An unauthorized dam to catch waste if the Hanceville sewer treatment plant failed was removed from Mud Creek Thursday while officials and citizens looked on.

The site on Industrial Road has received attention in the last two years with numerous unsubstantiated complaints that raw sewage was being released into the creek.

According to environmental scientist James Luken with the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, the dam area had collected “biosolids generated from the waste water treatment plant” resulting from treated sewage.

The Hanceville Water and Sewer Board built the berm 18 months to two years ago but did not have a permit to do so, according to a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spokesperson.

The Corps gave Hanceville Sewer and Water Board two options: either file for a permit after the fact or tear the dam down.

Luken, who works in the Decatur Branch, was on site Wednesday and Thursday to witness the cleanup and the dam removal.

“I was asked to come down yesterday morning and to observe the process of the removal of this dam and to insure that if any water quality violations occurred to document and report those water quality violations,” said Luken.

Luken said that if there was a problem at the waste water treatment plant, the dam would allow the city to correct the problem before it gets into the creek.

“That is what the purpose of the dam was originally,” he said. “In a sense, it made sense.”

Before the dam could be removed, the sludge containing the biosolids had to be removed, according to Luken. The liquid was pumped out and solids were taken by dump truck back to the waste treatment plant.

Louisiana Pacific runs a water intake pump at the location but has removed the water intake pipe from the site. The company used the creek water to keep logs wet which are then used to manufacture building products.

The waste treatment plant is inspected twice a year by the Birmingham field office. The visits are unannounced, said Luken.

John Kinney, legal project coordinator with the Black Warrior Riverkeeper — a nonprofit organization that protects the river and its tributaries, said he took some water samples from the creek on Monday.

“I didn’t realize they were going to be removing that dam this week,” he said.

Kinney said water sample results will be available in about a week.

Meanwhile a filter boom — netting packed with hay — will remain in the creek several feet down from where the dam was located as a safety measure to protect the life cycle of the creek, said Ladner.

“Water is the root to all our lives,” he said. “Everything we are doing here is a safety measure to control and maintain effects to the environment downstream from this location.”