LEGAL DOCKET (SPRING 2007)

NEW CASES

Quinton Mine (Walker County)

    Discharge Monitoring Reports (DMRs) filed with ADEM by Quinton Mining, LLC show that the Quinton Mine in Walker County violated its permit limits for total suspended solids, iron and minimum pH (acid) for a total of 244 days of violation since March, 2005. As a result of these violations we served Notice of Intent to Sue Quinton Mining, LLC on May 16, 2007. The illegal pollution was discharged to Barnes Branch and unnamed tributaries to Burnt Cane Creek in the Mulberry Fork Watershed. Along with our action on the Praco/Pumpkin Center Mines, this NOIS marks Black Warrior Riverkeeper’s first legal action involving coal mines, an important step towards fulfilling our strategic plan by addressing the large amount of illegal pollution discharged by many coal mines. The majority of Alabama’s active coal mines are located in the Black Warrior River Watershed.

    Quinton Mine on the Mulberry Fork.   © Nelson Brooke  2007

Praco and Pumpkin Center Mines (Jefferson and Walker Counties)

    On May 16, 2007 Black Warrior Riverkeeper served Notice of Intent to Sue Cherokee Mining, LLC for violations of the Clean Water Act at the company’s Praco Mine and Pumpkin Center Mine, which are governed under one NPDES permit. We allege 410 violations of the mines’ permit for discharges with unacceptable levels of iron, manganese, total suspended solids, and low pH (acid). The mines discharged the polluted water to tributaries of the Locust Fork of the Black Warrior River. All of the violations took place in 2006.

Pumpkin Center Mine     © Nelson Brooke  2007     

ONGOING CASES

BARD v. SWMA (Jefferson County)

    The Business Alliance for Responsible Development (BARD) has continued its ongoing campaign against truly responsible development by fighting in court the county-wide governmentally-authorized authority with the responsibility of ensuring that BARD’s members protect local waterways whenever they develop or disturb land. BARD has sued Storm Water Management Authority (SWMA) in the Jefferson County Circuit Court in an action that, if successful, could imperil SWMA’s continued existence. Riverkeeper and the Cahaba River Society, as the two watershed environmental groups covering the entire area of Jefferson County, have joined together to intervene in the suit on behalf of SWMA. The suit is currently pending a Summary Judgment Motion filed by SWMA that we believe has an excellent chance of success. We anticipate a full victory for SWMA and we have pledged to help make that happen in every way possible. Polluted stormwater from irresponsible development is one of the largest problems in the Black Warrior Watershed.

Birmingham International Airport (Jefferson County)

    Riverkeeper has taken legal action to prevent stormwater violations at the Birmingham Airport’s runway extension project. This massive construction project, which began around May 2002, has disturbed roughly 243 acres. Stormwater runoff from much of this area has been inadequately contained or treated during most of this time. As a result, Village Creek runs reddish-brown with mud, siltation and sedimentation every time we have a significant rainfall, exacerbating flood potential and ecological concerns. Best Management Practices (BMPs), which are required by state regulation, have been inadequately designed, implemented and/or maintained by the construction contractors. The pollutants have gone as far downstream as Bayview Lake where mud islands are forming in the lake. Riverkeeper filed suit on April 3, 2007 against the Birmingham Airport Authority and three construction companies for their part in this neglect. The suit is currently pending in the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.

Airport expansion pollutes Village Creek with sediment, exacerbating flood potential, scenic concerns, and the activity of preexisting toxins.   © Nelson Brooke

Riley Maze Waste Water Treatment Plant (Marshall County)

    In our last newsletter we updated our readers on this case, noting that we had filed comments on ADEM’s proposed unilateral order to the Arab Sewer Board, which was supposed to address the facility’s 331 violations of the discharge parameters of its water permit and at least 40 unpermitted discharges of raw sewage. As a result of our comments, ADEM more that doubled the fine associated with the Order in a subsequent draft from $13,200 to $27,000, and included multiple provisions instructing the facility’s operators to address problems related to the toxicity of the plant’s effluent. Despite Black Warrior Riverkeeper’s comments requesting that ADEM strengthen the Order even further, the department issued the Administrative Order in late April. We continue to monitor the area.

The Riley Maze WWTP in the city of Arab: 331 Clean Water Act violations and 40 illegal raw sewage discharges.  © Nelson Brooke

    A chemical industry in Arab, AL has been discharging large volumes of bromide into the Riley Maze Wastewater Treatment Plant for years. The Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) oversees the plant’s daily discharge to Riley Maze Creek and administers the permit. This plant is allowed to receive pretreated wastewater from Umicore Specialty Chemicals through ADEM’s indirect discharge permit system.

    Bromide is apparently not considered a pollutant by ADEM, as they have allowed Umicore to discharge it untreated to the wastewater plant, which discharges it untreated into Riley Maze Creek. This creek is on the state’s 303(d) List of impaired waterways due to excessive siltation and toxicity from the wastewater plant. Riley Maze Creek is a tributary to Tibb Creek, also impaired by the wastewater plant’s discharge. A total of nine stream miles are impaired. ADEM has known of these impairments since 1998.

    Black Warrior Riverkeeper began investigating this plant in 2005 and initiated cleanup of its faulty operations by issuing a 60-day Notice of Intent to sue on October 26, 2006. ADEM pre-empted us by taking the case and we have been submitting comments on their draft Consent Order. During this commenting process Riverkeeper exposed an issue that ADEM had wholly overlooked in its Order: toxicity failures at the plant. When a plant fails toxicity tests that means its discharge is a threat to the well-being of aquatic life in the receiving waters. Our findings resulted in substantial changes in the draft Order, including stricter penalties.

    During this same time period Riverkeeper learned that the City of Jasper and the City of Birmingham were both having problems with their
drinking water supply from the Mulberry Fork. Riley Maze Creek & Tibb Creek are tributaries of the Mulberry Fork. Umicore’s unregulated discharge of bromide is compromising two cities’ drinking water.  You would think that ADEM would have immediately halted all discharges of bromide to the river. Nope!  The Birmingham Water Works Board had to discontinue use of the Mulberry Fork water supply until they were sure that bromide was no longer compromising operations. In order to halt the pollution the BWWB had to sue Umicore after failed negotiations. A judge has called for the majority of the bromide to be alternately discharged into a wastewater plant in the Tennessee River basin. 

    Why is bromide threatening our water supply? Amazingly, Umicore was discharging so much into the Mulberry Fork’s tributaries that Birmingham’s water intake some 92 miles downstream was affected.  When bromide comes into contact with chlorine, a commonly used disinfectant for drinking water supplies, it forms disinfectant byproducts known as trihalogenated methanes. Disinfectant byproducts are known to pose a cancer risk to humans. Fore more information on this subject, see the following link from the Journal of Young Investigators: http://www.jyi.org/volumes/volume5/issue4/features/vora.html

Riley Maze Wastewater Treatment Plant in Arab, AL discharges improperly treated wastewater to Riley Maze Creek, prompting legal action. © John Kinney