When we first reported that Sandstone Cliffs DevCo LLC had filed for a state stormwater permit, we could not independently confirm the permit’s acreage, outfall count, or expiration date, and said so rather than publish numbers we had not verified. We have since verified them directly against the permit itself.
Permit ALR10C89L, issued July 8, 2026, authorizes clearing, grubbing, erosion controls, mass grading, and sediment basins across 270.42 acres at the southeast corner of U.S. Highway 80 and Alabama Highway 21. It anticipates construction beginning August 1, 2026 and running to August 1, 2028. It discharges to Dry Creek and unnamed tributaries through thirteen outfalls. It runs through March 31, 2031.
The thirty-day window to contest that permit closed on August 7, 2026. We did not know it was open. As far as we have been able to find, no one in this county did.
Two more things in that document are worth reading closely.
First, the acreage. For most of this year the figure given to the public was roughly 800 acres. The permit states a total property area of 1,043.91 acres. On August 9, al.com described the project as having grown to 1,050 acres, which is what the permit figure rounds to, though that article does not say where its number came from. Meanwhile a coalition assessment reported up to approximately 1,700 acres under option, and the seven parcels this permit covers total 719.81 deed acres on the county’s own 2025 tax roll. We are not going to pick one of those numbers and call it the truth. We are going to say that the state has now accepted a figure, that it is not the figure this county was given, and that no one has produced the deeds, options, or surveys that would reconcile any of them.
Second, the wetlands. The permit plans state that no jurisdictional wetlands are present. The same plans mark at least six depressed areas that are not to be touched until the Army Corps of Engineers issues a determination confirming that. Those two statements sit in the same document. If there are no wetlands, there is nothing for the Corps to confirm.
We want to be precise about what this permit is, because overstating it would be the easiest mistake to make. It is a construction stormwater permit for early civil work. It is not approval to build the campus. It is not approval to operate it, to run backup generators, to draw water, to discharge wastewater, to fill wetlands, to build road access, to receive a tax abatement, or to take electric service. Every one of those decisions is still ahead.
But it is permission to start moving dirt, and that permission was granted, published, and became uncontestable while the county was still being told there was nothing to see.
What we are asking for has not changed, and this permit sharpens all of it. Produce the deeds, options, and surveys that reconcile the acreage. Produce the Army Corps determination for the six marked areas. Name the end user. And do it before the grading, not after.1234567