For the second time in five years, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has granted a permit authorizing construction of a proposed Duck River Dam and reservoir in Cullman County.

Col. Peter F. Taylor Jr., the Corps’ Mobile District commander, signed the official notification letter addressed to the Cullman-Morgan Water District.

“This is welcomed news that has been a long time coming,” said Cullman Mayor Don Green. “We were confident the permit would be granted, but it’s good to actually receive the official authorization.”

Green said the awarding of the permit also indicates the things the city, utilities board and water district have been doing over the past several years were the correct things.

“We felt we did all the right things to comply with the judge’s order and the project has already made the area involved a better place environmentally,” Green said. “And while some may disagree, we are very concerned about the environment and specifically the preservation of Duck River and its tributaries.”

Awarding of the permit marks the second time the Duck River Dam project has received Corps of Engineers approval. The last time was in 2000 when the issuance of a construction permit sparked controversy that resulted in the filing of a lawsuit that was joined by a number of environmental groups including the American Canoe Association, Alabama Rivers Alliance, Friends of the Mulberry Fork and Wild Alabama.

Those groups disagreed with the Corps’ initial finding of no significant impact and permitting of the project. As a result of that lawsuit, the project was put on hold for close to three years while the matter was in litigation.

Federal District Judge Karon Bowdre vacated the permit for the project in August 2003, ruling the Corps of Engineers didn’t take “a hard look at the cumulative effects of other proposed projects in the Black Warrior River Basin, the future water quality of the proposed reservoir and the effect the proposed dam will have on the Mulberry Fork of the Black Warrior River.”

The Corps later issued a report that addressed concerns raised by the federal court when the permit was voided. But river advocates argue the supplement to the previous Environmental Assessment is inadequate.

The Cullman Utilities Board, with the assistance of consultants with CH2MHill, a Birmingham company, spent close to a year and a half revising the environmental assessment report to address the judge’s concerns.

Some of the study’s findings include:

‰ The Duck River project wouldn’t create any major cumulative impact, if it was part of a proposed Birmingham Water Works project.

‰ The Mulberry Fork wouldn’t experience a negative effect. The river would experience more even flow.

‰ Pollutants that are in the reservoir can be reduced.

Whether there will be further legal challenges to the reservoir project now that the final permit has been granted is something beyond the Cullman-Morgan Water District’s and Cullman Utilities Board’s control, said Dale Greer, project manager.

“We have worked diligently for the past several years to gather the information requested by the court. We’ve had a lot of experts look at this project and show us how to address our water issues,” Greer said. “Every deficiency listed by the court has been addressed and the draft permit we received from the Corps of Engineers in August confirmed they feel we’ve addressed those concerns adequately.”

As requested by the water district, the permit is good a period of 10 years.

“We requested the extension to give us adequate time to assess exactly what our current and future water needs are projected to be,” Green said. “Now that we have the permit we need to re-evaluate our position. We need to take a close look at how our needs have changed. We need to re-evaluate our costs and now we have time to do that.”

The dam project, estimated at $52 million four years ago, began in 1993 as an effort to find additional water for the county’s then growing poultry industry, which has since gone into decline. Studies done in 1993 showed that the dam would supply the county’s water needs, despite projected population growth, for another 50 to 75 years.

“I have no idea what the estimate would be to construct the dam today,” Greer said. “I think a best guess would be that you could probably add another 10 percent to the last estimate we have, but that that is definitely one of the things we have to look at.”

The city of Cullman owns and operates Lake Catoma through its Utilities Board and sells water to the county, which sells it to independent municipal water systems. The 650-acre reservoir created by damming the Duck River would produce 32 million gallons per day, transported to Cullman’s water treatment plant through a 7-mile pipeline. The reservoir would require 1,200 acres of land, including a 100-foot buffer zone and property downstream.

Another question to consider is whether the dam remains the best alternative water source for the county.

“Our studies indicate we need to have a new water supply available and ready to supply our customers by the year 2016,” Green said. “We’re in good shape today in regard to our water supply, but we don’t need to sit back and wait until the day we need additional water to do something about it because we’ve been 16 years getting to this point.”