PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release: January 14, 1998
On behalf of the state-wide conservation group Wild Alabama, WildLaw, a Montgomery non-profit law firm, filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit today on the Army Corps of Engineers, Togo West, the Secretary of the Army, and Col. William S. Vogel, the Mobile District Engineer. Wild Alabama filed two FOIA requests on the Army Corps, one to the Secretary's Office in Washington, D.C. and one to the Mobile District Office. Both those requests have not been answered within the time limits allowed under FOIA. The FOIA requests seek to uncover the reasons behind the secretive lease of the publicly-owned Cooter's Pond Park on the Alabama River to the Retirement Systems of Alabama for use in a planned Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail course.
Cooter's Pond was the last, best publicly-owned, old growth, bottomland hardwood forest in central Alabama. America has lost more than 80% of its bottomland hardwood forests, which serve as valuable resources providing us with wildlife, flood control, improved water quality, pollution removal, fisheries, scenic beauty and a host of other services. According to the Fish and Wildlife Service, Cooter's Pond in its natural condition had values "of national significance." The park had trees 200 years old and older and up to five feet in diameter; it was unequaled habitat for turkey and migratory song birds. Montgomery and Central Alabama have very few publicly-owned wildlands available for recreation, and Cooter's Pond was the best of them. After having virtually no public input on this project, the Army Corps decided to give Cooter's Pond away to be destroyed.
In an maneuver designed to avoid scrutiny from a federal court and the public, the Army signed a lease giving Cooter's Pond to the RSA for the princely sum of nothing and did it on the weekend of October 31-November 2. Immediately thereafter, the RSA rolled in bulldozers to cut the very heart out of the best and most beautiful part of Cooter's Pond on that weekend. As a wildland, Cooter's Pond was invaluable. Even as development property, its value was in the 10 to 15 million dollar range. But the taxpayers lost this irreplaceable place and got nothing in return. As stated by Wild Alabama Executive Director Lamar Marshall, "We are not opposed to building this golf course on private lands, but destroying a unique publicly-owned treasure and fleecing the taxpayers out of millions is another matter entirely. This is the most undemocratic and despicable thing I have ever seen."
In order to get to the bottom of this massive taxpayer rip-off and unconscionable corporate welfare land scheme, Wild Alabama demanded full disclosure from the Army, but the Army, in violation of the law, has not responded. As stated by WildLaw Executive Director Ray Vaughan, "If this Cooter's Pond land grab was such an up-and-up deal, why is the Corps hiding all the documents about it?"
For more information, contact Lamar Marshall at Wild Alabama, 205/974-3166, or
Ray Vaughan at WildLaw, 334/265-6529.