The city of Birmingham, Ala., has voted to withdraw from the agency monitoring storm water pollution in Jefferson County. The pullout may put an end to the area's already suffering Storm Water Management Authority (SWMA).

"It's like you took a shotgun and blew out the center of a spiderweb," said Trussville Mayor Gene Melton, who also serves as chair of the SWMA coalition of 22 local governments. "You talk about it being difficult to continue to operate under the program; it appears it's going to be almost impossible to do."

In order to be completely separated from the SWMA, the city must still take a number of actions. Five other cities left the agency one year ago, when it proposed raising business and homeowner fees. Former Mayor Bernard Kincaid chose to keep Birmingham on board at the time, but Melton said he does not hope to persuade Mayor Larry Langford to do the same now.

SWMA, which monitors and controls pollution from area streams and rivers, allows Jefferson County municipalities to pool their resources into one staff and experience fewer individual boundaries and testing points.

In order to determine who is responsible for pollution, a city or cooperative authority tests water bodies at each point from which they enter or leave one permitted group. Pulling the largest, central city from the authority, then, might add countless monitoring points for SWMA, Melton said. Furthermore, Birmingham residents and business owners provided SWMA approximately $775,000 annually, about 40 percent of the authority's budget.

SWMA's remaining 21 members will have to donate money or raise rates for the group to continue doing a credible job, according to Melton. Otherwise, he said it will likely disband.

Source: The Birmingham News