SPANISH FORT, Ala. — With the city’s budgeting process for 2012 slated to begin in a few weeks, one local conservation agency has already formally pitched its request for financial support.

Roberta Swann, director of the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program, implored the City Council during Monday’s informal work session to consider entering into a three-year, $5,000-per-year financial agreement with the organization.

“All of our communities benefit from port activity, commercial and recreational fishing and tax revenue generated out of Mobile Bay, so this isn’t about (conditions in) Daphne or Spanish Fort or Dauphin Island being a problem. We have to look at (Mobile Bay) as a common resource, and it’s incumbent upon us all to see it as a cooperative effort,” Swann said.

And the $5,000 per year being requested is not an arbitrary figure, she said, because it’s based on population figures reported in Spanish Fort’s census in 2006, the same year the Mobile Bay NEP took on the task of drafting a comprehensive management plan for the D’Olive Watershed.

Joe’s Branch, she said, falls squarely within Spanish Fort’s city limits and is an originating contributor to erosion and runoff issues plaguing the watershed.

Swann also laid out the city’s financial contributions to the program to date — totaling about $9,100 since 2005 — and noted the conservation program has been able to generate a return-on-investment of $25 for every $1 contributed.

Should the city choose to assume the three-year, $15,000 commitment, that return-on-investment would increase to $65 per $1 spent.

Swann explained that her program was created as part of amendments to the Clean Water Act of 1987, established to “restore the biological and chemical integrity of our waterways, from fish and wildlife as well as recreation.”

The local organization is tasked not with regulating but with “building consensus among the communities around the estuaries to protect water quality.”

In 2002, the organization approved its Comprehensive Conservation Management Plan, consisting of five target areas, 29 objectives and 101 actions.

“We’ve done a fair job of implementing that plan,” she said, noting more than 87 of the proposed 101 actions have been implemented to some degree.

Focus on the D’Olive Watershed and the drafting of its comprehensive management plan is considered one of the effort’s crowning jewels, she said, but the estimated $20 million to $40 million needed to implement the plan necessitates Swann’s petition to the municipalities affected both directly and indirectly by the issues.

At the moment, Swann said her program is working closely with the Alabama Department of Transportation and interests representing Westminster Village to address the “severe erosion issues at the head of Joe’s Branch” just south of Spanish Fort Elementary School.

ALDOT has already come to the table with $200,000 of state money to address the problem, and the Mobile Bay NEP is developing a grant application to contribute as well as in-kind services from Thompson Engineering.

“This is just one really good example of how the NEP benefits the city of Spanish Fort,” Swann said, noting also the program’s involvement in addressing erosion issues at Historic Blakeley State Park and a regional stormwater management intiative.

Mayor Joe Bonner said he personally supports the NEP’s efforts and encouraged council members to consider the request seriously between now and the start of formal budget negotiations.

“It’s not going to go away. Being uphill, we’re always going to have this problem … We’ve got to do something about saving Mobile Bay for our children and grandchildren,” Bonner said.

District 1 Councilman Dennis Dismuke urged caution moving forward, however.

“I support this. I think it’s the right thing to do, but cautiously,” Dismuke said.