FAIRHOPE, ALA. — To some people they are just large ditches.

But to others, Fairhope’s extensive system of gullies and ravines are one of the city’s most valuable hidden treasures.

“If you didn’t know better, you’d think you were in the middle of a tropical rain forest,” said Dean Mosher this week, walking the sugar-white sand trail at the bottom of Stack Gully between Fairhope Avenue and Cliff Road just east of Mobile Street. “And this sand acts like a giant sponge. It’s comparable to an expensive and complicated filtration system, but this one’s all natural.”

Earlier this year, Stack Gully underwent a million-dollar restoration project to reinforce some of the banks that had suffered serious erosion after Hurricane Katrina.

And soon, the parklands bordering two of the city’s gullies will increase in size by almost 9 acres, said Mosher, who serves as vice president of the Fairhope Single Tax Corp.

He has been a leader in an effort to have that property transferred from the Baldwin County Board of Education to the FSTC, which will deed it to the city as it has done other parks, giving the municipality its unique identity of open public spaces throughout the city limits.

“The city agrees to maintain the property and not to build on it except for a boardwalk or educational building of modest size,” he said.

Stack Gully is one of several gullies in the city that carry storm water to Mobile Bay, and also double as scenic, if little-known, trails and overlooks.

The largest is Big Mouth Gully, also known as Bayou Chabron, a major stretch of which is located east of Section Street and south of Bayou Boulevard near Fairhope Middle School. An overgrown trail runs along its high bank, and an old staircase built by the Boy Scouts winds down toward its deep bottom. The trail is accessible through an unmarked opening in the trees on Section Street just north of the Eastern Shore Art Center.

Some of the largest and oldest trees in town are found in that wild urban forest just a few hundred yards off one of Fairhope’s busiest main streets, Mosher said.

The BOE will be donating approximately 7 acres of land next to Bayou Chabron and about 2 acres next to Stack Gully, he said.

“It’s absolutely essential for people to understand that we all have a stake in this,” Mosher said Wednesday at the monthly meeting of the Fairhope Environmental Advisory Board.

Mosher briefed the group on the property transfer, saying it would provide important buffers along the major gullies, protecting them as open spaces and storm water runoff channels. He also described some of the erosion problems of the gullies and the possible impact on neighboring property owners.

“These problems have been taken care of,” he said. “The city needs to be commended, as does HMR (Hutchinson, Moore and Rauch), which did the work. HMR did an excellent job in re-enforcing the gullies.”

A 2003 report on the city’s natural resources by Audubon International found that repairing past erosion damage at Stack Gully and preventing further damage there should be one of the city’s top priorities.

“The erosion was really threatening some of the houses on Fairhope Avenue,” said Scott Hutchinson of HMR. “After Katrina, (the Natural Resource and Conservation Service of the USDA) made funds available. The erosion was getting so close to the houses that it triggered the funds.”

Hutchinson said that approximately $1,000,038 was spent on the contract with John G. Walton Construction to repair the large walls and banks of the gully, which starts at Mobile Street and ends at Summit Street.

He said HMR designed and oversaw the project from January to July this year, and added that about $1.4 million was spent on the repairs at Stack Gully and other smaller projects in the city.

“The difference with Fairhope’s gullies is that the bottoms are not wetlands but dry sandy beds,” he said. “The gullies provide a good way of getting storm water from throughout the city into the bay.”

Mosher told the city’s environmental advisory group that an important project would be to map all the gullies, identify all the adjacent property owners and then discuss with them ways of preserving those areas.

“I really applaud the (FSTC) in their project,” said Jim Horner, the FEAB’s chairman. “These really are our natural storm water conveyance systems. If we abuse them, we lose them. Most places have concrete ditches and sluiceways.”

Mosher said efforts to add property to the gully parklands began less than two years ago.

During the height of the property boom in the area, he said that some people had concerns the land would be bought and developed. That led to discussions with school board members, staff and local school officials

“I applaud (local school board member) Bob Callahan who was very gracious,” he said. “(FSTC President) Larry Thomas and I made a presentation to the full board in Loxley six to eight months ago. They unanimously agreed to our plan. We have agreed to pay all legal costs and survey costs.”

He said that the paperwork for the transfer is almost finished. “This will be the largest addition to the city parks since the original deed of the lands from the Single Tax Colony to the city in the 1930s.”

A detailed description of the city’s gullies is found in Audubon International’s “Natural Resources Inventory for the City of Fairhope, Alabama,” located in the Planning Department’s section on the city’s Web site.