Science

Media Criticism Gets Under ADEM Director’s Skin With His Job in the Balance

With his job performance under a microscope, the state’s top environmental regulator has responded to criticism of his handling of a large fish kill on Warrior River tributaries and of 3M Company’s pollution of the Tennessee River. In a five-page letter sent this month to the Alabama Environmental Management Commission, which oversees the Department of Environmental Management, ADEM Director Lance LeFleur defended the response to those and other actions. The commission provides oversight for LeFleur’s department and has been taking public comments on his job performance through July. Read more.

by Hank Black

Energy Storage Research Center Opens in Birmingham

Energy officials from around the country gathered Tuesday on the campus of Southern Research (SR), a Birmingham nonprofit specializing in science and technology, to celebrate the opening of the state’s first Energy Storage Research Center. In his opening remarks, Corey Tyree, SR’s senior director of energy and environment, told the crowd of company executives, engineers and scientists that the center represents a new era. “For 100 years in the electricity industry, the model was basically ‘make, move, sell electricity,’” Tyree said. “With the advent of energy storage, you can ‘make, move, hold, then sell electricity.’ Seems like not a big deal. It’s a big deal. It’s a really big deal.” Read more.

by Mary Scott Hodgin, WBHM 90.3

New Virus Threatens State’s Cotton Crop

A new virus is threatening Alabama’s cotton crop. Many of the state’s cotton farmers are monitoring their fields more closely after agriculture officials issued warnings about the disease. The cotton leafroll dwarf virus has no known cure. The disease is in other southeastern states, and it has reduced cotton yields — measured in bales — by

by Andrew Yeager, WBHM 90.3

Putting a Price Tag on a Fish Kill

WBHM At about 10:30 a.m. on a recent Monday in Walker County, Martha Salomaa parks her white pick-up truck, walks to the edge of a parking lot and points to the river below, the Mulberry Fork. “And so the plant, it’s in Hanceville, which is 28 to 30 miles upstream from here,” she says. Salomaa is referring to the Tyson Foods Inc. chicken rendering plant. That’s where an estimated 220,000 gallons of partially treated wastewater emptied into this section of the Black Warrior River on June 6th. “So by June 10th, you could see hundreds of fish, like floating by, either dead or dying,” Salomaa says. According to state officials, it was Alabama’s largest fish kill in recent years. And Salomaa, who is president of the Walker County conservation group Sipsey Heritage Commission (SHC), said the spill didn’t just kill fish, it contaminated the river with high levels of bacteria. In the days following the incident, SHC and the Black Warrior Riverkeeper found unsafe levels of E. coli almost 30 miles downstream from the site of the spill. As a result, the Sipsey Heritage Commission cancelled its annual kayak race, scheduled for mid-June, and Salomaa said residents avoided the water for several weeks. “You know, like, this river is a way of life,” Salomaa said. “You can’t, you just cannot put a price on that.” But state agencies are tasked with putting a price on it. Read more.

by Mary Scott Hodgin, WBHM 90.3

Frustration With Health Department Intensifies as Environmental Groups Seek to Overturn ABC Coke’s Air Permit Renewal

Environmental groups say ABC Coke’s air permit renewal issued in April is flawed and are appealing to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to agree that it does not comply with requirements of the federal Clean Air Act. The groups are asking the EPA to object to the five-year renewal of the permit issued to the coke plant by the Jefferson County Health Department under Title V of the act. The EPA has until Aug. 13 to respond to the request by the Southern Environmental Law Center and Gasp, a Birmingham-based clear-air advocacy group. The permit renewal was hotly contested by area residents and organizations at a health department public hearing last year, largely over health concerns in the neighborhoods near the Tarrant facility. Read more.

by Hank Black

The Story Behind Parcak’s “Archaeology From Space”

In a coworking space just off of Lakeshore Parkway sits a potential game changer for the future of archaeology – the headquarters of the non-profit GlobalXplorer. The web-based platform invites just about anyone to become a space archaeologist by scanning satellite images in search of undiscovered archaeological sites and signs of looting. It is the brainchild of Sarah Parcak, who is well known for her work using infra-red technology to locate lost tombs, pyramids and settlements in ancient Egypt. Read more.

by Mary Scott Hodgin, WBHM 90.3

Neighborhoods Want Trust Fund Set Up From Proposed ABC Coke’s Benzene Pollution Case

The North Birmingham community made clear this week that it wants money from an ABC Coke pollution penalty to be used to create a trust fund to benefit residents in the surrounding area.   The Jefferson County Department of Health and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would each get half of the proposed $775,000 fine, or $387,500 each, for the agreement that the Drummond Company facility mismanaged the carcinogenic chemical benzene in its byproduct recovery facilities. State Rep. Mary Moore, other community members and the clean-air nonprofit group Gasp said during a news conference Monday that the health board should set up a trust fund for its share of the settlement, with community membership included on an oversight board. Read more.

by Hank Black

ADEM Director Up for Review of His Job Performance Amid Renewed Complaints

Alabama Department of Environmental Management Director Lance LeFleur, who survived scathing attacks from environmental groups on his job performance last year, faces renewed efforts to remove him from office this year. The department’s overseeing body, the Alabama Environmental Management Commission, announced this week that it is seeking public comment on LeFleur’s record as head of the state’s environmental regulatory department for his annual job review. Negative comments about LeFleur’s job record last year centered on his handling of industrial pollution in north Birmingham and whether the Environmental Protection Agency’s 35th Avenue Superfund site should be expanded. Criticism of LeFleur’s department this year has included its handling of industrial pollution discharges that have resulted in large fish kills on the Mulberry Fork as well as water quality issues on the Tennessee River near Decatur. Read more.

by Hank Black

New Map Provides Comprehensive Graphic of Coal Ash’s Groundwater Pollution at State Power Plants

While some electric utilities in some other southeastern U.S. states are moving millions of tons of toxic coal ash away from waterways and into lined landfills, those in Alabama are holding fast to plans to corral their toxic material in unlined pits at their present locations, an option labeled cap-in-place. Four nonprofit environmental groups this week released a new ineractive map they say shows the potential danger of the cap-in-place strategy chosen in the state by Alabama Power Company, PowerSouth Energy Cooperative, and the Tennessee Valley Authority. The maps, based on results of the utilities’ federally required tests of groundwater pollution near the facilities, show where arsenic, molybdenum, and other chemicals persist at levels that exceed government-set standards. While the information has been available on the utilities’ websites, it previously has not been aggregated graphically in map form. Read more.

by Hank Black

Controversial Coal Mine at Dovertown Wins 5-Year Permit Renewal, Can’t Use Brownfield Portion Without Pollution Plan

The Alabama Surface Mining Commission issued a permit renewal last week for Mays Mining Company’s Mine No. 5 on the Mulberry Fork. But the company has to meet multiple court-ordered and other conditions before beginning to operate at the site near the Dovertown community. Gary Hosmer, a Dovertown resident who has led the 14 year-long local opposition to mining in the 200-resident Walker County community, said, “We’re going to fight it as far as we can, and then some.” The mine site is about five miles upstream of a major intake pipe that supplies the Birmingham Water Works Board and serves 200,000 customers. The water works has said the mining is a threat to the area’s drinking water quality. The utility went to Jefferson County Circuit Court to stop the mine from operating on the Black Warrior tributary, and officials said in a statement, “We are reviewing the (commission’s) decision and evaluating the BWWB’s options.” Read more.

by Hank Black