The Birmingham City Council unanimously passed a resolution asking the University of Alabama System not to sell or lease their significant land and mineral holdings to allow coal mining at Shepherd Bend by the Drummond Coal corporation, very near a major source of drinking water upstream.

Black Warrior Riverkeeper shares the City’s concern about the Shepherd Bend Mine, a major threat to the Black Warrior River’s Mulberry Fork and Birmingham-area drinking water, as does The Locust Fork News-Journal.

As editorial policy, we join the environmental group in asking the public to get involved to ask that the UA System join the City of Birmingham, the Birmingham Water Works Board, UA and UAB student organizations, and countless concerned citizens, in opposing this dangerous mine proposal.

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The Black Warrior Riverkeeper non-profit environmental group, part of the national Waterkeeper Alliance, is still putting the pressure on the University of Alabama not to lease land for a coal mine on the Mulberry Fork directly across from a Birmingham drinking water source.

The group emailed an open letter to University of Alabama President Robert E. Witt Wednesday asking that the board of trustees make a public decision on whether the university will lease its land and mineral rights to Shepherd Bend, LLC, a subsidiary of Drummond Coal, for coal mine directly across the river from the Birmingham Water Works’s Mulberry Fork drinking water intake, which supplies tap water daily to about 200,000 customers.

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The U.S. House of Representatives will vote this week on a continuing resolution to keep the government operating for the remainder of the fiscal year, but the Republican bill slashes critical funding for water and other environmental protections, and includes language that would prohibit EPA from regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act or regulating coal ash as a hazardous waste.

Several environmental groups are asking the public to get involved to fight these proposals.

According to Eva Dillard, the staff attorney for the Black Warrior Riverkeeper, the proposed budget cuts $3 billion from the Environmental Protection Agency budget, which is already 29 percent below fiscal year 2010. It also cuts 1.4 billion from the Department of Interior, including $532 million from the Land and Water Conservation Fund. It cuts $5.2 billion from the Department of Agriculture, including $190 million from the Farm Services Agency and $173 million from the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

“In addition to these dramatic budget cuts to critical environmental programs, the House CR includes two provisions – one that would prohibit EPA from taking administrative action to clarify the definition of ‘waters of the U.S.’ and another that would prohibit EPA from regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act,” Dillard said in a press release. “These provisions have nothing to do with saving money and don’t belong in a spending bill. They are simply attacks aimed at preventing EPA from doing its job, which is to protect public health and the environment.”

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Locust Fork Invitational Kayak and Canoe Race 2011

Glynn Wilson

The water ran high, cold and fast this weekend for the Locust Fork Invitational Kayak and Canoe Race of 2011

Glynn Wilson

Bennett Smith in the Locust Fork River at King’s Bend

See more of the series below…
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Glynn Wilson

Two Alabama environmental groups are appealing an administrative law judge’s approval of a permit for a massive strip, auger and underground coal mine in Blount County, Alabama.

The Southern Environmental Law Center, on behalf of the Black Warrior Riverkeeper and Friends of the Locust Fork River, filed the necessary papers this week with the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals. Only a few coal mine permits have ever been appealed to this level in Alabama, according to a press release announcing the action.

The groups say the water pollution control permit for the Rosa Mine issued by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management in October 2009 violates federal and state laws on multiple counts, and would fail utterly to protect water quality.

“The permit that ADEM issued for this huge industrial operation is woefully deficient — there are virtually no meaningful protections for the Locust Fork,” said SELC senior attorney Gil Rogers. “We are committed to protecting these resources and the communities that depend on them, and are not giving up the fight.”

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The 2011 Alabama Cup Whitewater Slalom Series is coming up in February and March, and the groups sponsoring the canoe and kayak races are looking for volunteers now.

Volunteers are needed to help Alabama Cup Racing Association, Friends of the Locust Fork River, Mulberry Race Committee and numerous sponsors that put on the three race series.

“This volunteering is a low pressure job with fun filled opportunities all weekend,” according to the press release. “Volunteer for all weekend or all day or half a day.”

The Locust Fork Invitational will be held February 5-6, the Mulberry Race is March 5-6, and the Locust Fork Whitewater Classic is March 26-27.

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The Big Picture
by Glynn Wilson

The coffee tastes more than a little bitter this morning. It is no sweet tea to see your worst political predictions come true.

I have been railing for the past five and a half years about the need for a coalition to come together to fight the complete corporate takeover of the American political system. Many people got off the couch and fought for the election of Barack Obama in 2008. It was a great victory and there is no doubt he is a better president than George W. Bush and certainly better than anything we could have hoped for from John McCain or Sarah Palin.

But thanks in part to the tea party morons, that election looks like one step forward, two steps back. Give me the Coffee Party any day.

In order to appease the incoming Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, and to show he can broker a bi-partisan deal after all, Obama caved to the GOP without a fight and backed a bill to extend the Bush tax cuts for the richest Americans for two more years, breaking yet another campaign promise to make his deal with the red state devils.

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Glynn Wilson

Turkey Creek Falls on an autumn day

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated 13 miles of Turkey Creek on Tuesday as critical habitat for the endangered Vermilion darter, a tiny, multi-colored fish found only in Jefferson County, Alabama.

The darter’s critical habitat area includes five streams near Pinson, in Turkey Creek and four tributaries, including Beaver Creek, an unnamed tributary to Beaver Creek, Dry Creek and Dry Branch.

“This darter is endangered due to the effects of urbanization of its habitat, including construction of impoundments, gravel extractions, roads and bridges, and decreased water quality and flow,” the agency said in a press release announcing the decision, which was published in today’s Federal Register. The vermilion darter only occurs in sparse, isolated populations in the Turkey Creek watershed, and “surviving populations are highly vulnerable to habitat destruction, deterioration and fragmentation,” according to Fish and Wildlife press officer Tom MacKenzie.

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Alabama Surface Mining Commission Did Not Meet Regulatory Requirements

The Birmingham Water Works Board has filed an appeal against the Alabama Surface Mining Commission’s permit for a Drummond Coal mine at the Shepherd Bend along the Mulberry Fork of the Black Warrior River.

The proposed strip mine site will discharge 2,200 feet upstream of the Mulberry drinking water Intake, and future phases would bring discharges as close as 800 feet from the source of Birmingham’s drinking water supply.

Birmingham officials expressed concerns that chemicals discharged into the water source could adversely affect water quality, and is challenging the permit on the grounds that it does not meet certain state administrative code requirements.

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