A beaver dam backs up water in the Burwell Creek wetlands area. The wetland forest is frequented by waterfowl, beavers and deer.
It’s a new year and across our community, shopping centers sit partially occupied or abandoned all together. These vacant commercial lots are a sad sign of our times, yet rather than finding ways to revitalize these blighted areas, in at least one case city leaders and local developers seem to prefer destroying a city-owned natural area to revamping existing, underused commercial property.
That case involves the city’s Burwell Creek property — 60 acres of streams, wetlands and floodplain forest situated between Ridge Ferry Park and Jackson Hill. Until a shopping center was proposed for this tract, the city had plans to create a “Central Park” there, stretching from the crest of Jackson Hill to the Oostanaula River.
The Burwell Creek wetlands...would you build a shopping center here?
Now, local developers Ledbetter Properties, plan to level the forested site, fill in nearly 50 acres of floodplain and wetlands with some 25-feet of dirt and relocate almost half a mile of Burwell Creek. The developers claim that the project and the relocation of the creek is necessary to prevent its pollution by an abandoned city landfill on the site and that this project will correct what they have portrayed as a serious environmental threat to our community.
The seriousness of this threat, however, has never been documented for no one has conducted thorough tests of the health of Burwell Creek.
Furthermore, the loss of wetlands, floodplain and a future city park may impact our community in ways far greater than the old landfill might. For those who missed it, here’s the past year in the life of this controversial property:
December 2008 — Berry College students present a study of Burwell Creek to the Rome City Commission that shows iron levels in the creek increase after it passes by the landfill site, suggesting that the landfill’s contents may be leaching into the creek. Lacking its own data, Ledbetter Properties begins using this study of a non-hazardous, naturally occurring element to convince city commissioners that Burwell Creek is contaminated and needs “rescuing.” Despite having spent more than $1 million on environmental tests and other work at the site, the company still cannot produce its own evidence of contamination in the creek.
January 2009 — The Oostanaula River floods, covering 80 percent of the proposed building site under as much as nine feet of water. Before year’s end, the site will flood 15 more times. In December, the site was under water for 25 days, raising the question: if a shopping center stands at this location where does this water go… in someone else’s backyard, basement or bedroom?
May 2009 — Rome City Commission votes to extend its agreement with Ledbetter Properties giving the company until Dec. 31, 2011 to finalize its development plans.
The abandoned O'Neill Manufacturing Site in North Rome is on the state's priority list for contaminated sites in Rome. The old city landfill at Burwell Creek has never been placed on that list.
October 2009
— The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) tells Ledbetter Properties what the city should have told them months prior: “No!” In 2008, the City of Rome received $400,000 in EPA grants to test for pollutants at known hazardous waste sites. The funds were earmarked for places like the O’Neill Manufacturing site, which sits adjacent to North Rome neighborhoods.
Eyeing this pot of federal money, Ledbetter Properties persuaded city staff to ignore these neighborhoods and draft a letter to EPA requesting the use of these funds for environmental tests that would be required of the developer by other federal agencies.
CRBI placed calls and letters to EPA objecting to this transfer of taxpayer funds and EPA concurred. The agency told Ledbetter Properties it would have to pay for the tests itself. Thankfully, EPA sided with neighborhoods and future parks.
November 2009 — CRBI continues testing for hazardous substances in Burwell Creek. During the past year, CRBI has tested eight water samples from the creek; some of these tests indicate possible contaminants. Taken together, they show that additional testing should be conducted to determine if pollution levels warrant the relocation of this creek.
As we embark on a new decade, the critical question for this community is simple: do we want a shopping center to replace this publicly-owned and vital floodplain forest or do we want to use it as part of Rome’s “Central Park.”
The citizens seem to want parks. To date more than 1,000 Romans have signed a CRBI petition supporting Rome’s “Central Park.”
CRBI Musselhead Blog 
