Greenwood Park

Greenwood Park (officially the Greenwood Stormwater Management and Recreation Area) is a 34-acre public park in the Greenwood section of the East Birmingham neighborhood between Coosa and Tallapoosa Street just north of Village Creek and I-20/59 on the western edge of the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport. The park is directly opposite the interstate from W. C. Patton Park.

The park sits within the Avondale Creek flood plain and at the outlet of a major storm sewer main servicing 970 acres of commercial and industrial land to the north. Houses on the site were acquired by the city of Birmingham, the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, and the Birmingham Airport Authority with Federal Emergency Management Agency funds for demolition.

The park itself was developed as a project of the Village Creek Greenways Initiative. Design and construction was carried out by McWane Inc. as part of a court settlement over claims made in 2005 by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency that the company had allowed pollutants into Village Creek via Avondale Creek. Nimrod Long & Associates provided landscape design services to the company. During construction, the company was fined $10,000 by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management for violations of its storm runoff permit.

Greenwood Park includes two large bio-retention ponds and engineered bio-swales to help filter pollutants from stormwater runoff and manage its absorption into the soil or its safe flow into Village Creek. In addition to this "constructed wetland" with its 3,600-foot educational walking trail, the park includes a playground, tricycle track, basketball courts, a multi-purpose athletic field, a picnic pavilion and restrooms.

References

• Cooper, Lauren B. (December 18, 2009) "McWane to pay $4M fine for contaminating Avondale Creek." Birmingham News
• "Construction Begins on Greenwood Park" (April 14, 2011) McWane News
• Spencer, Thomas (December 13, 2011) "McWane Inc. fined in permit violations during park construction." Birmingham News