An Air Quality Alert has been declared for Birmingham, Ala., for Wednesday, Aug 4.
The air will be Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups due to Ozone.
Continuation of high pressure over the area will allow for partly cloudy skies, with highs close to 100 and heat index values as high as 108. There’s a 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after 1 p.m. Calm wind becoming south around 5 mph. Ozone will be in the ORANGE range Wednesday, while PM2.5 remains in the upper yellow range.
Defer using gas-powered engines. Walk, bike, carpool, or use transit if possible. Link errands into one trip. Conserve energy.
“An Evening with Tuscaloosa’s Waterkeepers” will feature watershed presentations and new photography exhibits by the two Waterkeepers protecting Tuscaloosa-area waterways: Nelson Brooke (Black Warrior Riverkeeper) and John Wathen (Hurricane Creekkeeper).
Dr. Doug Phillips of Discovering Alabama will deliver a special introduction. The show is working on a new documentary on BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The admission, parking and food will be provided for free, although both nonprofit Waterkeeper Alliance organizations will accept and encourage optional donations.
Looking at the sunset over Mobile Bay from the north side of the Fort Morgan peninsula, knowing that the Gulf of Mexico and the bay nearby are full of crude oil from the Deepwater Horizon, one can’t help but wonder if this is the final sunset in the summer of discontent for a way of life on the Gulf coast. Nature will heal itself over eons of time. The question is: Can wildlife and human communities dependent on this nature now survive the BP oil gusher of 2010?
The Day Deepwater Horizon Oil Hit Alabama’s Beaches
The British Petroleum corporation is hiring convict labor, including illegal immigrants, to clean the beaches along the Gulf Coast instead of contracting with local fishermen who are out of work due to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as they promised publicly. In trying to use public relations to cover up the massive mess it’s causing, BP officials are saying the company has hired unemployed workers to help with the beach cleanup effort here.
But in this exclusive report, we show that is a lie.
This is how I want to remember the view of the beach at the Gulf State Park Fishing Pier, destroyed in 2004 by Hurricane Ivan but rebuilt in 2009. The new pier is the longest on the Gulf of Mexico at 1540 feet.
With a cool front pushing down from the north and humidity low, the light, color and photosynthesis were astounding this morning as I packed my gear and headed for a break from the oil spill story on Mother’s Day in Birmingham. Due to the weather and the ongoing nature of the story, I did not want to leave.
This scene is not going to hold for long, however. The wind will eventually turn and shift to the prevailing weather pattern, with winds out of the south. When it does, the growing BP oil slick will make its way ashore.
A lot of factors will determine how bad this scene will look in a few days, not least of which is whether the engineers now trying to come up with a plan to stop the leaks can figure something out. The so-named “concrete condom” didn’t work.
A brown pelican heading home to Gaillard Island in Mobile Bay for the night, taken from the beach in the Dauphin Island Audubon Bird Sanctuary, with a gas rig in the background. That’s Sand Island Lighthouse too.
[Click on the image for a larger view]
by Glynn Wilson
Acting on a tip from a group of bird experts, who say there was a major fallout of birds on Dauphin Island Monday on their annual trans-Gulf migration from South America, I trekked all through the Dauphin Island Audubon Bird Sanctuary this afternoon, as well as Indian Shell Mound Park, a wild bird refuge located on the northern shore of Dauphin Island, a barrier island in Mobile County, Alabama.
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.
