A close view of the growing coal ash mountain in Perry County, Alabama (click on image for more photos)
by Glynn Wilson
Attorney David Ludder has filed an administrative complaint against the Alabama Department of Environmental Management that could result in a federal takeover of the state’s enforcement of national environmental laws by the Environmental Protection Agency and result in a loss of federal funding for the state.
The formal complaint was filed with EPA’s Office of Civil Rights on behalf of the people of Perry County in Alabama’s Black Belt. According to Ludder, they have been the subject of an environmental injustice due to their racial and economic disadvantage by the permitting and placement of a landfill near them that is now full of toxic coal ash from the Tennessee Valley Authority’s major environmental disaster in the Cinch River in 2008.
Ludder’s complaint alleges that the landfill and its contents pollute the environment in a poor, minority area without the means to fight it politically. In addition to potential health problems from the air and water pollution, the landfill exposes local residents to a constant bad odor, lowers property values and causes dangerous traffic problems in the area.
“If EPA determines that ADEM did violate EPA’s regulations without ‘justification,’ EPA must initiate proceedings to deny, annul, suspend or terminate EPA funding to ADEM,” Ludder said in an e-mail interview. “This could cripple ADEM, and no doubt would require ADEM to surrender EPA-authorized programs.”
In spite of major public opposition and a direct threat to the drinking water supply of Alabama’s largest city, the corporate-controled Alabama Surface Mining Commission issued a permit to Shepherd Bend for a coal mine today on the Mulberry Fork of the Black Warrior River.
The Black Warrior Riverkeeper, one of the primary non-profit citizen watchdog groups opposing the mine permit, issued a press release expressing its disappoint with the decision, which does not appear to be in the public interest.
According to information furnished in the application to the commission, that initial increment to be mined is approximately 34 acres of land wholly owned or leased by Shepherd Bend. Assuming the company chooses to mine that first small increment, Shepherd Bend will then have to obtain leases from other property owners, including the University of Alabama System.
In a letter emailed and mailed today to the UA System’s representatives, Black Warrior Riverkeeper reiterated an earlier request that the UA System’s Board of Trustees carefully consider any decision to lease land or mineral rights to Shepherd Bend.
“As a practical matter, without the consent and full participation of the UA System, it may not be cost effective to mine Shepherd Bend,” said Charles Scribner, executive director of the group.
Engineer Trey Glenn Quits Department of Environmental Management
Video by John L. Wathen, Hurricane Creekkeeper
There’s no clear indication from environmental non-profit groups in the state why Glenn resigned at this time, although is it rumored that he has been the subject of ethics charges, negligence of duty, creating total confusion and dissent at the agency and for leading the approval of a permit for millions of tons of toxic TVA coal ash to be deposited in a landfill in Alabama’s Black Belt.
According to a recent report in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the Environmental Protection Agency under President Barack Obama is going to do far more than the agency under President George W. Bush — when science was undermined for big business — to monitor the regulatory activities of states on enforcement of the Clean Air and Water Acts. There is an indication the federal agency may be more willing than ever to step in when states aren’t adequately enforcing the law, according to the new EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, a New Orleans native.
“Many of these state programs are 20, 30 years old, and we might even need to hit the reset button and say, ‘OK, we’re going to hold you to a standard. If you’re doing your job, great, but if you’re not, we’re going to be here going inside until you are,” Jackson said in an interview with reporters and editors back in November.
“It’s EPA’s job to oversee,” Jackson said. “We often say we’re partners, but we’re also delegating our authority to a state, and of course, ultimately that means your ultimate answer would be to take it back.”
Hurricane Creekkeeper John L. Wathen said environmentalists are glad to see him go, but remain anxious about the direction of ADEM.
In another challenge to the Alabama Department of Environmental Management’s failure to protect the purity of the state’s waterways, the Southern Environmental Law Center today petitioned for a hearing on the permit issued last month for a 3,255-acre coal mine in Blount County.
The proposed mine 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, mainly due to sediment.
The petition was filed on behalf of the Black Warrior Riverkeeper and The Friends of the Locust Fork River.
The law center already represents the Black Warrior Riverkeeper in an ongoing legal challenge of ADEM’s actions in permitting the Shepherd Bend coal mine in Walker County. In both cases, the agency has ignored federal and state laws and its own regulations, according to a press release..
“Ultimately, the problem goes beyond these projects, and lands squarely on the shoulders of ADEM which is consistently failing to protect water quality throughout the state,” SELC Senior Attorney Gil Rogers said. “The Rosa and Shepherd Bend coal mines are exhibit A.”
The Rosa coal mine permit is deficient in numerous ways. The mine would discharge pollution into a segment of Locust Fork which is listed by ADEM as “impaired” under the Clean Water Act. Alabama law prohibits causing or contributing to the pollution of an impaired water body. The agency acknowledged the impaired status of the Locust Fork in their permit rationale, but issued the permit anyway.
“ADEM needs to quit rubber-stamping these pollution permits and get serious about its role as the environmental regulator of coal mine operations,” Black Warrior Riverkeeper Nelson Brooke said. “Our waterways are much too precious to be so utterly neglected and exploited.”
During the Bush years, we specialized in covering the politicization of the U.S. justice system as much as any news organization. Our archives are about the most comprehensive for anyone researching the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, and the original case against Richard Scrushy, which Glynn Wilson covered for The New York Times.
