There are still a few people who remember when streets like Murphy Mill Road and John D. Odom Road were way out in the country. The late 1970s welcomed Sony’s industrial plant on the western edge of Dothan; Flowers Hospital followed in the early 1980s.
Those areas were once wooded and wild; now they epitomize urban growth, with a thriving mix of medical, retail and residential development.
Most cities across the state have had the good fortune to experience similar cases of growth, as such sprawl often means an increase in jobs, a boost to the local economy and additional tax revenues for the municipalities.
Growth is vital, but no more or less so than preservation.
That’s what has made the state’s Forever Wild program so beneficial to our state. For the last 20 years, money has been set aside from an irrevocable trust created with oil and gas lease revenue to purchase land in the state to be preserved as wild areas.
Forever Wild should have been renewed for another 20 years by lawmakers during this legislative session. Instead, the elected officials chose to pass the decision off to voters, who will consider the matter in a referendum in the November 2012 presidential election.
Perhaps that’s best. Voters overwhelmingly approved the creation of Forever Wild and its funding mechanism in 1992, and the same logic that supported that vote still applies today.
Economically, our state is in dire straits, and some may argue that buying land for preservation isn’t the best use of public funds when many state services are facing budget crises.
However, the Alabama Trust Fund, built on revenue from leases to drill for oil and natural gas beneath our state’s coastal waters, should be squirreled away and used for non-recurring expenses, not poured into the bottomless pit of the state’s operational funds.
State lawmakers should find a way to solve the chronic funding woes in the state’s general and education funds – without raiding the Alabama Trust Fund to do it.
In November 2012, voters will have the opportunity to decide whether using a small portion of the trust income to purchase land for preservation is worthwhile. Considering that land is a limited resource that, more often than not, appreciates in value, the decision should be easy.
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