20 years on patrol: Black Warrior Riverkeeper seeks to protect the water in a 17-county area

Black Warrior Riverkeeper, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in the fall, has worked to protect the Black Warrior River from pollution since 2001.

“We don’t just protect the river itself but all of the lakes, creeks and any land area that connects to it,” said Charles Scribner, the organization’s executive director. “That comprises an area that includes parts of 17 counties.”

The Birmingham-based nonprofit not only patrols the river for pollution and pollution violations but it also uses litigation when necessary.

In late October, BWR filed a notice of intent to sue Drummond Company, a coal mining company based in Birmingham, for alleged pollution discharges at its Maxine Mine site, an abandoned underground mine on the banks of the Locust Fork of the Black Warrior River near Praco, Alabama.

A few days later, the Drummond Company stopped pumping the mine wastewater into Locust Fork, according to Alabama Political Reporter, citing an official with the Alabama Department of Environmental Management.

ADEM also told Drummond that it could not resume the discharges without a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit, BWR staff attorney Eva Dillard said.

Iron City Ink reached out to Drummond Company for a comment, but at press time the company had not responded.

The team at BWR also does water testing, conducts watershed cleanups, recruits volunteers and works to educate the public about the importance of protecting their water resources.

The group’s 20th anniversary is significant, BWR outreach coordinator Katie Fagan said.

“Alabama is blessed with such an amazing and vibrant environment, yet working to protect it, both for the sake of the environment and all of the people who enjoy and rely on it, is an uphill battle,” Fagan said. “For Black Warrior Riverkeeper to turn 20 is a testament to the tenacity of not only the staff, but all of the supporters to protecting and restoring the watershed.”

BWR is a “grassroots movement,” Scribner said.

“I’m proud of how many people have become involved in our work,” he said, citing the group’s thousands of donors and volunteers as one example. “And now in our 20th year, we are seeing more people than ever get their hands dirty, literally and figuratively, in our litter cleanups.”

Patrolling the river

“Riverkeeper is not only part of our name, but it’s also a staff position,” Scribner said, noting that Nelson Brooke has held the job since 2004.

Brooke patrols the entire Black Water River watershed, Scribner said. His job involves investigating pollution problems, highlighting them to the public and developing solutions, which sometimes involve lawsuits, Scribner said.

Brooke patrols the river by foot, canoe, airplane and drones.

His position entails taking videos and pictures of signs of pollution, responding to pollution complaints and talking to people in communities affected by pollution and collecting evidence for legal action, Brooke said.

“We exist as an organization because our state and federal regulatory enforcement authorities are not holding polluters accountable as the Clean Water Act and other environmental statutes were intended by Congress,” Brooke said. “Our state’s Alabama Department of Environmental Management is not doing its job to hold polluters accountable.”

Brooke said ADEM does not take effective, strict and swift enforcement where needed, and when it does choose to levy penalties against polluters, they’re rarely enough to hold them accountable. This happens, he said, because of political interests that overshadow the agency.

He said the current Clean Water Act permit system

that’s in place makes it easy for polluters to apply for and obtain permits but is not geared toward holding them accountable when they don’t follow permit guidelines or acquire a permit.

People in positions of power, Brooke said, are persuaded and told to look the other way, which creates a lax environment for polluters and sends a message to polluters that they can get away with not following environmental laws.

“Unfortunately, Alabama politics just don’t align themselves with holding powerful polluting interests accountable because Alabama politicians are in the business of taking money from powerful interest groups with deep enough pockets to support their campaigns or polluters. That’s the status quo in Alabama,” Brooke said.

BWR uses environmental citizen suits provided by the law as well as other legal statutes to ensure that polluters are held accountable in federal court and are required to “clean up their act” so they don’t continue to violate their Clean Water Act permit, he said.

“ADEM rigorously applies and enforces environmental regulations, which provide protections for both public health and the environment,” M. Lynn Battle, chief of External Affairs at ADEM, said in a statement. “ADEM’s effectiveness as an environmental regulator is validated by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data that ranks ADEM as one of the leading state environmental agencies in Region 4. According to that data, Alabama is consistently among the states with the lowest levels of non-compliance by entities subject to environmental regulation. Yet, despite low non-compliance, total monetary penalties assessed by ADEM have been among the top five in the nation. The data demonstrates that ADEM is both working to ensure permittees follow state and federal environmental rules and is holding them accountable when they do not.”

Joining the Alliance

BWR became a member of the Waterkeeper Alliance in September 2001 after being founded by Birmingham residents David Whiteside and Roger Conville.

Scribner said there were groups in neighboring watersheds such as the Cahaba River Society that were protecting their rivers but no one was protecting the Black Warrior River watershed.

“The Waterkeeper movement, dating back to the Hudson River in New York in the 1960s, has been an incredible model of success for watershed restoration,” Scribner said. “In fact, the Hudson Riverkeeper was the first waterkeeper organization and the Black Warrior Riverkeeper was the 72nd when we were founded in 2001. Now there are over 350 waterkeeper organizations across the world, including 10 in Alabama.’

A team effort

When Brooke collects enough evidence against a polluter, he relays the information to Dillard to file lawsuits, Scribner said. These polluters range from corporate — such as coal mines, factories and construction sites — to governmental ones, including municipal sewage treatment centers, he said.

“In addition to that central combo of patrolling and litigation when necessary, we also have a staff scientist, John Kinney, who tests water quality throughout the basin and posts the water quality results on our website,” Scribner said.

Kinney also engages volunteers of all ages, including college students and graduate school interns, to be involved in water testing and other pollution investigations, he said.

Outreach and education

BWR recently hired Fagan to organize litter cleanups throughout the watershed.

“Katie, along with our new AmeriCorps member Katie Holmes, are now focused on recruiting volunteers of all ages and backgrounds to clean up trash,” Scribner said.

“It’s a great new program, and it came at a really good time with the pandemic because these cleanups are taking place outside,” Scribner said. “So it’s fresh air, and people can spread out as much as they like, and it’s a good way for people to get together in a safe way while helping their communities and their waterways.”

BWR does its work to protect wildlife habitat, public health and outdoor recreation, Scribner said.

He said the organization wants people in Alabama to be able to fish without worrying what they’re feeding their families and swim in the river without catching bacterial infections. Scribner also said people who don’t live close to the river are still affected by its pollution.

“Some people, particularly in more urban areas like downtown Birmingham, may feel very disconnected from the river and its tributaries, but whether they know it or not, the river and its tributaries are coming to them in the form of drinking water,” Scribner said.

Scribner said the organization also educates people about pollution in the Black Warrior River through its website, public presentations and social media.

Either Scribner or Brooke go to classrooms ranging from elementary to graduate schools, civic organizations, churches and businesses to give PowerPoint presentations about the work Black Warrior Riverkeeper does or a particular issue, Scribner said.

“We try to do that as much as possible to really be accessible to the public because we’re doing this for everyone, regardless of their politics, race or age,” Scribner said. “Everyone needs clean water to survive and thrive.”

Scribner said he encourages people to report pollution in the Black Warrior River on the Black Warrior Riverkeeper’s website for Brooke to investigate.

“Obviously our riverkeeper can’t be in 17 counties at once every single day, so getting citizen pollution tips, even anonymous ones, can help us prioritize our investigations,” he said.

Looking to the future

BWR’s 20th anniversary was “exciting,” and the organization had its “most productive year yet” in 2021, Scribner said.

“Even in the midst of a global pandemic, we have had hundreds of volunteers literally get their hands dirty cleaning up litter throughout the watershed,” Fagan said.

She is proud of the impact that the group has had since 2001.

“I think it’s fair to say that Black Warrior Riverkeeper has helped improve the state of the watershed and has shown that they are dedicated to continuing that work through holding polluters accountable, creating partnerships with other groups and engaging the public in clean water advocacy,” Fagan said.

Riverkeeper recently added a timeline showing its history and accomplishments from 2001 through 2021 to its website at blackwarriorriver.org/timeline.