A wastewater discharge permit for a coal mine proposed for Shepherd Bend Mine along the Black Warrior River’s Mulberry Fork, right across the river from the Birmingham Water Works Board’s drinking water intake, will be considered by the Alabama Environmental Management Commission Friday. It’s ninth on the agenda of a meeting starting at 11 a.m.

“Putting a massive 1,773 acre strip mine adjacent to one of Birmingham’s major drinking water intakes is ludicrous,” Nelson Brooke, the Blackwarrior Riverkeeper, said in a statement. “This mine proposes 29 wastewater outfalls into the river and its tributaries.”

Native Americans used the river here for centuries while respecting it and the land. Six known archaeological sites dot Shepherd Bend. The Alabama Historical Commission has asked for continued study prior to disturbance of any kind.

The Mulberry Fork supplies Birmingham with tens of millions of gallons of water each day. He said the Birmingham Water Works is concerned about this mine’s potential to pollute the water and raise treatment costs.

“Watershed protection is the key component to a healthy water supply, especially for the land immediately adjacent to the water intake. Once watershed protections are lost and pollution is inevitable, chemical treatment of the water becomes necessary,” Brooke said. “It is much more costly to treat polluted water than clean water.”

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OK, this is funny, but it’s not, especially since Alabama’s Senate delegation voted against the measure. Another embarrassing day to be from Alabamaland…

In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was gang-raped by her co-workers while she was working for Halliburton/KBR in Baghdad. She was detained in a shipping container for at least 24 hours without food, water, or a bed, and “warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she’d be out of a job.” (Jones was not an isolated case.) Jones was prevented from bringing charges in court against KBR because her employment contract stipulated that sexual assault allegations would only be heard in private arbitration.

Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) proposed an amendment to the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill that would withhold defense contracts from companies like KBR “if they restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court.” Speaking on the Senate floor yesterday, Franken said:

The constitution gives everybody the right to due process of law … And today, defense contractors are using fine print in their contracts do deny women like Jamie Leigh Jones their day in court. … The victims of rape and discrimination deserve their day in court [and] Congress plainly has the constitutional power to make that happen.

On the Senate floor, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) spoke against the amendment, calling it “a political attack directed at Halliburton.” Franken responded, “This amendment does not single out a single contractor. This amendment would defund any contractor that refuses to give a victim of rape their day in court.”

In the end, Franken won the debate. His amendment passed by a 68-30 vote, earning the support of 10 Republican senators including that of newly-minted Florida Sen. George LeMieux.

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