Recently, members of the Alabama Gulf Coast Recovery Council voted on projects to move forward for possible funding under the RESTORE Act.

In this batch of proposals, numerous projects for Baldwin County were included, with costs of around $45.6 million to be funded through the Gulf Coast Restoration Trust Fund set up following the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.

Baldwin County has four representatives on the council: the chairman of the Baldwin County Commission (now Frank Burt), Fairhope Mayor Karin Wilson, Gulf Shores Mayor Robert Craft and Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon.

Baldwin County Commissioner Chris Elliott, who just finished his term as chairman of the Baldwin County Commission, served as the commission’s council representative during the process in which the projects were vetted and voted upon and he felt comfortable about the projects that have been approved to move to the next stage.

“As a whole, our projects are mature,” Elliott said. “They’ve been vetted, engineered and designed in such a way that most of them are ready to go as soon as funding becomes available.”

Projects within Baldwin County include:

- Environmental restoration of Cotton Bayou and Terry Cove Canals in Orange Beach

- Feasibility study, planning and preliminary design work for the Gulf Coast Wildlife Recovery and Interpretive Center in Orange Beach

- the Gulf Coast Environment Research Station

- Sanitary Sewer construction project for the city of Daphne

- A new stream-gaging station on Fish River at County Road 32

- Lillian Park beach habitat and shoreline protection

- Expansion of the Orange Beach Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center

- Sea Turtle Nesting Habitat Equipment Replacement Program

- Right-of-Way Acquisition for the Baldwin Beach Express from I-10 to I-65

- Ambassadors of the Environment Program for the city of Gulf Shores

- ALDOT Capacity Improvements for Baldwin County

- A community-based comprehensive land use plan for the Fairhope area

- A working waterfront and greenspace restoration project for Fairhope

- Fort Morgan Parkway Trail Extension

- Canal Road Improvements east of 161

- North Sewer force main upgrade for Orange Beach

- Phase One of Fairhope’s sewer upgrade

- An Eastern Shore Sanitary Sewer Overflows Prevention Plan

Elliott said the projects pushed forward by Baldwin County, especially the ALDOT road projects, were already shovel ready.

“Baldwin’s projects are ready to go,” Elliott said. “The big one is the matching funds for the ALDOT road projects that will kickoff within weeks, which is critical. This is an incredibly important group of projects that were difficult to negotiate between five municipalities, the county and ALDOT - with funding from three different sources to try to make all of it work.”

Elliott said while some may be disappointed that full funding for the Baldwin Beach Express extension to I-65 was not included, it was a way to help move the project forward some.

“There’s a realization with this funding that there isn’t enough money in this fund to build the entire extension,” Elliott said. “It would eat the whole pie for both sides of the bay. So, what we can do is move forward with right-of-way acquisitions, which puts us in a better position to be able to keep moving the project forward.”

Elliott said the current list of priority projects was whittled down from about 500 possible ideas, which took time and effort.

“We’ve worked on a plan to ensure every Baldwin County project is successful in getting through the RFE process to get approved and funded,” Elliott said. “Once the evaluations of these projects come back, we ought to be funded quickly and can move forward making improvements that will help citizens across Baldwin County.”

Elliott said while he and other Baldwin officials are glad to have RESTORE Act money to use, he and others still feel settlement money awarded to the state should have been spent more down here rather than addressing budgetary concerns eat the state level.

“The travesty of this whole thing is that we lacked the ability in Montgomery to convince legislators from outside our area that they shouldn’t take this money from us and do something else with it,” Elliott said. “Almost every community here was impacted in some degree by the spill, and it’s deeply offensive to me that senators and representatives from other areas didn’t see that or didn’t care.”

Editor’s note: Next week, we’ll look at a breakdown of Baldwin County’s RESTORE projects, including interviews with our local mayors talking about how the projects will affect their areas.