An industrial plant has polluted North Birmingham’s air, groundwater and soil for generations, but Alabama nonprofits look to combat this by filing an intent to sue. Groups including Black Warrior Riverkeeper and Southern Environmental Law Center discovered that Bluestone Coke has violated the Clean Water Act as well as its permit with the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM). Nonprofits gave Bluestone Coke 60 days, beginning July 14, to address these violations.
Bluestone Coke ceased operations in late 2021. The manufacturing plant formerly produced coke, which is a key ingredient in steelmaking. The plant is owned by the family of West Virginia Governor Jim Justice, who is running in the U.S. senatorial race next year.
Despite the plant’s inactivity, Black Warrior Riverkeeper and other nonprofits discovered Bluestone Coke is violating the Clean Water Act in several different ways. The plant has violated its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit with ADEM more than 390 times in the last five years alone. This permit indicates which pollutants can be discharged and how much a plant can discharge on a regular basis. Bluestone Coke has discharged pollutants that breach this permit, including toxic heavy metals like Barium and Strontium and E. coli bacteria. The plant’s permit with ADEM also allows it to discharge wastewater from a tributary into Five Mile Creek, which flows into Locust Fork of the Black Warrior River. Through field studies, the Black Warrior Riverkeeper found that the plant has been discharging polluted stormwater out of unpermitted locations and into this tributary.
Nelson Brooke is the Black Warrior Riverkeeper. Brooke said though the plant stopped all active operations, the damage has already been done.
“The plant has been in operation for over 100 years. Because it’s been in operation for so long and because of the size and scope of the operation, the facility grounds cover dozens, if not hundreds, of acres,” he said. “From that multi-decadal process, they contaminated the soil. Though they’re not actively emitting air pollution and wastewater, there’s still all of this solid waste, coal, coal dust, coke, slag and all sorts of byproducts. The groundwater is [also] contaminated, so, whenever it rains, these products are running off the land into local drainages and eventually into streams that feed out into Five Mile Creek.”
Black Warrior Riverkeeper also reports Bluestone Coke fails to maintain an onsite water treatment facility for wastewater and groundwater that flows from the plant and into the tributary. Brooke said though the plant has clearly broken state and federal regulations, authorities are failing to hold Bluestone Coke accountable.
“Alabama has a very lax, very lazy, very apathetic regulatory enforcement process,” he said. “The agencies don’t take seriously stepping in and holding polluters accountable. This is what we get when we have that environment that’s friendly to polluters. We get reckless operations, so that companies can extract cash and place the pollution burden on the local population. It’s completely unfair.”
The Clean Water Act includes a citizen suit provision if state and federal agencies do not apply stringent enough oversight to plant violations. In this case, Alabama nonprofits believe that ADEM and EPA are not being forceful enough with their guidelines and expectations. Black Warrior Riverkeeper, SELC and GASP have given Bluestone Coke a 60-day notice to address its various violations. If the plant fails to adequately address these violations within the 60 days, the nonprofits will take the case to federal court.
“We would not be bringing this action had there already been regulatory enforcement over these violations,” Brooke said. “The simple action of us bringing this notice of intent to sue means they have not been fined for [any] of these violations. This is a course of action for the aggrieved community and downstream affected parties.”
Brooke said it is important to file this intent to sue for many reasons. From a health and safety perspective, he said pollutants like metals and bacteria could negatively impact the lives of readers, their pets and local wildlife.
“There’s certainly an impact on people’s ability to recreate, swim and enjoy Five Mile Creek and to potentially eat fish out of it. People should certainly be concerned, though this is something that’s likely been going on for a very long time” he said. “For people’s pets and wildlife, they can be impacted by bacteria. Like humans, fish and wildlife bioaccumulate metals over time. There can be, not necessarily an immediate impact that’s noticeable on health, but, over time, there can be. For people who are consuming fish that are contaminated with chemicals and metals, that can be a health concern, especially if they’re consuming a lot of fish.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that certain strains of E. coli, one of the bacteria found in water samples, can produce bodily symptoms like watery and bloody diarrhea, fever, abdominal cramps, nausea and vomiting. Young children are at increased risk for severe problems with E. coli, including kidney failure and death. However, Cleveland Clinic states most cases of E. coli infections are mild. Excessive exposure to heavy metals can lead to heavy metal poisoning, which can cause abdominal pain, low body temperature, dehydration, diarrhea, weakness, nausea and numbness.
Brooke said Bluestone Coke’s pollution also negatively impacts Alabama’s biodiversity.
“Five Mile Creek is a beautiful, spring-fed stream. It flows many miles through Jefferson County and out into the Locust Fork of the Black Warrior, which is a true gem for the state of Alabama,” he said. “Alabama has more aquatic biodiversity than any state. We have more fish, more turtles, more crayfish, more snails and more mussels. Locust Fork is a hotbed for this and Five Mile Creek should be as well, but it’s got a pretty intense and ugly industrial history with not only [Bluestone Coke] but ABC Coke in Tarrant. While it’s biodiversity used to be a lot more vibrant than it is today, there’s still plenty [of species] in the creek that need to be protected and saved for future generations.”
Above all else, Brooke said Bluestone Coke’s violations and lack of accountability represent longstanding environmental injustice for people of color living in North Birmingham.
“The predominantly Black communities that surround this facility have dealt with racism and industrial contamination for generations,” he said. “It’s not been fairly overseen or addressed by regulatory authorities. The Health Department, ADEM and EPA had known for decades, since the 1980s, that people were being exposed to unsafe levels of pollution around this coke plant. They chose to not tell the communities, and the only reason why this process kicked into action is because they were embarrassed into doing so.”
Bluestone Coke first felt increased state and federal scrutiny in 2011, when the EPA announced that the area surrounding the plant was a Superfund site. This means the EPA determined there were human health risks in the on-site communities, including Fairmont, Harriman Park and Collegeville. The federal agency later labeled the site a national priority for cleanup efforts in 2014. EPA has since remediated more than 650 residential properties due to soil contamination.
This is also not the plant’s first time facing legal consequences. Last December, GASP, SELC and the Jefferson County Department of Health found that Bluestone Coke violated the Clean Air Act. The plant agreed to pay a $925,000 penalty to the Jefferson County Department of Health. However, since that time, the plant has failed to pay more than $283,000 of those fines and is being fined an additional $1,000 for each day those payments are missed. The U.S. Justice Department also sued Justice’s and his 13 coal companies in May for failing to pay more than $5 million to the Department of the Interior for plant violations.
“You fast forward to today, they’ve had over a decade to try to not only clean up legacy contamination in the communities, but to hold this plant accountable,” Brooke said. “They’re still failing to do so.”
Bluestone Coke could not be reached for comment.
