The proposed mine Shepherd Bend will discharge coal mine wastewater into the Mulberry Fork of the Black Warrior River immediately upstream of a Birmingham Water Works Board drinking water intake that daily provides water to around 200,000 people in the greater Birmingham area. This is a shortsighted location for a strip mine.

The BWWB has expressed serious concerns about the mine’s potential to increase treatment costs and harm drinking water quality. The Alabama Department of Environmental Management did not hear those concerns, or those raised by other affected stakeholders, when it issued a wastewater discharge permit to Shepherd Bend, LLC. Black Warrior Riverkeeper and the Southern Environmental Law Center are currently appealing that permit. In the meantime the Alabama Surface Mining Commission is considering whether to issue a permit for the initial 286-acre portion of the strip mine. The majority of a large crowd at the ASMC’s public hearing in August asked that they deny the permit. We await their decision.

What does this mine have to do with the people downstream in Tuscaloosa? Well, of the 1,773 acres of land to be mined, the University of Alabama System owns the majority of the property. In order to mine Shepherd Bend, the mining company has to lease the property form the UA System. Please join us in asking the UA System to do the right thing. We ask the UA System to be a good neighbor and consider better, more responsible uses of their land.

Nelson Brooke is a riverkeeper with the Black Warrior Riverkeeper.