DAPHNE, Ala. — Representatives from the Baldwin County Watershed Coalition on Friday joined county and city officials and environmental watchdog group members at Daphne City Hall to discuss the coalition’s plans for forming a watershed management corporation.

The Alabama state legislature approved the coalition to hold a county-wide referendum on election day, Nov. 2  — to let residents decide whether to incorporate the working watershed group  — after passing an act that authorized the formation of a public corporation for the purpose of managing storm water in Baldwin County and to charge for storm water collection services.

The coalition’s path to incorporation does face obstacles, as audience members pointed out.

An undetermined user fee would likely be installed to cover the coalition’s administrative and operational costs and would be related to the amount of impervious surface a landowner has, officials said. Impervious surfaces include driveways, rooftops and parking lots.

The concept of a user fee, or tax, caused hesitation for some present, as residents are already set to vote on a March 23 referendum on whether to add a 1-cent sales tax to help the Baldwin County Board of Education offset its reported $75 million deficit. The penny-tax, with a three-year life span, would raise approximately $25 million per year in sales tax revenues, according to the school board.

“The people are going to vote in November and they’re going to have the choice to impose this on themselves,” a water coalition Steering Committee spokesperson said. “It’s all going to be laid out for the public when that vote comes up and they’ll decide whether to move forward.”

Education Committee chairperson Cathy Barnette, also a Daphne City Council member, said the option to defer fees for the first year, upon referendum approval, has been considered.

Coalition officials reviewed the group’s prioritized list of 15 projects outlined in its three-year plan, including a regional detention project at the D’Olive Creek Watershed — an area officials said is “one of the biggest problems in the county.”

“What’s happened there is you’ve lost your connectivity between wetlands and stream,” city site containment inspector Ashley Campbell said.

“We know this is going to be a big one,” Technical Committee chairperson Leslie Lassiter said. “Regional detention is very expensive.”

An audience member suggested converting D’Olive Creek into a wetland mitigation bank that Baldwin County and the watershed coalition could use to balance further development. A wetland mitigation bank contains credits that local and federal governments purchase. The credits are used to upgrade protection of a once-threatened waterway while continuing to develop another area.

Lassiter said nearly all of the 15 projects indexed — totaling approximately $3 million — are close to large population bases.

“We look at this as a three-year plan and that’s if we get the funding for this,” Lassiter said.

If the vote fails to pass, she said alternative means of locating funding sources have been identified and steps toward completing a “plan B” scenario are being taken.

“We’ve worked really hard to see this as a grant-finding mission,” she said of her and committee members.

Casi Callaway, executive director of Mobile Baykeepers, suggested the coalition delay November’s vote. She cited an election year, the down economy and the school board’s deficit as reasons for postponing the referendum.

Callaway said she wants to see the coalition take steps to raise public awareness long enough before the vote so that its message is clear before residents go to the polls.

Lassiter disagreed with Callaway’s suggestion to delay the referendum.

“It may not pass, “ Lassiter said. “But if we delay it, we’re going to lose more players. We don’t want to delay it. We’re going to push forward whether it passes or not.”

Mobile Bay National Estuary Program communications manager Sara Shields said raising awareness has been one of the coalition’s top priorities.

“In terms of outreach, members of the coalition’s Education Committee have been giving presentations to community organizations and churches for the past couple of years explaining what storm water is, why it is a challenge and also explaining the goals of the Baldwin County Watershed Coalition as its program is laid out,” Shields said.

The coalition holds work sessions every three months to keep community members informed of the group’s efforts.

Shields said Baldwin County’s watershed needs repair due to several factors.

“To begin with, Baldwin County receives extremely heavy rainfall on soils that are generally highly erodable and drain poorly,” she said. “Add to this a rapid conversion of land from ‘natural’ to ‘urban’ over the last several years, which has meant an increase in impervious surface — anything hardened like a road, roof, or driveway.”

The rain water runs off the hard surfaces into waterways instead of being soaked into the ground.

“Essentially, this means we have more and more water that is running at faster rates into our streams, which is a major cause of the stream bank erosion we are seeing in the D’Olive/Tiawasee Creek watershed in Daphne,” Shields said. “Even the water that runs directly to storm drains can carry sediment, bacteria, litter, fluids from our cars and other pollutants directly into Baldwin County’s waterways untreated.”

Shields said Baldwin County does not currently have in place the necessary infrastructure to curb storm water runoff, which has led to frequent inland flooding, sedimentation, impaired waterways and destruction of habitats.

Priority projects by watershed

Below is an index of the Baldwin County Watershed Coalition’s prioritized list of 15 projects included in its three-year maintenance plan.

Reported project estimates have been included.

The list is as follows: