Coal Mining: A Threat to Alabama Waters

Alabama has a long history of coal mining. The Black Warrior River watershed, for example, is one of the largest coal-producing regions in the South, with more than 90 active coal mines today. But the Alabama Department of Environmental Management has consistently failed to enforce environmental laws to prevent this intensive mining from harming water quality. As a result, many rivers are polluted by runoff carrying acids, heavy metals and sediment.

SELC and our Alabama partners are waging a legal and policy-reform campaign to compel state regulators to comply with the Clean Water Act and other laws to ensure that future coal mining does not harm water quality or threaten drinking water supplies.

Shepherd Bend
The Black Warrior River and its tributaries are a major source of drinking water for Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, and other Alabama communities. Shepherd Bend LLC is proposing a 1,773-acre surface coal mine in Walker County, just 800 feet upstream of one of the largest intakes for Birmingham's water system.

Notwithstanding grave concerns cited by the Birmingham Water Works Board and the Black Warrior Riverkeeper, ADEM issued a permit in July 2008, without even telling the water works or the Riverkeeper. The permit allows Shepherd Bend to discharge wastewater from its strip mine at more than two dozen points into Mulberry Fork, a tributary of the Black Warrior River. The wastewater would contain iron, aluminum, manganese, chlorides, sulfates, and other contaminants.

SELC filed suit on behalf of the Riverkeeper in December 2008. Our challenge states that ADEM violated state law by failing to set sufficient limits on specific pollutants, and failing to require the mining company to submit a pollution-prevention plan.

In October 2009, the Alabama Environmental Management Commission agreed that the Riverkeeper is entitled to a hearing on whether water quality will be negatively impacted by the mine, and sent that issue back for further proceedings. However, the commission sided with ADEM on the pollution-abatement plan. The agency maintains that such plans can be submitted to the Alabama Surface Mining Commission after the permit is issued. Although this has become the industry "norm" in Alabama, the surface mining commission has no authority over water quality, and state law requires ADEM to review such a pollution-prevention plan in the course of determining whether a discharge permit is adequate to protect water quality. SELC will continue to pursue this critical issue, in court if necessary.

Rosa
The proposed Rosa coal mine in Blount County, also in the Black Warrior River watershed, poses the same problem as the Shepherd Bend project-only potentially worse. ADEM has issued a permit to MCoal for a 3,255-acre coal mine in Blount County that would have more than 60 pollution discharge points into the main stem or feeder streams of the Locust Fork, a tributary of the Black Warrior River that is already on ADEM's list of the worst polluted streams in the state due to sediment.

Once again, ADEM failed to require the company to submit a pollution-prevention plan, and punted the issue to the Surface Mining Commission. In addition, the permit's limits for heavy metals, sediment and other pollutants are virtually identical to the ones in the Shepherd Bend permit, despite the fact that the Rosa mine site would be almost twice the size, have twice the number of discharge points, and would be located in an already-stressed watershed. Further, the permit grants a sweeping exemption from all pollution limits when it rains, even though such limits are especially critical to protect streams and rivers from storm runoff.

On behalf of the Black Warrior Riverkeeper and The Friends of the Locust Fork River, SELC has petitioned for a hearing on the permit.

Four Oaks
A controversial 5000-acre strip mine has been proposed in Lamar County, Alabama.  Aldwych, LLC has applied for an expansion of an existing pollution discharge permit, as well as mining permits from the Alabama Surface Mining Commission.   The mine would affect the tributaries and the main stem of Buttahatchee River, which flows into the Mississippi, where it joins the Tombigbee River.  The Buttahatchee is home to several endangered mussels, and portions of the watershed are designated as critical habitat under the Endangered Species Act.  The Four Oaks mine would potentially add more sediment into the river system, jeopardizing mussel and fish populations.  In addition, the mine could threaten the existing drinking water supply for Lamar County residents. 

The Alabama Rivers Alliance and several Lamar County citizens are gravely concerned about the environmental impacts of this project. Likewise, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Geological Survey of Alabama, and the Lamar County Commission are also concerned about the project.

SELC has met with the Alabama Surface Mining Commission about this project and will be evaluating any permit that is issued to make sure it contains adequate protections.