Beach Pre-Report 2009
It’s the time of year for me to pay attention to Beach Monitoring and Baldwin County and related news. Last year I wrote Beach Monitoring and poo, which was a primer for me on beach water quality: enterococcus bacteria and sewerage and runoff and source tracking. This year I’m interested in the Cotton Bayou Beach area – and the water’s fine – the worst sample was still pretty good. Here’s a link to the ADEM Coastal Alabama Beach Monitoring Program.
The City of Orange Beach is considering a Dog Park (“Dog ‘mess’ continues in Orange Beach”) , which has stirred up some controversy. One of the sites under consideration is Waterfront Park:
The original location considered was a small piece of property, adjacent to Water Front Park, but Mayor Tony Kennon expressed issues with that site.
“We have done such a good job with Water Front Park and that whole area, to me a dog park just doesn’t fit in. I think it would be detrimental to the aesthetics of that area,” Kennon said…
“Can you believe that they are going to sit up here and vote to spend money to put a dog park on this property? You know what the dogs are going to do on it? They are going to crap on it. Ten million dollars for a place for dogs to go crap,” McElroy said.
When asked where he thought the city should put the dog park, McElroy suggested a piece of land just behind City Hall.
If the Orange Beach City Council needs another reason NOT to locate the dog park at Waterfront Park: the Beach Monitoring reports show that the water quality has been over the safe threshold several times in the past few years and been close to unsafe several more times. The City Council should consider the impact that dog poo runoff would have on the water quality (dog poo was one of the possible sources of contamination in the swimming advisory I wrote about last year).
BTW, Candidate for Governor Bradley Byrne and candidate for Agricultural Commissioner John McMillan both have ties to Baldwin County.
On a semi-related note – Alabama’s Forever Wild program is up for renewal in 2012 – keep that in mind as you consider candidates for the 2010 elections. Be sure to ask candidates if they support Forever Wild.
In other areas of the country where pets aren’t routinely allowed to roam free, dog parks are seen as a great thing. When you are a responsible pet owner it’s nice to have a place to take your dog to let him/her off-leash and play with other dogs. However, if your impression of pets is that they usually roam free anyway, which would be an accurate impression of Alabama for all but urban areas, then I can understand why McElroy has a poor impression of dog parks.
I don’t know if the proposed location is a good place for a dog park. I’ve never been there. However, Alabama could go a long way in repairing its barefoot, pregnant, baby in a bar image if it would give greater consideration to public facilities like dog parks.
Considering the recent corruption convictions in Orange Beach, maybe IN City Hall may be the right spot for the dog park