The Drummond Company has agreed to clean up an abandoned mine site west of Birmingham that environmental groups allege has been discharging acidic mining waste into the river since the mine closed decades ago.
Drummond will also pay $3.65 million toward the plaintiff’s legal fees and supplemental environmental projects in the area. The old mine is located along the banks of the Locust Fork of the Black Warrior River.
Environmental group Black Warrior Riverkeeper sued Drummond over discharges at the Maxine Mine site in 2016, and the proposed settlement would resolve those alleged violations of the Clean Water Act.
“This Clean Water Act victory for the Locust Fork is pivotal for everyone who loves to swim, fish, paddle and boat on the river,” Nelson Brooke, Black Warrior Riverkeeper said in a news release. “Maxine Mine’s acid mine drainage has polluted the Locust Fork for decades, and it’s time the site is cleaned up to protect the health of the river and the people and wildlife who depend on it.”
Drummond did not respond to AL.com’s requests for comment Tuesday. The agreement must still be approved by the U.S. Department of Justice before it becomes final.
The Maxine Mine was closed in the 1980s, but the initial lawsuit alleged that acidic mine waste has continued to enter the river and that the company improperly filled a Locust Fork tributary with mine waste.
According to the proposed consent decree – which was signed by Drummond and the Riverkeeper and filed in court Tuesday – Drummond will pay to remediate the Maxine Mine site near the ghost town of Praco, located just past Graysville in western Jefferson County, and stop the discharges into the river by certain dates. The settlement includes a schedule of milestones for Drummond to achieve from 2025 to 2027.
Drummond will have to pay fines of up to $1,750 per day if it does not meet those deadlines.
Drummond also agreed to pay $2.65 million in legal fees incurred by the plaintiff, $1 million for supplemental environmental projects to mitigate the impacts of past pollution in the Locust Fork watershed, and a $10,000 civil penalty to the U.S. Treasury for Clean Water Act Violations.
Black Warrior Riverkeeper was represented in the case by attorneys from the Southern Environmental Law Center and Public Justice.
“The settlement is one large step in fighting the long-lasting legacy of coal mining,” Jim Hecker, Director of Public Justice’s Environmental Enforcement Project, said in a news release. “Companies like Drummond must take responsibility for cleaning up acid mine drainage and runoff that continue to threaten streams and groundwater in the watershed. Neither Drummond nor government agencies took any action to control the runoff after 1992. The actions required by the decree show why citizen suits are a critical enforcement mechanism when governments fail to enforce the law.”
Black Warrior Riverkeeper Nelson Brooke provided this photo of what the group says is runoff from the Maxine Mine site in Jefferson County entering the Locust Fork of the Black Warrior River. (Nelson Brooke)Nelson Brooke
The proposed consent decree comes after a series of court rulings that Drummond had violated the Clean Water Act, and may have legal ramifications for other inactive mine sites in Alabama.
In May 2019, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama ruled that surface water discharges of acidic water contaminated with metals and other pollutants violated the Clean Water Act.
In January 2022, the Court ruled that contaminated sub-surface discharges from the site into the river constitute illegal discharges of pollutants through groundwater in violation of the Clean Water Act.
Attorneys for the Riverkeeper said these rulings set an important precedent in examining sites that continue to pollute after they have been closed.
“The rulings in this case and the Consent Decree itself are critical to protecting the Black Warrior River from harmful legacy impacts of coal mining—and set a precedent for polluters throughout the state that these type discharges violate federal law,” Southern Environmental Law Center senior attorney Barry Brock said in the release. “Site owners must take accountability for harming communities’ clean water.”