words above to sign up for Creek Clips at the Eastern Coal Regional Roundtable Website)
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Creek ClipsIssues, Support, Celebration | ||
In this edition: Watershed-based Brownfields resource; Interview with Friends of Rural Alabama; 50th anniversary of the Mountain Eagle
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Visit our website: www.easterncoal.org ECRR provides a helping hand to grassroots environmental groups striving to solve water quality issues throughout Appalachia's Coal Country. Eastern Coal Regional Roundtable |