Eight Mile Creek Near Chickasaw is Free Flowing Again

 by Julie A. Best, Public Affairs Specialist, USDA-NRCS, Auburn, AL

Although the incorporation of Chickasaw, Alabama, was conceived in 1946, its name and history go back more than 200 years. Chickasaw is a suburb of Mobile, and through the years, the town has emerged from a company-owned town to a bedroom community.

Jim Trout is the current Mayor of Chickasaw. Mayor Trout says, “As World War I loomed, the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company, a division of U.S. Steel out of Birmingham, saw the advantages of this area for shipbuilding, with its deep waterway. The company purchased a large area which included what is now Chickasaw. By the time operations at Chickasaw Shipbuilding and Car Company were well under way, the Armistice was declared, but 14 concrete ships were built and launched before the shipbuilding industry was closed.” After another resurgence of shipbuilding during World War II, with over 93 ships being built and launched at the Port of Chickasaw, the shipbuilding industry for the most part ceased.

The Port facility is now the home of several industrial customers including barge manufacturing and rehab, towing companies, oil and fuel facilities, chemical manufacturers, and a loading terminal for ships. With shipbuilding no longer being the primary employer, Chickasaw with a population of 6,400 is now a “bedroom community.”

With damage from several hurricanes in rapid succession, Chickasaw had some major problems with damaged infrastructure. Chickasaw is surrounded by several small creeks and canals that eventually flow into the Mobile River which flows into Mobile Bay.

After Hurricane Katrina, Eight Mile Creek, one of those small streams, and several surrounding canals, were full of downed trees and debris that the devastation of the hurricane left behind. Mayor Trout says, “After Hurricane Katrina, 100 houses along Eight Mile Creek and Chickasabogue Creek had water in them because of the flooding from the clogged waterways. A town the size of Chickasaw cannot handle problems such as were caused by Hurricane Katrina on our own. We were looking for ways to find assistance to help us with these unexpected problems.”

USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has a program designed to help municipalities that have damaged infrastructure as a result of natural disasters. The Emergency Watershed Protection (EWP) Program responds to emergencies created by natural disasters and assists in relieving hazards to life and property from floods and the products of erosion created by natural disasters that cause a sudden impairment of a watershed. For the watershed to be eligible for assistance, the impairment must significantly exceed that which existed before the disaster.

After Hurricane Katrina, the NRCS district conservationist serving Mobile County contacted each municipality in the county to determine if they had infrastructure damage as a result of the storm. Mayor Trout says, “When the information about the EWP Program came across my desk, we recognized this as a program that would meet our needs.”

NRCS conducted a damage survey report, and the City of Chickasaw applied for assistance through the EWP program. T. Shane Sawyer, Professional Engineer with Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood, Inc., was the project engineer who oversaw the clean up effort along Eight Mile Creek and surrounding waterways. He tells about the need, “Eight Mile Creek and Chickasabogue Creek drain the entire area. The channel was full of debris—downed trees, furniture--you name it, and it was in the waterways. When it rained, the channel would flood.”

To correct the problem, debris was removed from the channel. Along the banks of the creek, debris was cleared about 50 feet on each side. The project used five crews, starting at different places along the creek. Sawyer says, “The clean-up crew got as far up on the banks as they could without disturbing the ground and pulled the debris out of the channel.”

The criteria used for removing the debris were:

• Trees that were damaged and on the ground
• Dead and standing or leaning trees with the root ball exposed with the possibility of overturning and falling into the channel.

Mark Hicks, construction inspector for Goodwyn, Mills, and Cawood, Inc., monitored the debris removal. According to Sawyer, “Mark worked with the contractor on a daily basis. Because of his careful oversight, he deserves the credit for the project turning out as good as it did.”

 Charles Stagner, Maintenance Supervisor for the City of Chickasaw, says, “When the project started, we couldn't get more than 100 yards down the stream. We had to take chain saws and cut out the debris so the contractor could actually see what needed to be done.”

Two access points were designated along the waterways. One was an area where a tractor could be used to haul the debris out and the second site was upstream on Eight Mile Creek where a boat was used. Sawyer says, “We had people picking up the debris by hand so as not to disturb the ground so much.”  The debris was hauled to a landfill. Some silt that was in the creeks and canals was removed and put back on the banks.

When the project was complete, 6.62 miles of channel had been cleared and approximately 2,500 tons of debris had been removed from the area.

Mayor Trout says, “Without the assistance of the Emergency Watershed Protection Program, we could not have handled this problem. We would have still been answering complaints and our residents would still be suffering.” With the financial and technical assistance provided by NRCS, the clogged channel of Eight Mile Creek, and surrounding canals, have been restored to a free-flowing, beautiful waterway that drains the surrounding area. The City of Chickasaw is proud that it is a city which has long been respected throughout the State for its harmonious and stable government. The Chickasaw municipal government worked in partnership with NRCS to handle a problem that was too large for local funding. The total cost of the project was $473,500. NRCS funded 75 percent of the project and the City of Chickasaw picked up the remaining 25 percent.

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