DAPHNE, Ala. — If knowledge is power then proponents of the proposed Comprehensive Watershed Management Plan are hoping to create the most powerful—and informed—communities possible to address continued deterioration of some of Baldwin County’s most sensitive areas.

The plan, introduced one week ago, outlines detailed strategies for addressing sedimentation, creek-bank erosion, flooding and other issues associated with land-use changes and development in the Daphne, Spanish Fort and Malbis communities.

But in order to combat the forces eroding the watersheds of D’Olive Creek, Tiawassee Creek and Joe’s Branch, Glen Coffee said the public must understand how and why the area became compromised in the first place.

Coffee is the Thompson Engineering project manager who authored the plan at the request of a coalition of federal, state and local agencies as well as development and real-estate interests and property owners. Spearheaded by the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program, the plan presents a 10-year blueprint to address concerns.

Coffee said the area in question encompasses 7,700 acres shared by Daphne, Spanish Fort and portions of Baldwin County.

Three major streams, representing a total of 23 miles, have been degraded systematically by stormwater runoff, channel instability and excessive sediments over the past four decades.

“This didn’t happen overnight, and it won’t be fixed overnight, but you have to understand how it started to get a handle on how to address it,” Coffee told a community forum June 29 at Five Rivers Delta Resource Center as he unveiled the plan.

Coffee said adoption of the plan, or some variation on it, is particularly timely because the state will has begun establishing maximum daily sediment-load standards for streams ruled in distress. Those standards will take effect in 2013, and Coffee said he is hopeful the portions of the watershed management plan will be incorporated into those calculations.

See the rest of this story in the July 7 Daphne Bulletin and Spanish Fort Sun.