FAIRHOPE, Ala. — The project superintendent for the company building the Publix Super Market at U.S. 98 and Parker Road entered guilty pleas this week for two violations of the city’s land disturbance and wetlands ordinances.

On Wednesday, Municipal Judge Haymes Snedeker accepted guilty pleas for two incidents, one in February and one last weekend, but delayed sentencing of Byron Chambers until Oct. 7. Chambers is the project superintendent for Sunbelt General Contractors, the Canton, Ga.-based company that holds the construction permit for the 54,000-square-foot grocery store and shopping center.

“The point of that ruling was to ensure full compliance (with the city’s ordinances),” Snedeker said Thursday. “By withholding adjudication, I wanted something to hang over Sunbelt’s head to ensure full compliance.”

The city’s land disturbance and wetlands ordinances authorize fines of up to $500 and six months in jail or both. The wetlands ordinance adopted by the City Council last year also authorizes the city to order restoration of the wetland area, and if not done, to perform the restoration itself and charge the defendant for the costs.

“On March 30 at approximately 12 p.m., the detention structure was intentionally opened up with the intention of discharging untreated stormwater and sediment into wetlands,” states the municipal offense ticket charging the Sunbelt employee with a violation of the wetlands ordinance.

Heavy rains of more than five inches this weekend filled the detention pond at the Publix site, according to Jim Horner, chairman of the Fairhope Environmental Advisory Board, who also serves on a recently formed committee to revise city ordinances regarding Best Management Practices for construction projects.

“(The general contractor) discovered that the standing pipe in the detention pond had been constructed improperly,” Horner said. “It was built on mud instead of a concrete slab. It was working the best it could under the circumstances. But with all the rain, they concluded they didn’t have the luxury of time and needed to pull out the pipe to construct it properly.”

He said the company used a backhoe to yank the large rectangular standing pipe out, resulting in a release of water through a pipe and past a rock outfall, carrying sediment down a gully and into Fly Creek. That rock basin constructed to slow down water had already been “blown out” by the rains before the pond was opened, creating a gully through wetlands to Fly Creek, according to city officials.

Horner said the detention pond was built too small to handle 100-year storm events, as required by existing city ordinances.

“We are requiring re-certification of the detention pond and will be monitoring every step of the construction process,” said Jonathan Smith, the city’s planning director.

The city charged the Sunbelt employee with a wetlands ordinance violation for the March 30 incident and a land disturbance ordinance violation for a Feb. 14 incident, when sediment migrated off site and turbid water was discharged into Fly Creek following heavy rains, according to city records.

In September, the state environmental agency issued a Notice of Violation against Regency Centers, the developer of the Publix project, for a stormwater discharge incident into Fly Creek that occurred in August.

The Sept. 26 letter to Regency from the Alabama Department of Environmental Management stated that “due to the serious nature of these violations, the department is considering additional enforcement to include civil penalties.”

After the February incident, ADEM spokesman Scott Hughes said that “compliance history” is one issue the agency looks at when considering additional enforcement actions and the issuance of civil penalties, but he would not speculate on what impact that February event would have on any state enforcement actions.

On Friday morning, Hughes said, “At this time, (ADEM) is reviewing all aspects of the issues surrounding this facility and will take the necessary steps to ensure the protection of water quality in Alabama.”

The Publix project has been the object of considerable criticism from local residents at city meetings and in the media, claiming violations of city environmental and building ordinances. The project is also at the center of federal litigation involving a proposed project at the so-called Dyas Triangle at the scenic entrance to Fairhope, where the developer was seeking to obtain permission to build a grocery store that also exceeded the city’s “big box” square footage limitations but was denied by the city.

“I think his logic is good,” said Jackie Wavrunek of the Fly Creek Preservation Association, referring to Snedeker’s ruling in the city cases against the Publix general contractor. “There’s been no deterrent effect on what they are doing there. But I think it’s unfair that Sunbelt is the only one getting charged. Regency or Volkert (the project engineering firm) should have also been charged. Regency’s getting away with everything.”

Prior to this weekend’s stormwater event, members of the City Council have said little about problems at the Publix site, citing instructions from city attorneys handling the defense of the Dyas lawsuit to refrain from commenting. But this week, City Council President Debbie Quinn broke that silence when she delivered a letter Wednesday to the council and other city officials.

“After this last rainfall on March 27-28, I hope this council will decide it’s time to ramp up our policies for stormwater detention in Fairhope. At the Publix site, Volkert was let go prior to overseeing the building and certification of the detention facility.”

Quinn made several recommendations for how to respond to the issue, which she said she may address at the next council meeting.

“With the (penalties) available to him, I think what he did is as good a conclusion as any,” Horner said regarding Snedeker’s Wednesday ruling. “With our revision of BMP ordinances, we are looking to move the decimal point over one place to authorize up to $5,000 fines per incident.”

Horner also said of the Sunbelt contractor employee’s responsibility for the offense:“If anyone has his heart in the right place, it’s B.J. Chambers.”