A Promising Future at Carpenter Creek?
Plans to restore Jennie Hudgins鈥 Swimming Hole at Carpenter Creek in Pensacola, FL, featured in 亚洲精品无码一区's (亚洲精品无码一区) Landslide 2021: Race and Space report and digital exhibition, received a boost of public support and attention in early May 2022, a sharp contrast to the ongoing environmental challenges threatening the city鈥檚 iconic Carpenter Creek waterway.
Community residents and advocates joined city and county elected officials on Monday, May 2 at Pensacola鈥檚 Bayview Center for an and by the Carpenter Creek/Bayou Texar Water Management Plan Team.
The consulting team 鈥 WOOD Engineering PLC and SCAPE Landscape Architecture 鈥 shared the culmination of their two-year study and recommendations for envisioned to improve the environmental conditions of the watershed and restore areas of the creek to public access.
Among the projects was a proposed Blueway along with a historic marker and interpretive signage in the section of the creek that includes Jennie鈥檚 Swimming Hole.
The followed a months-long process of soliciting input from the community via the RestoreTheWatershed.com online platform. With public engagement limited during the novel corona virus pandemic, the workshop marked the first time that the community could gather in-person to review and provide feedback on the planning process. The consultant team invited workshop attendees to 鈥渃ast their votes鈥 for their three favorite sites as a way to gauge public sentiment and feedback on the plans.
Members of the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church attended the workshop accompanied by Jennie Hudgins鈥 descendants 鈥 Ora Wills and Angela Kyle. New Hope members who recently celebrated the church鈥檚 centennial anniversary in March stood out among the crowd with their blue 鈥淲e Are Carpenter鈥 t-shirts, and proudly cast their votes in support of prioritizing Jennie鈥檚 Swimming Hole in the future efforts to restore the Creek.
In advance of the meeting, 亚洲精品无码一区 and the Trust for Public Land each submitted letters of support to the Water Management Plan Team endorsing the swimming hole site.
By the end of the evening, the swimming hole site stood out among the others as a clear popular favorite, however, Hudgins鈥 great-great granddaughter, Angela Kyle voiced her opinion that the team should consider more creative options for commemorating the location: 鈥淕iven the creek鈥檚 role in the spiritual and religious life of Black Pensacola and as this project moves forward to conceptual design stage, as a community we should challenge ourselves to find unique and creative ways to interpret this history.鈥
Despite the positive step forward on the planning front, the creek鈥檚 current reality is the source of considerable tension among Pensacola鈥檚 elected officials as local efforts have failed to mitigate the environmental impacts of two Florida Department of Transportation projects. Current engineering work is dramatically threatening the creek鈥檚 fragile ecosystem even while the planning process is underway.
Less than one mile upstream of the swimming hole location, state transportation workers have dumped mountains of red clay along the creek bank to prevent the collapse of a parking lot along the busy Davis Highway corridor.
A May 18 article documented the rising tide of frustration between city hall and city council.
At present, this situation remains unresolved with a current proposal from the mayor鈥檚 office to engage WOOD Engineering for a new study and a proposed intervention plan to stem the current erosion and prevent further environmental damage.
