March 2025

February 18, 2025

Update: City defies ADEM Requests

The Hoover 2024 MS4 Annual Report has been posted on their website and does not appropriately address all three areas ADEM requested be updated or deleted. The city is defying ADEM, why provoke ADEM? Further, two of the cities involved (Mobile and Montgomery) have notified ADEM their mayors are no longer the point of contact for stormwater issues.  

Misleading stormwater reports put area residents’ health at risk.

Stormwater management is an essential responsibility of nearly every municipality. Done effectively, it impacts our waterways by reducing the amount of polluted runoff that flows into them. In the interest of protecting the health, safety and welfare of Alabama residents, ADEM (Alabama Department of Environmental Management) has ordered the cities of Hoover, Montgomery, Mobile and Prattville to remove erroneous and misleading information and language from official stormwater annual reports.

Each city is responsible for stormwater conveyance systems in the MS4 Area (Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System within the corporate limits of the city). ADEM issues a permit for each city’s stormwater discharge, and in return, the MS4 Municipalities are required to control the quality of stormwater discharged into waters of the state and United States[1] and report on the quality annually.

The language slated for removal has been found to exclude important aspects of the definition of the MS4 Area. In addition, ADEM noted the maps used by all four cities do not accurately represent how the MS4 conveyances discharge to waters of the state nor show the entire city. All four cities also included legal citations limiting the cities’ responsibility; ADEM determined these citations were not relevant. The effect of the language, maps and legal citations would reduce the responsibility of each city for controlling stormwater and pollution. This, in turn, creates an increased risk of adverse health effects for residents who drink, swim, fish and boat in area waters. In what appears to be an effort to circumvent the requirement to remove the misleading language, all four municipalities inserted new but nearly identical language, similarly altered maps and identical legal precedent in their reports.

How and why would four cities submit the same problematic information and subsequent identical changes to ADEM in an apparent attempt to reduce their responsibility, a collaboration that strikes at the heart of the clean water act? Upon examination, the four cities use the same consultant to write MS4 reports: Hydro Engineering Solutions. In addition, two city attorneys have communicated similar information to ADEM (Phillip Corley[2] from Hoover and Ricardo A. Woods from Mobile[3]) regarding Hoover’s draft NPDES Permit in 2023. 

The mayors of each city were notified November 7, 2024 in letters[4] outlining three concerns regarding language in reports submitted by each city to ADEM in January of 2024. These letters are public information. It is unknown whether the four cities are aware of letters going to other cities, whether the contractor (Hydro Engineering Solutions) is aware of all or any letters, who suggested and drafted the changes and whether these changes were authorized by the mayors.

Hoover’s participation in this attempt to minimize its storm water management responsibilities is particularly troubling in view of Ordinance 18-2391. This ordinance applies a fee to property for stormwater management, specifically “to promote effective and efficient compliance with federal and state laws.” Hoover property owners are paying for stormwater management that the city is subverting. Alabama law allows stormwater fees, thus it is likely other cities have stormwater fees with similar rationales.

Concerned media and community members are encouraged to contact the following individuals:

[1] USEPA, https://www.epa.gov/tx/municipal-separate-storm-sewer-system-ms4-storm-water-management-program-swmp  “permittees to develop and implement a comprehensive Storm Water Management Program (SWMP) that must include pollution prevention measures, treatment or removal techniques, monitoring, use of legal authority, and other appropriate measures to control the quality of storm water discharged to the storm drains and thence to waters of the United States.”

[2] https://lf.adem.alabama.gov/WebLink/DocView.aspx?id=105141301&dbid=0

[3] https://lf.adem.alabama.gov/WebLink/DocView.aspx?id=105220186&dbid=0

[4] Hoover https://lf.adem.alabama.gov/WebLink/DocView.aspx?id=105539745&dbid=0&cr=1 

Montgomery https://lf.adem.alabama.gov/WebLink/DocView.aspx?id=105539751&dbid=0

Mobile https://lf.adem.alabama.gov/WebLink/DocView.aspx?id=105539741&dbid=0

Prattville https://lf.adem.alabama.gov/WebLink/DocView.aspx?id=105539743&dbid=0

Cammie Ashmore (ADEM) cammie.ashmore@adem.alabama.gov (334) 271-7795)

Hoover (ADEM permit ALS000027):

Chris Reeves (Hoover city engineer) 205 444-7529 jeffreychris.reeves@hooveralabama.gov

Phillip Corley (Hoover city attorney) (205) 870-0555 pcorley@wallacejordan.com

Prattville (ADEM permit ALS000010) :

Paxton Reiss (Prattville city engineer) (334) 361-3675 paxton.reiss@prattvilleal.gov

Jonathan Larkin Public works assistant director, stormwater coordinator, (334)595-0482

Mobile (ADEM permit ALS000007):

Nick Amberger, P.E. (Mobile city engineer) (251) 208-7426 nick.amberger@cityofmobile.org

Rosemary Ginn, P.E. (Assistant city engineer) (251) 208-6072

Ricardo Woods (Mobile city attorney) (251) 208-7416

Montgomery (ADEM permit ALS000004):

(Montgomery city engineer main number) 334-832-1310

Patrick Dunson, Montgomery city engineer, (334) 625-2690 

Chris Conway, PE, Montgomery Public Works Director, (334) 625-2690

City attorney’s office (334) 625-2050

Dewayne Smith, P.E., CPESC, CPSWQ, CPMSM

Vice President Hydro Engineering Solutions

2124 Moore’s Mill Road, Suite 120

Auburn, AL 36830

(334) 740-6000

Brian Kane, P.E., CPESC, CPMSM
Consultant
Hydro Engineering Solutions
2124 Moore’s Mill Road, Suite 120
Auburn, AL 36830
(334) 332-8035