New- Helena's Coke Oven Park!

The Birmingham News

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

CRS Annual Meeting - Thurs., Jan. 25, 2007- Birmingham and Upcoming Meetings

CRS Annual Meeting - Thurs., Jan. 25, 2007

BLUE GREEN GROWTH with Mayors Gene Melton & Scotty McCallum

5:30 PM interactive displays, 6:30 program

Alabama School of Fine Arts, Birmingam

More info: www.cahabariversociety.org

FREE - Come & bring a friend!

**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!

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 Clips Issues, Support, Celebration
In this edition: Watershed-based Brownfields resource; Interview with Friends of Rural Alabama; 50th anniversary of the Mountain Eagle Coal Creek provides model for watershed-based Brownfields projects The Roundtable's online resource collection now includes a Watershed Brownfields presentation prepared by ARCADIS. This presentation introduces the challenges, objectives, and approaches of a Mine-Scarred Lands Brownfields Assessment project in Anderson County, TN. ARCADIS explains the project's geodatabase construction process, sub-watershed prioritization, site identification process, etc. Access the power point presentation here. ForAla expands GIS program to other Roundtable states Friends of Rural Alabama worked with the EPA and Jacksonville State University to create the American Environmental GIS (or AEGIS). This website makes certain GIS information available over the internet. Currently, Friends of Rural Alabama is expanding this mapping project thanks to funding from the EPA. Soon, 14 more southeastern states will have similar systems. Creek Clips recently spoke with Dr. Bryan Burgess, Director of Friends of Rural Alabama to find out more about this project. First, please tell me a little about the history behind AEGIS. What needs did you see? First, we saw the need to be able to identify potential pollution sites along streams where public access points for water monitoring may be several miles apart and to get more active with scientific data in analyzing non-point pollution sources and prioritizing restoration of Alabama impaired steams. We saw the need for scientific data to show citizens and leaders the major causes of water pollution. How did you go about solving them? Friends of Rural Alabama, Inc. (ForAla) formed a consortium of several Alabama conservation groups, applied for and received an EPA grant that began with developing aerial photography techniques that would be cost effective for conservation groups. The focus of the photography was to capture visual documentation of potential pollution sites on Alabama impaired waterways, and we took some 4000 photos for a couple of years over 2700 miles of polluted streams. Then, we built a GIS to map the sites we photographed, and imported 10 years of Alabama Water Watch (AWW) monitoring data as a layer in the GIS so we could combine water quality data with photos of neighboring sites to begin to understand the sources of non-point pollution. more... How can this project be useful to groups working with mining-impacted waters? ...more. Cumulative impacts of mining, and other pollution sources, can be easily illustrated by showing their footprints of pollution and how footprints overlap to create levels beyond acceptability. We can work with the coal states to map the mining sites and dialogue how best to use the data. What makes the AEGIS model worth repeating in other states? Two of the more significant products resulting from the grant included a desktop GIS and the website GIS.We also developed a technique to map animal feeding operations, data heretofore not available for Alabama watershed planning. The creation of a website hosted at Jacksonville State University contains many of the GIS layers where anyone with internet access could view and download the data and use it for assisting with solving some of their own conservation issues. more... What have you done so far? What is left to do? Our new EPA grant provides the funds to develop these layers and provide them on a desktop GIS to conservation groups in 14 states. It also funds the hosting of the state website data for the duration of the two-year project. Thus far, we have delivered the Ohio system and trained them. That group has been active and asks lots of questions that help us identify areas of improvement. We are about finished with Illinois and plan on delivering to and training them in December. We have imported the satellite images into GIS format for seven states and created many of the data layers for the states GIS. Who are some of the groups working with this project? Rivers Unlimited and Sierra Sentinels in Ohio, Sierra Sentinels and World Wildlife Fund in Tennessee, Sierra Sentinels in Kentucky and llinois. We have lots of interest from other groups, and now with the project underway, we are actively talking with and seeking others to join this project. How have people reacted to this project? The Alabama Environmental Management Commission, for the first time, saw a big picture of the quality of Alabama waters... more... How can people learn more about this project? more... Publishers of Appalachian weekly look back WHITESBURG, Ky. (AP)...Their small staff of mostly volunteers filed scores of stories that attracted national attention to Appalachia, serving as an impetus for the proclaimed War on Poverty and the 1977 Surface Mining and Reclamation Act. They covered the lack of health care in the hills, the dilapidated schools, jobs lost to the mechanization of the coal industry and dangerous mining conditions. more... Get Netty... ...with a our Coal Country Watershed Directory and conversate away. This is a work in progress. You can help by making sure your group is listed correctly. Join a Growing Voice in Coal County Help us support your work: become a member of the Roundtable. Membership is our way of demonstrating the breadth of the growing watershed movement in Coal Country. Study Up How will AML Reauthorization impact your work? Learn how with a handy comparison chart created by Office of Surface Mining as well as articles and interviews. If Creek Clips is forwarded to you by friends or co-workers, we ask that you please consider subscribing. Subscription is FREE and it helps us keep a more accurate count of our readership. Thanks! View archived Creek Clips.
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 119 S. Price Street, Suite 206, Kingwood, WV 26537 Phone: 304.329.8049 Fax: 304.329.3622 Email: info@easterncoal.org

Italian Catholic Cemetery

Italian Catholic Cemetery at West Blocton- The St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church in Montevallo, Alabama has taken an interest in maintenance and upkeep of the Italian Catholic Cemetery located on Primitive Ridge Road in West Blocton. This historic cemetery is the burial site for many of the coal miners of Italian descent and their families. A community workday was held on Saturday, December 16th with a major overhaul of the site, including paving of the road leading to the cemetery by the Bibb County Commission. A website for the cemetery with photos and translations is available at:
http://rootsweb.com/~albibb/cemeteries/italiancathcem.htm

AMD at West Blocton Middle School

The pH/EC Meter, when field tested, is not functioning correctly. A new electrode will have to be purchased. The field survey of the "seep" at the Middle School revealed a 3 to 4' deep channel of bright orange discharge emanating from a seep under the new Middle School.

Lower Cahaba Watershed- Bibb County Projects Making Headway

In the first months of the third year of CRS’s Americorps OSM/VISTA program in the Lower Cahaba Watershed, several new and longstanding community projects in Bibb County have made substantial headway. Our Progress:

Blocton Coke Ovens- 12-4-06 University of Alabama Center for Economic Development and the Town of West Blocton received a grant from the Alabama State Council on the Arts for $4,500 to design a conceptual plan for the Blocton Coke Ovens Park. This initial grant award will make it easier to receive funding from federal and similar grant sources.
Cahaba River National Wildlife Refuge (CRNWR)- The CRNWR will be hiring two maintenance positions in the coming year as part time staff for maintenance at the Refuge.
The Friends of the CRNW Refuge are currently organizing and are embarking on a membership campaign. A logo contest was held at local schools and the official Friends logo will soon be in use.
Geomet, one of the companies that holds the mineral rights lease on the refuge, is currently proposing on-site drilling with a footprint on the Refuge.
A site for the remediation of an approximately 8,000 foot long “high wall” left over from strip mining operations at the Refuge is being addressed by the CRNWR, the Office of Surface Mining (OSM), and the state Abandoned Mine Lands (AML) Program. The high wall poses a threat to human health and safety in its current location off the main gravel road and gravel parking lot on the refuge. The coming years could hold the Refuge as recipient of remediation monies, which are sparse and hard to come by, considering the $5.5 Million backlog of projects of this caliber (Birmingham News, “Abandoned mine sites recovering, but slowly”, Kent Faulk, 12/3/06.)
Italian Catholic Cemetery at West Blocton- The St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church in Montevallo, Alabama is taking an interest in maintenance and upkeep of the Italian Cemetery located on Primitive Ridge Road in West Blocton. This historic cemetery is the burial site for many of the coal miners of Italian descent and their families. A community workday will be held on Saturday, December 16th to clean up the site.
Scenic Designation for the Little Cahaba- The Cahaba River Authority and the Bibb County Citizens for Wildflowers are working together to study and engage property owners on the pros of an initial Bibb County designation of “Scenic River” for the Little Cahaba River, which could serve as a pilot program for the state in naming/honoring significant pristine waterways.
Bibb County and Regional Recreational Tourism and Ecotourism- 11-2-06 the first Bibb County Outdoor Recreation and Planning Meeting was held this November by the University of Alabama Center for Economic Development Director, Nisa Miranda in conjunction with CRS’s OSM/VISTA program. The purpose of the meeting was to introduce and gather ideas on creating Bibb County as an outdoor recreational destination. The natural resources held in the Cahaba River and Talladega National Forest lend Bibb County as an ideal recreational destination for outdoor enthusiasts and local residents alike. Two previous meetings have been held in the county since the summer. We will continue to introduce this idea and to gather information from the residents of Bibb County on to how to achieve our goal of joint economic development And protection of our natural resources.
Two regional meetings have also been held on the topic of ecotourism for the lands surrounding the Cahaba and the Cahaba Canoe Trail. The meetings were held in Birmingham with a collaboration of federal, regional, collegiate, and nonprofit partners. A third meeting is planned for December 13th.
Canoe Trails- The Nature Conservancy has purchased land for a canoe launch in Dallas County off county highway 22. The Alabama Bureau of Tourism and Travel (ABTT) is also focused on waterways and tourism at the close of their Year of Outdoor Alabama, 2006. A statewide Alabama Waterways and Tourism Meeting was held on 12-4-06 to showcase potential and developed “trails” on Alabama Waterways. Five different projects were showcased, including the Cahaba, the Sipsey Fork of the Black Warrior, the Tenn-Tom Waterway, the Tensaw Mobile Delta, and the creation of a statewide, 651 mile Coosa scenic water trail. More information is available on the ABTT Website, www.800alabama.com.
Bibb County Blog- A blog is a unique format for sharing information. It’s a simple way to create a Website, without buying software or having to pay to host a Website. The public can write in and comment on the contents of the blog over the Internet. A blog is monitored, designed, and managed by its originator. To learn more about blogs and to keep up with events in Bibb County and the Lower Cahaba Watershed, keep visiting http://bibbcounty.blogspot.com

State of AMD in Alabama

Abandoned mine sites recovering, but slowly
Acid flows in Alabama streams while the money flows to Western states

The Birmingham News
Sunday, December 03, 2006
KENT FAULK
News staff writer

John Wathen points to colorful features dotting the scarred landscape from his seat in a Cessna 182 soaring above Tuscaloosa County. Light brown sediment clogs one stream. Reddish-orange acidic water flows into another. Aqua green water - likely tinged by aluminum - fills a pond.

Wathen, creekkeeper for the Friends of Hurricane Creek, flies with SouthWings Environmental Group to monitor mining excesses. He blames much of that unnatural environment on abandoned coal strip-mine operations or coal refuse piles from old underground mines.

"It has forever destroyed huge tracts of land and polluted streams," he said.

full article at:
http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1165141492162700.xml&coll=2hamnews.com