Black Warrior River, AL

With more than 77,000 miles of rivers and streams, Alabama is renowned for its waterways and their unmatched biodiversity. High on the state’s list of aquatic treasures is the Black Warrior River, a major source of drinking water for Birmingham and its neighbors. Draining nearly 6,300 square miles, the river basin overlaps with the Warrior Coal Basin, which today encompasses some 100 active mines. Over the years, coal mining has left an indelible mark on the Black Warrior, forever changing the landscape around it and subjecting its waters to acids, heavy metals, sediment, and other pollutants.

The Alabama Department of Environmental Management has a legal duty to protect the state’s rivers and streams from the impacts of coal mining, but it persists in giving rubber-stamp approval to proposed strip mines that would strike yet another blow to water quality in the Black Warrior  river system. The latest case involves a 3,255-acre coal mine in Blount County that would release pollution from more than 60 locations into the watershed of the Locust Fork, a branch of the Black Warrior already suffering from high levels of sediment. Plus, ADEM flouted state law by failing to require a pollution prevention plan for the mine. 

ADEM did the same thing the year before when it ignored the objections of the Birmingham Water Works and approved the Shepherd Bend coal mine, which would discharge wastewater into the Black Warrior’s Mulberry Fork just 800 feet upstream from a major intake for Birmingham’s drinking water. SELC is challenging ADEM’s decisions and seeks to compel the agency to live up to its responsibility to safeguard the state’s waters. To learn more, get the latest news on this issue, or sign up for up for updates, please click here.