Charlotte Observer

05.12.05

Mint Hill endangers an endangered species

Plan to build shopping center atop creek may doom threatened mussel

Rick Roti, special to the Observer

Are you interested in learning how far our region has come in working cooperatively to develop in sustainable ways? Do you want to see our streams protected from further degradation? Do you wonder if the Endangered Species Act is worth the paper it is written on?

And, is it possible for Mint Hill to plop a mall nearly the size of SouthPark right in the middle of the habitat of a creature on the verge of extinction?
If you answered yes to any of the above,you should make your way to Mint Hill Town Hall tonight at 7 to attend the public hearing concerning the proposed development of the Bridges at Mint Hill Mall. Anyone wishing to voice concerns over this egregious example of environmental destruction for the sake of another commercial development can sign up to speak. You'll have two minutes to tell Mint Hill officials how you feel.

This huge mall is planned for the Interstate 485 and Lawyer's Road interchange. If built, it will add 1.3 million square feet of shopping area and all of its attendant stormwater runoff problems to the Goose Creek watershed. Not only is the mall planned in the watershed, incredibly, it is planned to actually straddle Goose Creek - part of the last remaining habitat where the federally endangered Carolina heelsplitter mussel clings to life.

Is building a huge mall in critical habitat a bad idea? You bet it is.

Can Goose Creek survive this mall, together with the road widening, increased traffic and additional commercial development planned adjacent to it? Almost certainly not - especially in light of the lack of leadership shown by Mint Hill in this situation.

Goose Creek is already polluted with fecal coliform bacteria and nutrients. It is being scoured by storm water runoff that has destroyed so many of our region's small streams and creeks. If Mint Hill persists in allowing this poorly conceived and located mall to be built as planned, it will be responsible for the likely disappearance of the heelsplitter mussel from Goose Creek and for the further impairment and degradation of the watershed.

Mint Hill's town board and town manager have been made aware by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Southern Environmental Law Center of serious concerns about the design and location of the shopping center and that this project may fall short of what federal and state agencies require to protect the Goose Creek watershed and the heelsplitter mussel.

Mint Hill has also been made aware of techniques that it could require of developers, to preserve this habitat as development occurs. Even so, Mint Hill is not requiring adequate protection for either Goose Creek or the mussel.

As proposed, the shopping center does not comply with the science-based guidelines developed by the N.C. Wildlife Resource Commission and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2002 to protect threatened and endangered species. Among other problems, the preliminary mall designs won't adequately control the amount of stormwater that will flood off of this huge site and directly affect Goose Creek.

Although techniques exist that will allow responsible development where wildlife can flourish as well as our ever-expanding human population, it is often up to local leaders to make sure that local rules are in place to require such techniques.

The Goose Creek watershed lies completely within Union County and Mint Hill. Rather than working together to protect the watershed, Mint Hill and Union County are competing with each other to develop shopping centers. Visions of tax revenues and jobs are apparently blurring our leaders' vision. While tax revenue and employment opportunities are important for Mint Hill and our region, they must be balanced against the harm to our environment that can come from creating those opportunities. In this case, the destruction of a watershed and the extinction of a species from its habitat would be much too costly.

For our streams and creeks in the Charlotte region, the future is now. Tonight's hearing may be your best opportunity to make your voice heard on that future. If a huge mall can be built straddling a critical habitat that is home to an endangered species, then our stream network is in much greater peril than many of us realize.