The people of Cordova, Alabama and the surrounding communities have a vision of clean, sustainable, positive revitalization for their home on the river.  The Cordova Industrial Development Board and Drummond Coal Company have other ideas.

The people of Cordova, Alabama and the surrounding communities have a vision of clean, sustainable, positive revitalization for their home on the river.  The Cordova Industrial Development Board and Drummond Coal Company have other ideas.

Randy Palmer is a native of the Cordova community and now lives in Tuscaloosa.  Randy is a spokesperson for Concerned Citizens of Cordova, a group of local people who are working hard to protect their town and the Mulberry Fork from the polluting devastation of strip mining.  Their vision of revitalizing their town in a sustainable, healthy way is threatened strip mining proposed by Drummond Coal Company.  And now the Industrial Development Board has voted to proceed with a lease agreement for mineral rights on another site on the Mulberry at Dovertown, about a mile upstream from the Shepherd Bend site.   This link will take you to the article that appeared in the Daily Mountain Eagle the day after the meeting.  The article highlights some very valid comments made by the one dissenting board member.  

Palmer says that the Shepherd Bend Mine site is awaiting a decision from ADEM on a waste water discharge permit.  This permit indicates 29 discharge points directly across from the City of Birmingham’s largest water intake on the Mulberry Fork of the Warrior River.  Birmingham Water Works is very concerned about this proposed mining activity and have expressed this in writing to ADEM and requested a 45-day extension to the comment period.  Black Warrior RiverKeepers and Concerned Citizens of Cordova have requested a public hearing on the permit.  Still no word from ADEM.

The Alabama Historical Commission issued a letter to Shepherd Bend LLC to stop logging operations and any other activity that might destroy Native American archeological sites.  Elizabeth Brown of the AHC said that the area has not had a proper survey and from the proximity of existing archeological sites, location and topography that there are likely significant sites in the area.  This was also expressed by MRS Consultants, a firm retained to do a similar background check.  In spite of this request, logging continues.

In the Dovertown issue, the intent of reserving the mineral rights was to put the property in the hands of a responsible party who would assure the land was reserved to provide jobs for the communities’ children, not to enrich the few with surface holdings or mining stock.  

What you can do:

Wild South will alert e-mail activists about comment periods, public meetings, etc., so get on our e-mail list:  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Call the Birmingham Water Board at 205-244-4000 or click here to send the board an e-mail or click here  and express your concern over contamination of Birmingham’s drinking water supply.

Write letters to the editors of Jasper, Birmingham, and Tuscaloosa newspapers to raise public awareness about this threat to our environment, public water supply and the economic development of the Cordova area:

Daily Mountain Eagle (Jasper) P. O. Box 1469 Jasper, AL 35502-1469  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

The Birmingham News P. O. Box 2553 Birmingham, AL 35202  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

The Tuscaloosa News P. O. Box 20587 Tuscaloosa, AL 35402-0587  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

For more information, contact:

Randy Palmer   (205)792-1869

Black Warrior RiverKeeper   205-458-0095   www.blackwarriorriver.org

Janice Barrett Wild South  256-974-6166   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

To learn more about coal in Alabama’s Warrior Basin, visit the Black Warrior RiverKeeper website:  http://blackwarriorriver.org/coal-mining.html