MUMBLINGS April 14, 2005

There seems to be an over supply of bad news in recent weeks… killings, rapes, Pope's death and on and on.

But in Baldwin, one of the chief topics of conversation continues to be the rapid growth of the county, high priced real estate, and difficulty in finding skilled people to build or repair homes and buildings, etc.

Although most people seem to be in favor of the county's progress, it does bring on problems, some of which have already been discussed here… schools, transportation and law enforcement. Another problem, in the minds of many people is the environment.

The recent heavy rains, up to 13 and 14 inches, over the period of days, naturally caused havoc along some of our rivers… perhaps mainly the Styx and Fish were the most mentioned. Mother Nature causes as much environmental disturbance as most anything and there's nothing much that can be done about this.

However, the rapid growth causes other environmental problems that must be closely watched and controlled. Over control is also a serious factor in curtailing economic success and growth and progress. Everybody is in favor of a good environment but a small but loud group, doesn't want to see any progress and wants things to stay as they are. Somewhere between this feeling and those who are not interested in watching the environment at all, is the right place. Finding this place is difficult.

Obviously, one of the biggest problems that is caused by this population growth is sewage. Baldwin does not have a countywide sewerage system or even a plan. The cities have their own systems and do a relatively good job. However, heavy rains can cause disaster in these sewerage disposal systems, causing over flowing and drainage in certain areas.

In spite of the fact that millions of dollars are being spent to prevent this, so far it has been impossible for the systems to stay ahead of the game. A few private sewer systems are in the county and they are helping the situation, but probably not nearly enough.

We all recognize the importance of wetlands. It is the proper handling of this that causes trouble with builders and developers of roads and highways and others. There are permitting agencies such as ADEM, Corps of Engineers and others before production can begin. Their approval of projects is necessary. This sometimes leads to long delays and negative answers. Fortunately, in Baldwin we have thousands of acres outside the wetlands and this is where development must be in the future.

On the other hand, Baldwin has vast areas of wetlands such as the Tensaw River bottoms and others. Of all the problems mentioned, including schools, transportation, law enforcement and environment, perhaps it would be safe to say that the most critical, expensive and difficult one is our crowded highways.

As already mentioned here, some of our highways are already so clogged with traffic, at times it is very difficult. And one of the difficulties of building highways is environment. Getting permits from environmental agencies, etc, are difficult, time consuming and expensive. And building these much-needed roads is getting more and more costly.

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Continued

What are we going to do about it? Answers are difficult, but fortunately our cities, county and national highway departments are trying hard to come up with the right answers. Of course, progress is being made but not as rapidly as the automobile traveling continues to increase. It may get to the point where we'll have to do what was done in WWII when gas was rationed, carpooling forced and travel reduced. Gas prices continue to go up but this does not seem to have much affect on travelers. As long as you can drive up to a filling station and fill up with gas, people are going to do so, whether the prices are one dollar, two dollars or whatever.

A lot is being said about rapid transit. This is helpful in some cities but it takes a long time to build these very expensive systems and not many of them will be constructed in the next few years.

There is much talk about a ferry system across Mobile Bay, from Mobile to Fairhope and Point Clear. This sounds romantic but it won't solve many traffic problems. It's too slow and people want their car wherever they are going. This would indicate that it's much easier to find the fault than it is to come up with the right answers. But Mama always told me that where you have problems, you also have opportunities. I take the latter.

See you again soon, I hope.