MOBILE COUNTY, Ala. (WPMI) — Mobile County residents addressed city leaders during Tuesday’s council meeting to express their opposition to the city’s incorporation of Big Creek Lake, which provides drinking water for Mobile Area Water and Sewer System customers. Last week, the MAWSS board publicly supported the move.
“Our concern is the potential incorporation of the community of Tanner Williams through the incorporation of Big Creek Lake,” said county resident Melissa Gates.
Gates says she has collected more than 300 signatures on a petition against the annexation.
“We love our community, we like our lifestyle. We don’t want to be incorporated into the city of Mobile. We’re also concerned about Semmes, our neighbors, and we love the city of Semmes as well. We feel like they’re grabbing land,” Gates said.
Chief of Staff James Barber says county residents have nothing to worry about because the city is not trying to annex their properties into the city.
“There is a little bit of a fear that we might annex Tanner Williams to the Mississippi border. I’ve never seen any such plans. I’ve never had any discussion about moving along Tanner Williams. The city of Mobile would not agree to us taking that route along Tanner Williams to the Mississippi border for resource reasons because we would have to provide fire, police protection, EMS, all of those things. And we just don’t have the resources to move that far from the city,” Barber said.
Barber says talks about annexing Big Creek Lake are still in the early stages and no plans have been drawn yet. He says they still need to find property owners along 158 willing to connect the city to the lake in order to annex it.
“The concern is that an oil facility, for example, could be built near the headwaters of Big Creek Lake because there is currently no zoning and therefore you can buy property and basically do whatever you want with it. That’s exactly why Tanner Williams residents don’t want to be in town because they want to use the property as they may have for generations. But there is no intention to seize residential areas around Big Creek Lake,” Barber said.
Barber also points out that before the incorporation, there would be a vote among the affected people or property owners who would apply to move to the city.
