Category: Environment
Air Quality Forecasts and Alerts
Ambient air quality in Jefferson County is forecast daily year-round for fine particulate matter and during the warm season for ozone. Air Quality Forecasts and Alerts
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What You Can Do
In Jefferson County, almost as much air pollution is caused by motor vehicle traffic as by stationary sources, according to the county Health Department. Read more.
Groups Ask Ivey to Push for New State Environmental Leaders
Environmental groups have asked Gov. Kay Ivey to take steps to remove from office state environmental officials who were implicated during the recent bribery trial over a plan to block the expansion of a Superfund toxic waste site in Tarrant and Inglenook.
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ALDOT Pitches Options for Little Cahaba River Bridge. Opponents Warn of Immediate and Permanent Harm to Drinking Water.
Traffic authorities seeking to extend a road across the Little Cahaba River in southern Jefferson County promised Tuesday to make it a controlled access road and prevent adjacent development in the watershed that protects metropolitan Birmingham’s drinking water supply.
But clean-water advocates poured into a public meeting Tuesday night to insist the risk of contaminating the river even from road and bridge construction outweighs the convenience of connecting Cahaba Beach Road to Sicard Hollow Road. Multiple environmental organizations are urging residents to lobby the state to drop the project.
The project would create a more direct route from U.S. 280 to future Liberty Park development and Grants Mill Road for an estimated 10,000 vehicles a day by 2025. But is not intended to reduce traffic on commuter-congested 280, according to DeJarvis Leonard, Birmingham region engineer, Alabama Department of Transportation. Read more.
Cahaba Beach Road Project: Too Dangerous for Our Drinking Water? River Advocates Say Yes.
The ongoing fight over extending Cahaba Beach Road from U.S. 280 across the Little Cahaba River will heat up with another public meeting scheduled for Tuesday.
Highway engineers will present an update from a meeting a year ago concerning the project’s impact on the river. The Little Cahaba is a vital link in the area’s drinking water supply, connecting the Lake Purdy reservoir to the main Cahaba River.
Environmental groups are rallying forces with the intent of preventing the estimated $10 million to $20 million project of the Alabama Department of Transportation. The department announced it would present a modification of the plan floated a year ago. The Cahaba River Society, Cahaba Riverkeeper, Alabama Rivers Alliance and Southern Environmental Law Center have joined to object to it.
The public involvement meeting will be from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Liberty Park Middle School, 17035 Liberty Pkwy. ALDOT representatives and project designers will be available, with maps of proposed routes, to answer questions. Interested persons can make verbal and written comments on the project and indicate preference for a route or no route. Read more.
Coosa River Gets Help: Federal Court Overturns Alabama Power’s License to Operate 7 Dams, Orders New Look at Waterway’s Environment
Alabama Power Company is mulling how to proceed after a federal appellate court on Monday threw out its license to operate seven dams on the Coosa River.
The ruling called the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s decision to issue the 30-year license “arbitrary and capricious.” The court said the decision was based on reviews and opinion that “were unreasoned and unsupported by substantial evidence.”
The decision by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia requires the case be returned to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to perform a more extensive environmental impact assessment.
The decision was a rare reversal of a FERC dam licensing ruling. In an emailed statement, Alabama Power expressed disappointment, arguing that FERC’s findings “fully support the licensing decision.” Read more.
Loopholes Remain as State’s Environmental Oversight Board OK’s Coal Ash Rules
Last month, the Alabama Department of Environmental Management levied fines of $250,000 on each of six power-generating facilities in the state for excessive groundwater contamination from their coal ash ponds.
On Friday, ADEM’s oversight board unanimously approved new rules that environmental advocacy groups say open “significant loopholes” in the regulations for disposal of coal ash.
The Southern Environmental Law Center contended in a statement that, under the new rules, ADEM could allow utilities to halt groundwater monitoring around coal ash disposal sites, although coal ash contains arsenic, lead, radium and many other toxic substances. ADEM also could decide that a utility doesn’t have to clean up the coal ash ponds in certain circumstances. And ADEM could shorten the length of time a utility must care for the ash after it is covered and closed, which now is 30 years. Read more.
Environmentalists See Loopholes in State’s Coal Ash Plan. Alabama Power Supports Federal Rules
Too many loopholes disguised as “flexibilities.”
That’s what conservation groups and private citizens told the Alabama Department of Environmental Management about its proposed plan to develop a state permitting program to regulate toxic coal ash waste from power plants. The agency held its sole public hearing on the issue Wednesday in Montgomery.
Alabama’s major utility and source of coal ash, Alabama Power Co., said through a spokesman that it supports the current federal rule on coal ash. Environmentalists say the federal rule is more restrictive than the state’s proposed plan. Read more.
Birmingham Council Rejects License for Scrap Metal Processor, Cites Pollution of Black Neighborhoods
March 20, 2018 — Citing a need to change historical disenfranchisement and pollution of Birmingham’s black neighborhoods, the Birmingham City Council voted Tuesday to deny a scrap metal processors license to a company attempting to establish a scrap-processing yard in the Acipco-Finley neighborhood.
A group of citizens from that neighborhood appeared at the meeting’s public hearing to speak against the proposal from Jordan Industrial Services.
Jordan’s attorney, Mike Brown, argued that Jordan had worked to clean up the property, alleging that its previous tenant, Kimmerling Truck Parts and Equipment, had left “a pretty bad eyesore for the community.”
But residents argued that a new coat of paint and some cleaning wouldn’t address the larger issues of air pollution generated by the yard.
A 2012 report by the Houston Chronicle, found “dangerous levels” of hexavalent chromium — a highly carcinogenic pollutant also known as Chrome VI — in the areas surrounding five metal recycling operations in that city. Read more.
Regulators Discount Climate Effects, OK Sabal Trail Pipeline
Conservationists trying to shut down a new natural gas pipeline that starts in Alabama failed to convince federal regulators that greenhouse gas emissions from burning natural gas for power would have a “significant” effect on climate change.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission this week voted three to two along party lines to reissue certification for the Sabal Trail and related pipelines. The Sabal Trail runs from near Alexander City to central Florida.
The pipeline has been in service for several months, but environmental attorneys had hoped it would be stopped after a federal appellate court last year ruled the commission, known as FERC, failed to adequately consider potential climate impacts before initial approval.
“It’s disappointing that federal regulators continue to move us backwards on issues of environmental protection and climate action at a time of such great urgency,” said Michael Hansen, executive director of the Birmingham-based clean-air advocacy group Gasp. Read more.
