Summati
THE
n Weekly USPS Publication Number 16300
T h is C om mu n i t y N ewsp a p er is a pu bl ica t ion of E sca m bia / S a n ta Rosa B a r Assoc ia t ion
Section A, Page 1
Vol. 18, No. 31
Visit The Summation Weekly Online: www.summationweekly.com
August 9, 2017
1 Section, 8 Pages
Catching Up with the Coastkeeper written by Hana Frenette photos courtesy Laurie Murphy, The Emerald Coastkeeper Last year, Emerald Coastkeeper Executive Director Laurie Murphy received an email from a woman named Brenda Kinimer who was living along Carpenter’s Creek on Valley Drive. Kinimer was distraught over the trash that had been accumulating on the banks of the creek behind her home—diapers, beer bottles, used camping supplies, pieces of furniture, and several large fallen trees. She’d contacted the City of Pensacola and Escambia County officials in hopes of having them rectify the problems, but was often referred to someone else or was told Murphy walked the entirety of the five-mile creek over the next few months assessing and documenting the problems she encountered. She noted several issues, such as leaking septic tanks, old failing storm water systems, grease traps from restaurants along the creek that were not cleaned out, trash dumpsters out of compliance, homeless camps, significant erosion, flooding and illegal dumping. The once swimmable waterway was grotesquely in need of cleaning, purifying and rejuvenation. “It was quite a problem—the stench was awful, the garbage was a health risk, so much debris and trash needed to be removed,” Murphy said. Murphy noted the meandering stream which empties into Bayou Texar was once a natural and clear creek in the 40s and 50s. “Many families lived along the creek—that was their watering hole—most folks didn’t travel all the way to Pensacola Beach to swim back then. They’d swim, canoe, dive, and spend their time right on Carpenter’s Creek.” Founded in 1999, Emerald Coastkeeper is one of 240 and counting member organizations of the Waterkeeper Alliance. They are a grassroots organization that monitors four main watersheds in the Florida Panhandle. Their mission is to investigate, educate and protect our right to swimmable, fishable and drinkable water. Carpenter’s Creek fit the bill perfectly for the Coastkeeper cause and Murphy and her team began organizing efforts for a major cleanup plan. The first cleanup took place on Dec. 3, 2016. The ECUA donated roll-off containers to house trash from the creek, and the City of Pensacola paid for the removed garbage to be dumped in the county landfill. Roughly 45 people came to the first cleanup, and each subsequent organized clean aver-
the issue wasn’t theirs to deal with. Murphy agreed to make a visit to the woman’s home to analyze where the garbage was coming from. City Assistant Administrator Keith Wilkins and County Natural Resource Director Chips Kirschenfeld met her at the property within a day or two of the email, but neither could help her solve the problem. Later in the week, the logjam and associated trash was removed after the property with the felled tree was found to be City property during Murphy’s investigation.
ages roughly 60-75 volunteers. In addition to human pollution and residential waste, the creek was badly eroded in the April 2014 flood and is currently declared an impaired body of water by the Environmental Protection Agency, creating yet another challenge for volunteers and the waterway. Emerald Coastkeeper has performed three major cleanups over the last year, spanning almost half of the five-mile creek. Volunteers have retrieved bottles and plastic bags, broken electronics, toilets, sinks, car parts and shopping carts. “If you could find it in a landfill, you can find it Carpenter’s Creek,” Murphy said. Murphy noted the number of volunteers typically goes up during the cooler months of the year, and also during the school year, as many college, high school, and middle school students have volunteered their time along the creek. “We love to teach the children the important of maintaining waterways and being careful about where you put your trash,” Murphy said. “Kids are really great, passionate people and they are considerate and they listen and they like being involved, especially with the environment and nature. Then they go home and tell their parents about what they did and what they learned and the information passes along to them as well.” Murphy and her team provide gloves, trash bags, containers, and waders for people who feel more comfortable being protected from the water while cleaning the creek. “You get smelly and dirty, and most of the cleanups this year were very strenuous,” she said. “We’ve removed 18 old, rusty shopping carts and several were so deeply imbedded in the creek bed, that a team of several men spent hours digging them out with shovels.” One shopping cart had been imbedded in the creek so long,
a nearby tree had grown a root base through it—bolt cutters were brought in to remove smaller pieces of the cart at a time. Murphy calculated that more than 3,400 large leaf trash bags of trash have been removed from the creek since last December, amounting to thousands of pounds of garbage. “Recent city code enforcement had helped remove up to nine homeless camps along the creek, and has also been helpful with getting nearby residents to be compliant,” she said. “It takes a lot of people, volunteers, retirees, students, scientists, and city officials to make it happen. Two City of Pensacola city council members, Sherri Myers and Larry B. Johnson, have donated $9,000 to help feed people during the cleanups, provide gloves, rent equipment, and haul large items. We’ve had some truly wonderful sponsors.” Murphy and Emerald Coastkeeper have applied for a RESTORE grant for the amount of 1.3 million dollars, which is in the process of being approved. The grant would provide funding for the hire of an outside entity to complete an official assessment and survey of the creek. The entire restoration of the creek is expected to cost between 10 to 15 million dollars. Murphy has also partnered with city councilwoman Sherri Myers, who plans to bring two proposed ordinances to the council. The first would establish a task force to identify and restore other at-risk waterways within the city, and the second would prohibit businesses, restaurants and apartment complexes from placing trash containers within a certain distance of a waterway. “The city is not fully behind this idea right now, and they don’t really have enough money to take care of all the things we need taken care
of,” Murphy said. “They want to focus more on downtown development— everything is about downtown revitalization, and the rest of the city has forgotten about some of the natural beauty it has to offer. We’re going to go ahead and keep cleaning up and restoring until the money is released to plan further.” While Murphy notes urban development as a cause of the creek degradation, she notes that one of the most common sources of pollution is residential pollution—septic system failure, home chemical dumping from washing cars or improperly disposing of waste, household waste, fertilizers, and animal wastes. Large commercial developments also produce some of the same issues, along with creating impervious pavement, which creates water runoff into the creek and soil. “This level of trash, nutrients and mercury in the water is not a natural occurrence,” Murphy said.“It’s done through urban and residential development and it boils down to not sticking to the comprehensive land development code— the Environmental Protection Agency designated it as impaired—meaning it contains higher or unsafe levels of nutrients and mercury. Unfortunately development is the way for the city to make money. They make money when permits are approved, they get a check—meanwhile, they can never really replace what is lost.” Murphy suggests looking to other regional cities with excellent environmental protections built into their land development codes, like Gainesville and Fairhope, Ala., as models of what to work toward in the immediate future. “Mindful development is very important, and we need to start doing it right,” she said. “If that means raising taxes by a couple of pennies, well—we’re going to spend the money on something anyway.”
Murphy is optimistic about the future health of the creek and hopes in a few years, Emerald Coastkeeper will be able to build two educational centers along the creek in order to teach people about the history and rejuvenation of the waterway. “We’ve found an old English mill from the 1700s that we want to preserve, and we’d like to build several greenways along the creek for hiking and biking,” she said. “We want to not only prevent this body of water from being ruined, but we want to give it back to the community for people to enjoy as well.” All city owned property and homeless camps have been cleaned, with the exception of one large camp located on personal property, which Murphy is hoping to clean up as well. Emerald Coastkeeper is also working with an organization that handles invasive species. On April 28, Grover Robinson and several other county commisioners helped purchase the creek’s headwaters. In early 2018, the county will hire a planner to begin the process of developing a more detailed plan for the RESTORE funding, and the process to fully restore the creek will enter an exciting new phase. In the meantime, Murphy will continue to host community clean ups of the creek, with the next clean scheduled for Sept. 9, off Airport Road. “It’s just so cool to see the amount of the people who show up and how excited they are to give back to the community,” Murphy said. “We’re here for you—to protect you and keep you and your community’s waterways safe.” For more information on Carpenter’s Creek, the Emerald Coastkeeper, or to learn about the health of local waterways, visit emeraldcoastkeeper.org.