To The Daily: Most recently in Morgan County, the public servants of Decatur are making it clear that they do not want TEPPCO to build a massive fuel depot a half-mile upstream from Decatur’s only drinking water intake.

In Walker County, the Alabama Department of Environmental Management has permitted a 1,700-acre coal mine, Shepherd Bend Mine, across the river from one of Birmingham’s major drinking water intakes. In Blount County, the Birmingham Water Works Board refused to allow a few months for the Forever Wild land conservation organization to submit a bid to protect 3,200 acres along the Locust Fork. Instead, the BWWB hastily sold to a developer despite current low land values.

Everyone needs clean water whether you’re black or white, rich or poor, Republican or Democrat. But that right is constantly being threatened in Alabama by short-sighted private interests and their political cronies. President Teddy Roosevelt said: “We do not build this country for a day, it has to last through the ages.”

Alabama’s current and future generations deserve a stronger defense of public water supplies from officials on municipal, state and federal levels.

David Whiteside
Founder, Tennessee Riverkeeper and Black Warrior Riverkeeper
Decatur