By Sherry Lynn Gros for the Highland Park Review October 12, 2025
Sherry Gros for Highland Park Community Association
There are a few waterkeeper organizations in Mobile: Dog River Clearwater Revival, Mobile Baykeeper, and Highland Park Community Association. Let’s compare how HPca is different from them and how they are the same. Comparisons in the comments below.
Sherry Gros for Highland Park Community Association
First is the business structure: HPca is a C-Corp and files corporate taxes. Whereas DRCR is a 501c3 nonprofit. One way HPca and DRCR are the same is they are both waterkeepers.
HPca and DRCR does the same waterkeeper work: providing access, monitoring water quality, and public education but HPca has the added mission of the ownership of the parks and 25 acres of the Milkhouse Creek. DRCR owns no land. Below is a picture from the DRCR FB page showing their Halls Mill Landing event.
DRCR aligns itself with publicly purchased and owned lands like Halls Mills landing and the Bike Trail and in time people will begin to feel that DRCR has some authority over those lands or that they own the land because of the DRCR events and activities scheduled around them. Common use + Reiterating a sense of ownership + Ownership language in advertising + over Time = ownership by adverse possession instead of by deed. It would be very easy as landowners along the Dog River pass away that lawyers will or may already have quit claim unclaimed, abandoned, or other property to an entity like DRCR or shell company. https://dogriver.org/category/events/awareness-events/ Whereas HPca owns its land and lakebed.
DRCR is encouraged and financially supported to do waterkeeper events whereas HPca is blocked, delayed, and dogged out for doing the exact same waterkeeper activities and events by Mobile City planning and zoning and there have been violent attacks personal attacks on social media from known and unknow characters who hold meetings in groups and in real life to do harm to HPca and the officers of HPca. Especially on Nextdoor and Facebook.
DRCR Board of Director positions are filled with attorneys, doctors, real estate agents, and business agents. Whereas people in this area are afraid to train for the Board of Directors of HPca after the many public examples made by the mob that runs against us. People are terrified of the gang that daily works to destroy our reputation and fears the public from participating in our events. These evil actors go into supporters DMs on social media and “touch” them “lean on them”. They have gone to their homes to bad mouth the HPca and make it clear that a strange eye will be watching them if they even think of supporting us. There mission is to make anyone who supports the HPca Waterkeeper a living hell. And they refer to me, Sherry Gros, as “the crazy lady”. Why don’t the other waterkeeper groups get this treatment? Why have the other waterkeeper groups not reached out to assist us, to defend our waterkeeper work? They have remained silent on the issue and ignored us.
To be continued…