Hello Mobile Environmental Justice Champions!
🚨🚨🚨TODAY, Tuesday, November 3, is ELECTION DAY! Polls are open from 7am to 7pm, and if you are in line by 7pm, you get to vote. Bring your photo ID, check your polling place, and take a friend, a neighbor, or the whole church van with you. No ride? Our friends at Stand Up Mobile are offering FREE rides to the polls today. Just call (251) 421-5072. Everything you need to get your vote counted is in the election section below.🚨🚨🚨
Keep reading below for upcoming community events and important news!!
Please save the date for the next Mobile Environmental Justice Action Coalition Community Meeting:
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- Monday, November 9, 2026 from 5-7pm
Our Community Meetings are the 2nd Monday of every month and are conducted virtually (not in-person)
This month’s AGENDA includes:
- Prichard Data Center Concerns
- APAC AL (Africatown) Noise Ordinance Issues
- Public Participation Review:
- Borusan Pipe (Africatown) expansion concerns
- Florida Gas Compressor Station No. 11 (Mt. Vernon) Major Source Air Permit
- FMC Corporation (Axis) Major Source Air Permit
- Community Event Announcements
- and More!
MEJAC Community Meetings are OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
Meeting login credentials will be shared in a reminder email sent on the morning of our next meeting. If you DO NOT receive the MEJAC newsletter, please sign up here: https://www.mejacoalition.org/get-involved/
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TODAY IS ELECTION DAY! POLLS ARE OPEN 7AM TO 7PM!
‼️Despite the racist chaos that has played out in Montgomery this year, today belongs to the voters. Polls are open from 7am to 7pm, and anyone in line by 7pm can still vote. Don’t sit this one out!
🗳️ Find your polling place (and double-check your registration): myinfo.alabamavotes.gov/voterview/
🗳️ Bring a valid photo ID. Alabama requires one to vote in person.
📞 Need a ride? Book your FREE ride to the polls with Stand Up Mobile! Call (251) 421-5072, scan the QR code on the flyer, or book online at standupmobile.org/vote-center.
📞 If anything goes wrong at your polling place, ask for a provisional ballot, and call the nonpartisan Election Protection hotline at 866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683).
🗳️ Check in with your family and friends: have they voted yet? Offer a ride, a reminder, or some company in line!
You can find out more about the candidates on your ballot here: www.vote.org ‼️
👀 ARE YOU AWARE that local, Mobile-area civil rights organizing is critical to how the Voting Rights Act was implemented nationwide? Look up “Mobile v Bolden” to learn more about the contributions to the legal protections that we ALL enjoy by those who came before us!
WHAT’S ON YOUR BALLOT TODAY:
‼️Today’s General Election decides who actually takes office. Unlike the party primaries in August, EVERY registered voter, regardless of party, votes the same ballot and may weigh in on every contest, from the Governor’s race to your U.S. House seat, the Public Service Commission, and more.
In Congressional District 1, the U.S. House race is between Democratic candidate Clyde Jones and Republican Jerry Carl.
For the Alabama Public Service Commission, the body that sets Alabama Power’s rates, Place 1 is between Republican Matt Gentry and Democrat James Gordon, and Place 2 is between Republican Jim Zeigler and Democrat Sheila McNeil. Know what you are voting into: under this spring’s HB 475, the commissioners elected today will sit on a seven-member commission alongside four members appointed by Gov. Kay Ivey, and the law blocks rate hearings on Alabama Power until 2029. Apparently some in Montgomery would rather your vote not count for much on your power bill. Vote anyway!
Mobile County voters will also find a “Special County Election” on their ballots for the 2026 Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) Transportation Improvement Program, an $82 million program of road and bridge projects across Mobile County, including road improvements in Africatown.
This is what the Alabama Election Map for US Congressional Representation looks like after the racist changes that the Alabama legislature enacted and the US Supreme Court upheld:
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HAVE YOU SEEN SAMUEL SPENCER JR.?
Samuel “Sam” Spencer Jr., 20, has been missing since Friday, October 16. Mobile Police say Sam was last seen around 10:10pm near the Cochrane-Africatown USA Bridge, where Sam’s car was later found abandoned.
As of our deadline, there has been no public report that Sam has been found. Sam’s family is asking anyone who was near the bridge between 2pm and 10pm that Friday, or who knows anything about where Sam might be, to call the Mobile Police Department at 251-208-7211. Please share this with your neighbors, your church family, and your group chats. Let’s help bring Sam home.
News reports of a man found near the bridge on October 28 concern a separate missing-person case, not Sam.
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AFRICATOWN’S NEXT MASTER PLAN: THE COUNTY’S SEARCH FOR A PLANNER HAS OPENED AND CLOSED
Photo: Mobile County Commission
Mobile County is hiring a firm to turn the 2016 Africatown Neighborhood Plan into a full, implementation-ready master plan for Africatown. The County advertised its Request for Proposals on September 23 and 30, held a pre-submittal conference on October 21, and stopped accepting proposals at 5pm on Monday, October 26. The County plans to review proposals through November 13, choose a winning firm the week of November 16, and announce the award by December 11, 2026.
According to the County, the new plan will set Africatown’s physical, cultural, economic, infrastructure, tourism, and investment priorities, and will account for everything that has changed since 2016: the discovery of the Clotilda, Lewis Landing Park, the Africatown Heritage House, neighborhood festivals, housing redevelopment, and the Welcome Center now in progress. The winning firm is expected to run a community engagement process the County describes as “culturally responsive,” assess Africatown’s facilities, infrastructure, mobility, and open spaces, put planning-level price tags on priority projects, and identify ways to pay for them, from grants and philanthropy to tax increment financing, special districts, and tourism revenue. The work is funded with City and County general funds under a new City-County partnership, and the County says the members of the Africatown Steering Committee have not yet been named.
MEJAC’s position is clear: Africatown residents must shape this plan from the first meeting to the final draft, and Africatown residents belong on that Steering Committee. A plan for Africatown also has to deal head-on with the industry that surrounds the community, including the pollution, the noise, the truck traffic, and the flooding. Tourism and investment cannot come at the expense of the health of the families who live here. We will share every chance to weigh in as soon as it is announced.
Read the County’s pre-submittal conference presentation and its answers to proposers’ questions.
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RECURRING MONTHLY EVENTS
- 2nd and 4th Tuesdays and Saturdays of every month – The Africatown Food Bank distributes free food aid boxes on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays and Saturdays of every month (in November: Tuesdays, November 10 and 24, and Saturdays, November 14 and 28). Volunteers to help load and distribute boxes are always welcome! Contact Rochelle Williams (plateaupacers@gmail.com) or Daphnee Frieson (daphnee.frieson@icloud.com) to let them know your interest!
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- All month long, Tuesdays thru Saturdays, 10am-5pm – The incredible Africatown Heritage House is open to the public and is FREE to all Mobile County residents. If you haven’t already visited, please do take the time to walk through the spellbinding exhibit space and experience the power of Africatown’s history, past and present in the form of “Clotilda: The Exhibition at the Africatown Heritage House”.
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- Tuesday, November 17, 5pm – The Africatown Redevelopment Corporation (ARC) conducts its monthly board meeting publicly at Africatown Hall (2201 Papermill Road) on the third Tuesday of every month at 5pm. For more info about the ARC: https://www.atownrc.com/
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- Wednesday, November 18, 5-7pm – Mobile United’s Mobile Green Drinks, the “monthly happy hour for environmentally thoughtful folks,” meets the 3rd Wednesday of every month at Braided River Brewing Company, 420 St. Louis Street, Mobile, AL 36602. This month it’s a Holiday Market‼️ (There is no Green Drinks gathering in December.) For more info about Mobile United: https://www.mobileunited.org/
(The Holiday Market is Wednesday, November 18; the calendar’s date is a typo.)
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- Sunday, November 22, 3pm – The Mobile NAACP conducts its General Membership meeting on the 4th Sunday of every month. This month’s meeting is in person at Truevine Missionary Baptist Church, 1850 Dr Martin Luther King Jr Ave, Mobile, AL 36617. The mission of the NAACP is to achieve equity, political rights, and social inclusion by advancing policies and practices that expand human and civil rights, eliminate discrimination, and accelerate the well-being, education, and economic security of Black people and all persons of color.
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- ONGOING – “The Africatown Experience Boat Tour” unveils the remarkable story of the Clotilda, the last known slave ship to bring enslaved Africans to the United States, by taking participants directly to the site of the scuttled ship at Twelve Mile Island in the Mobile Delta.
Private group reservations are available, contact Chiquitta Howard with Africatown Freedom Tours at 251.374.6767. This is more than a sightseeing tour: it’s a chance to reflect on history, honor the past, and celebrate the enduring spirit of a community.
For more information, including other future dates and to reserve your spot, visit: Blakeleypark.com/.
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- ONGOING (First Saturday of every month at 9am) – Despite federal funding cuts, the STEMMing The Tide / AL-YASS program will continue as a monthly Professional Development Series for Alabama Educators, including those in the Mobile County Public School System!
Alabama educators are invited to join STEMMing The Tide and AL-YASS (Alabama Youth Action for Sustainability Summit) for a monthly professional development series focused on helping teachers embed citizen science into their classrooms and connect students with real-world environmental research. These sessions will provide practical classroom ideas, resources, and opportunities to connect with community partners along the coast and across Alabama!
We will meet virtually on the first Saturday of each month at 9:00 a.m. via Zoom. The next session is Saturday, November 7.
To stay connected or learn more, please reach out to klanier@uab.edu or AlabamaYAS@gmail.com. You can also visit the STEMMing The Tide website at https://stemmingthetide.weebly.com/.
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UPCOMING SPECIAL EVENTS
& UNIQUE OPPORTUNITIES
- TODAY, Tuesday, November 3, 1pm & Tuesday, November 17 – City Council Finance Committee: The $14.7 Million Loss
The Mobile City Council’s Finance Committee holds two working meetings on the $14.7 million in public money the City lost to fraud, and on an earlier fraudulent transaction in August that the Council says was never disclosed to it. Both meetings are in the City Council conference room on the 9th floor of the South Tower, 205 Government Plaza. The public may attend, but no public questions or comments will be taken. The Council is also expected to vote on creating an Ad Hoc Advisory Committee on Financial Transaction Security, made up of seven qualified residents (one nominated by each Councilmember), to review the City’s payment safeguards. Public money deserves public answers, so we will be watching.
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- Saturday, November 7 & Sunday, November 8 – 5th Annual Africatown Lantern Walk Weekend: “Remembering and Honoring Those Who Served”
The Africatown Lantern Walk (MCTS: Head, Heart and Hand) invites everyone to its fifth annual Lantern Walk Weekend honoring those who served. Saturday, November 7 brings a brunch at the Robert Hope Community Center, 850 Edwards St, Mobile, AL 36610, and the MCTS Middle School Lantern Walk. Sunday, November 8 closes the weekend with a Sunrise Service at the cemetery. Times and more details are still to come. Want to help or volunteer? Contact Anderson Flen at aflen3@yahoo.com or 404-219-7890.
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- Saturday, November 7, 12-5pm & November 9-13 – Volunteer with Mobile Baykeeper
Our friends at Mobile Baykeeper need volunteers in early November: event setup, merchandise, and help with the oyster farms at the Mobile County Wildlife and Conservation Association’s Oyster Ball on Saturday, November 7, from 12-5pm, and folding, stuffing, sealing, and stamping for their end-of-year letter campaign any time during work hours November 9-13. Interested? Email Wesley Wyatt at wwyatt@mobilebaykeeper.org.
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- November 10 – December 10, Tuesdays-Thursdays, 3:45-5:45pm – NextGen Baykeepers (grades 4-6)
Mobile Baykeeper has spots open in its next session of NextGen Baykeepers for kids currently in grades 4-6. The program runs November 10 to December 10 at Dog River Park. Learn more and sign up your child at mobilebaykeeper.org.
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- Thursday, November 12, 5pm – Africatown Welcome Center Community Meeting
District 2 Councilwoman Dr. Samantha Ingram invites residents to the next Africatown Welcome Center meeting at the Robert Hope Community Center, 850 Edwards St, Mobile, AL 36610, to learn more about the new facility, share your thoughts, and help shape how Africatown’s story is told. Africatown’s story belongs to the people of Africatown, so come make sure it is told right!
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- Thursday, November 12, 7pm – District 2 Virtual Chat
Councilwoman Ingram’s monthly District 2 Virtual Chat will focus on the Finance Committee’s answers about the $14.7 million loss. The Zoom address is posted on the Councilwoman’s Facebook page.
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- Wednesday, November 18, 10am – Mobile MPO Policy Board & TCC/CAC Joint Meeting
The Mobile Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) decides how federal transportation dollars are spent in our area, and its Policy Board meets jointly with its Technical Coordinating Committee and Citizens Advisory Committee (TCC/CAC) at the GM&O Building, 110 Beauregard St, Mobile, AL 36602. Projects on the MPO’s list near us include resurfacing US-90 (SR-16) from I-165 to just south of the Africatown Bridge, now set to begin December 4, 2026, and a lane reduction with new sidewalks, lighting, and signal backplates on US-45 (SR-17) in Prichard from I-65 to Old Citronelle Highway. Learn more at mobilempo.org.
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- UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY – Deadline: Friday, January 22, 2027 – EPA Clean Diesel (DERA) Grants
The U.S. EPA is accepting applications for about $180 million in Diesel Emissions Reduction Act (DERA) grants to replace or retrofit old diesel engines, including buses, heavy-duty trucks, locomotives, marine engines, and the construction and cargo-handling equipment used at ports. Eligible applicants include state, local, and Tribal agencies, port authorities, MPOs, cities, counties, and school districts, plus nonprofits that provide pollution-reduction services to diesel fleet owners or whose main purpose is promoting clean transportation or air quality. Africatown breathes diesel from the port, the rail lines, and the truck routes around it every day, and these dollars should be put to work here. Applications are due through Grants.gov by 11:59pm ET on January 22, 2027. Learn more at epa.gov/dera.
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- UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY – Watch The Lines We Live On for FREE
Our friends at the Moving Forward Network, a national network of communities fighting freight pollution, premiered Season One of The Lines We Live On, their environmental justice docuseries, to a standing ovation during Climate Week NYC. Season One follows MFN members East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice in Southern California and the Tallahassee Food Network in Florida, and both episodes are now free to stream. Watch and share at movingforwardnetwork.org.
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- UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY – Save the Date: February 25-28, 2027 – The All Things Africatown Community-Engaged Conference is seeking presentations, workshops, performances, and dialogues that spotlight Africatown and other Black descendant communities fighting for cultural preservation and environmental justice. Whether you are a scholar, artist, organizer, student, or community leader, the conference wants your voice on Black ecological knowledge, community-led storytelling, heritage preservation, environmental justice, and collaborative research. Submit a proposal here. The conference is presented by the University of South Alabama with Penn State, Oberlin College, and the Africatown Heritage Preservation Foundation, in conjunction with the All Things Africatown Festival. Questions can go to Conference Chair Dr. Kern M. Jackson at allthingsafricatownconference@southalabama.edu.
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- ONGOING – Love Your Block: $70,000 for Resident-Led Projects in Africatown & Toulminville
Mobile is one of 25 new local governments selected nationwide for Love Your Block, an initiative of the Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation at Johns Hopkins University, and will receive $70,000, plus technical support and a dedicated fellow, for resident-led projects that improve vacant lots, reclaim public spaces, and strengthen neighborhoods. Africatown and Toulminville are the two communities selected. The people who live in a neighborhood know best what it needs, so start talking with your neighbors about your project ideas now, and watch for chances to bring them forward! Councilwoman Ingram’s office can be reached at 251-208-7608 or samantha.ingram@cityofmobile.gov.
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- ONGOING – Africatown Welcome Center: Share Your Africatown Story
The Africatown Welcome Center, a new gateway to the community that is tentatively slated to open in late December 2026 or early January 2027, will host exhibits telling Africatown’s story, and the City of Mobile is inviting the community to help fill those exhibits (see the November 12 community meeting above). The City Council has approved a contract of up to $240,954.15 with Watermark Design Group to design and coordinate the Welcome Center’s museum exhibits, and the FY2027 City budget carries a $757,345 line item committed specifically to the Africatown Welcome Center.Residents, descendants, and organizations are invited to submit content that could include photos, documents, artifacts, oral histories, and other materials relevant to Africatown’s history and living culture for consideration in future Welcome Center exhibits. If you have exhibit suggestions or content to contribute, email AfricatownWelcomeCenter@cityofmobile.gov as soon as possible for consideration.
Photo: City of Mobile
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- ONGOING – Our Mother of Mercy Catholic Church Turns 100
For a century, Our Mother of Mercy Catholic Church has been a pillar of faith, fellowship, and service in Africatown. The parish is celebrating its 100th anniversary and working toward a $100,000 anniversary fundraising goal to keep this historic church serving the community for generations to come. Fittingly, a new historical marker for the church is among the 13 projects funded in Round 1 of the Africatown Heritage Preservation Foundation’s Sharing the Africatown Story initiative. Learn how you can participate in and support the celebration at ourmotherofmercymobile.org.
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- ONGOING – Disaster Preparedness Survey: Help Shape Mobile’s Resilience Planning
The Community Foundation of South Alabama and the University of South Alabama are conducting a Disaster Preparedness Survey of Mobile residents to identify the strengths and needs of our community’s disaster response and to inform new resilience initiatives for the City of Mobile. After Hurricane Isaias, and given the flooding, hurricane, and industrial-hazard exposures that environmental justice communities know firsthand, resident input is exactly what researchers need to make the resulting plans reflect frontline realities rather than agency assumptions.To participate, scan the QR code on the survey flyer or follow this link. Participants will enter a monthly drawing for a $200 gift card. Questions about your rights as a research participant can be directed to the USA Institutional Review Board at 251-460-6308 (or toll-free 866-511-6509), or by email at ahotard@southalabama.edu.
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FEATURED NEWS STORIES:
📚 05/26/26, MEJACoalition.org – Doing it Differently: Hard Earned Lessons from Engaging with a Proposed AI Data Center on the Africatown side of Prichard – This is a deep dive into the proposed AI Data Center on the Africatown side of Prichard presented by MEJAC after many, many hours of deliberations, Africatown community consultation, and an actual tour of the company’s other data centers in Atlanta.
📚 06/12/26 – AL.com – South Alabama residents loudly reject proposed data center: ‘Community has spoken’ – “Another south Alabama community is saying no to a new data center. On Thursday, representatives with Edged Energy, a data technology company, held a town hall with residents and Prichard’s leadership to discuss a proposed data center in the city. Around 200 people attended the meeting, despite no air conditioning in the Prichard City Hall auditorium. And the heat almost certainly did not help calm residents who are fiercely opposed to the data center. “It’s hot, and people are irritated,” said Ramsey Sprague, president of the Mobile Environmental Justice Action Coalition, who attended the meeting. “It’s hard to absorb new information when people are yelling and shouting.”
📚 08/04/26 – Reuters.com – Trump’s EPA was wrong to terminate billions in climate grants, US appeals court rules – A federal appeals court upheld an injunction protecting roughly $20 billion in clean-energy and environmental-justice grants that Trump’s EPA tried to freeze. Millions of dollars in this grant program was approved for Mobile County Environmental Justice communities.
📚 09/01/26 – AlabamaReflector.com – Alabama Public Service Commission lowers rate of return for energy company – The PSC cut Spire’s guaranteed profit but let it raise the fixed monthly charge, a live example of how PSC decisions shape residential utility bills.
📚 09/08/26 – AlabamaReflector.com – Tommy Tuberville’s data center plan: Some good ideas, a lot of fatal flaws – “Tommy Tuberville’s data center plan has some good ideas. The problem is that they’re good ideas for long-term constitutional reform, not the pressing challenges these large-scale facilities pose. And even if he’s serious about giving communities the power to say no to data centers, his proposal lacks a key requirement to make those objections meaningful.”
📚 09/10/26 – CapitalBNews.org – Federal Government Moves to Limit Public Input on Data Center Projects – 🚨Fewer public notices and comment periods on air permits means fenceline communities find out after the permit is already issued. MEJAC flagged this proposal at our September meeting.🚨
“Americans don’t agree on much, but that’s not the case when it comes to data centers. Seven in 10 Americans oppose building data centers for artificial intelligence in or near their communities. Despite this, the federal government is moving to make it easier for them to be built. And in some places, residents won’t even get the chance to raise concerns publicly or even know if a data center is coming to their neighborhoods.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency plans to scrap a federal requirement that states tell the public — and allow public comment — before approving air-pollution permits for industrial facilities. That includes the data centers rising across the country, as well as the power plants built to feed their enormous appetite for electricity.”
📚 09/13/26 – InsideClimateNews.org – How Alabama Power Escaped a Push for Tighter Regulation With Record Profits Intact – Wired For Profit Part 6: “Mack Butler insists he’s not angry about how it all turned out.
“That’s just how it goes in the Legislature sometimes,” he says, leaning back behind the desk at his office in Rainbow City, a suburb of Gadsden that sits along the Coosa River in northeast Alabama.
Butler, a Republican representing bright-red District 28 in the Alabama Legislature, had gotten remarkably close during the 2026 legislative session to passing what likely would have been the toughest utility reform bill Alabama has ever seen.”
📚 09/13/26 – InsideClimateNews.org – The Alabama Legislature Was on a Collision Course With Alabama Power. Then Came Spring Break. – Wired For Profit Part 7: “When Alabama lawmakers left for spring break during the 2026 legislative session, many of them knew something had to be done. Landmark legislation curbing the profits of the state’s influential electric utility, Alabama Power, had unanimously passed the House.
Even in the lower chamber, many of the Republicans who had supported the bill were searching for a way out of their vote.
So on March 30, the night before the Legislature returned from spring break, Sen. Sam Givhan, R-Huntsville, filed a substitute version of HB 475, the major reform bill that would have transformed the way Alabama sets electric rates.
It had consumed lawmakers and Alabama Power for months.”
📚 09/24/26 – AlabamaReflector.com – Alabama’s attorney general can intervene in power rate hearings. Will AG candidates do so? – Alabama Power rates are on your November 3 ballot, even if you will not see the words there. “With Alabamians paying some of the highest residential power prices in the South, the question of intervention is weighing on the Alabama attorney general’s race.
Under Alabama law, the attorney general can intervene in rate cases before the Alabama Public Service Commission on behalf of the public. However, with the PSC using a process that effectively guarantees a profit for utilities since 1982, the power was rarely used before this summer, when the AG’s office stepped into a case involving a natural gas company.
Alabama pays some of the highest rates for power in the region. According to the Energy Information Commission, residents paid 16.04 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity in June, higher than the 14.89 cents on average that customers paid in the region.”
THE LATEST NEWS STORIES:
📚 09/28/26 – Grist.org – Illinois passed the nation’s first climate migration law. The effort has languished since. – “Every year, climate disasters force millions of people to leave their homes. In the aftermath of floods, fires, and droughts, they face the challenge of finding a new place to rebuild their lives. They’re part of a growing population of people on the move without specific legal protections, commonly referred to as climate migrants. Most move within their country, while others seek refuge across borders.
The hotter the planet grows, the higher the number of climate migrants is expected to climb. At the low end, predictions point to at least 44 million people displaced internally across the globe by 2050. That kind of planetary churn is the equivalent of rehoming the entire population of Argentina. Very few places are planning for this possibility.”
📚 09/29/26 – WHRO.org – Rooftop solar program offering discounts for Virginia households – ✨A program like this is POSSIBLE in Alabama with a change in Montgomery!!✨ “A recently expanded initiative in Virginia allows households to go solar more cheaply.
Switch Together, run by the national nonprofit Solar United Neighbors, lowers the cost of rooftop panels by pooling demand to buy them in bulk.
The program previously operated in Northern Virginia and Richmond. Gov. Abigail Spanberger announced this summer it would expand throughout Virginia, as part of her energy affordability agenda. (It is not yet available in the southwestern-most portion of the state.)
Rooftop solar systems are estimated nationwide to save the average household about $2,200 per year in electricity.”
📚 09/30/26 – ALReporter.com – Governor authorizes construction of new Mobile River Bridge – ‼️There a millions of dollar of improvements of Africatown Blvd tied to the Mobile River Bridge and Bayway Project, and we can’t let Montgomery forget that‼️ “Governor Kay Ivey on Tuesday announced that she has formally authorized the start of construction on the Mobile River Bridge and Bayway project, clearing the way for a groundbreaking ceremony this week.
With a construction cost of $3.2 billion, the Mobile River Bridge and Bayway is the largest transportation infrastructure project in Alabama history. Ivey said the project is necessary to support Alabama’s Gulf Coast region and beyond.”
📚 09/30/26 – WKRG.com – Mobile’s Second Line Transit trolley hits the streets of downtown – “Mobile NAACP President Robert Clopton, who served on the steering committee for the transit changes, said he is also watching how the new system serves people outside downtown. “There are some areas that will not have bus service and/or trolley service yet. They have what it’s called microtransit, where they can call in or utilize the internet to schedule a ride. A. seniors will need training; B. others will need training as well,” Clopton said.”
📚 10/01/26 – WREG.com – SpaceXAI data center expansion in Southaven forces renters out – “As SpaceXAI creates another data center in Southaven, Mississippi, renters who live near the data center are being asked to vacate their homes because they’re being sold.
It was Monday when Danielle Dillard, a Southaven resident, says her landlord told her the home was being sold and she had to be out by November 30.
“My property is being sold because of the xAI building that’s being built less than a mile from my home. I was contacted by my landlord and told that he was selling the house, and I would have 60 days to vacate the house,” Dillard explained.”
📚 10/02/26 – WBHM.org – Alabama’s largest producer of foundry coke is operating under an expired permit. Who is at fault? – “It’s time to act. It’s long past time.
That was the case made by lawyers for the Southern Environmental Law Center, who filed a petition Wednesday in Jefferson County Circuit Court asking a judge to force local health officials to act on a 2023 air permit renewal application for ABC Coke, the nation’s largest producer of foundry coke.
SELC lawyers filed the petition on behalf of the Greater-Birmingham Alliance to Stop Pollution, an environmental nonprofit better known as GASP. The filing argued that Dr. David Hicks, the county’s health officer, has failed his “statutory, nondiscretionary duty to take action” on the renewal application, resulting in the facility legally operating without an up-to-date permit.
“Communities should not have to wait indefinitely for the protections the law requires,” GASP Executive Director Jilisa Milton said. “The people of Tarrant and surrounding communities have lived with ABC Coke’s pollution for generations.”
📚 10/05/26 – NPR.org – Supreme Court’s new term kicks off with blockbuster climate change case – “A new Supreme Court term began Monday with arguments in a blockbuster case about the reach of state power.
Boulder, Colo., is suing two big energy companies, arguing they deceived people about the harms of fossil fuels and contributed to disasters that cost Boulder a lot of time and money.
The dispute could have ramifications far beyond the climate, to other areas where states are trying to hold companies accountable for their alleged harms to local communities.
In 2018, Boulder County slapped the giant energy companies Suncor Energy and Exxon Mobil with a lawsuit. Boulder argued the companies and a trade group knew decades ago that fossil fuels would hurt the environment, raising the risk of floods, extreme heat and wildfires.
Three years later, in late December 2021, the Marshall Fire swept across the county.”
📚 10/06/26 – AL.com – Easy targets: Why data center companies are swooping in on rural Alabama – ‼️Missing or weak zoning rules leave rural communities wide open to data center developers, the same fight we have been in on the Africatown side of Prichard.‼️ “Lord, I don’t want to have to move again,” said Hamrick, a second-generation cattle farmer. “Sixty-nine years old, and I love that farm. I don’t want to have to leave it.”
Gallion, home to roughly 2,000 people, is an unincorporated community of farmland and catfish ponds, sitting about 100 miles west of Montgomery near the Mississippi line. It’s also right near an Alabama Power gas plant, the Black Warrior River, and a ton of power lines.
Basically, a data center company’s dream.
But residents of all political stripes are packing public meetings, stopping officials in the grocery store and calling their neighbors to find out if they’ve gotten an offer for their land yet. They’ve organized on Facebook and created an online petition that more than 600 people have signed. They want the county government to create an ordinance for industrial zoning that could regulate a development like this. “
📚 10/06/26 – EnergyAlabama.org – Alabama regulators keep automatic approval process for data center contracts and hide key details from public view – “The Alabama Public Service Commission voted today to keep a process that lets Alabama Power’s electricity contracts with the largest data centers, those expected to use 150 megawatts or more, take effect without a vote of the Commission.
The decision extends the review period from 10 days to 90 days, notably retaining the previous rule of automatic approval for Alabama Power data center contracts if the Commission fails to make a decision within 90 days. Energy Alabama pressed for a public vote on all applicable data center contracts in written comments this summer.
“For three decades, rules built for manufacturers let contracts take effect without a vote of the Commission. Data centers on this scale are a different animal,” said Daniel Tait, executive director of Energy Alabama. “Ninety days is better than ten, but silence still counts as yes. A contract this big should never take effect because nobody voted. Alabamians deserve to see their regulators decide, in public.”
📚 10/06/26 – EWTNNews.com – Historic Catholic parish in Alabama marks 100 years with ecumenical tent revival – 🎉Congratulations to our neighbors at Our Mother of Mercy Catholic Church in Africatown on 100 years!
”After hosting a successful revival earlier in the year, several non-Catholic ministers, who are friends of [Father Victor] Ingalls’, asked him when he was planning to host a revival in Mobile. He began to pray about it and met with those who suggested it to see what they could come up with. They suggested hosting it in Africatown seeing as Our Mother of Mercy Parish — located in Africatown — was coming up on its 100th anniversary.
Roughly 500 people of different denominations showed up for the tent revival in Africatown. In line with the theme, the first night’s talks focused on being made whole as an individual, the second night covered being made whole as a community, and the last evening discussed being made whole as the body of Christ.
Ingalls said he believes ecumenical events like this are important for the Church today because they are a response to Jesus’ prayer in John 17.
“I believe because of what Jesus Christ said, it is our disunity as Christians that keeps the world from believing,” Ingalls said. “Our disunity is a condemnation against ourselves. We condemn ourselves and we undercut our efforts to try to spread the Gospel by being a dysfunctional family.”
He added: “Thereʼs a reason why people donʼt take Christians seriously and itʼs because thereʼs 40,000 different flavors of us. Itʼs hard to take that seriously. It’s like, ‘Hey, come be a part of this.’ Theyʼre like, ‘Well, Iʼve already got enough drama and dysfunction and division in my life, why would I want to be part of that?’””
📚 10/06/26 – SELC.org – ACE Basin victory: Data centers blocked in southern conservation area – “The agreement establishes a “Data Center Exclusion Area” covering a majority of the ACE Basin in Colleton County. Most significantly, it includes the 850-acre parcel on the headwaters of the Ashepoo River where the original Eagle Rock data center complex was proposed in December 2025.
Since the proposal was announced, Colleton County residents, environmental groups, and people from across South Carolina have made one thing clear: this is the wrong place for a data center.”
📚 10/06/26 – WDHN.com – Shiloh community files complaints over ALDOT drainage issues ahead of potential tropical depression – “With stagnated water sitting in the new basin of a mitigation project by the Alabama Department of Transportation, Shiloh residents are concerned the project won’t be enough to protect from a storm predicted to hit the Wiregrass this weekend.
Shiloh residents have filed a complaint with the Federal Highway Administration and Alabama Department of Environmental Management, calling the stagnant water a health and safety hazard as they they were told it would take less than three days to drain.
“The water sat here for 27 days,” Shiloh resident Timothy Williams said. “When water just sit here the mosquitos are bad, frogs coming into houses and doors and vehicles you can just see the sediments being left on the ground.”
📚 10/14/26 – MyNBC15.com – Contaminated soil found at Mobile River Bridge site – ⚠️Lead, arsenic, mercury, and PCBs are sitting in the ground on the Mobile River where the new bridge approaches will be built. MEJAC stands with our friends at Mobile Baykeeper: the cleanup must be complete, public, and protective of everyone who works this site and fishes this river.
”Mobile Baykeeper’s Cade Kistler issued the following statement: We’re still reviewing the report and plan for cleanup. But this is a stark reminder of what’s sitting in the ground in numerous legacy industrial sites along the Mobile River, and of why so many of Alabama’s waterways carry fish consumption advisories. Lead, mercury, PCBs, and arsenic are the kinds of contaminants that work their way into the fish people catch and bring home. Alabamians shouldn’t have to wonder whether the fish they catch are safe to eat. We will continue working to ensure the rules meant to stop contamination like this, and to clean it up where it’s already in the ground, are effective, here and across the state.”
📚 10/15/26 – MyNBC15.com – Mobile approves $9 million in funding for Brookley by the Bay – “A big vision for Mobile’s waterfront is now one step closer to becoming reality. The Brookley by the Bay project is moving forward after the approval of $9 million in Gulf of Mexico Security Act grant funding, also known as GOMESA.
City officials say it’s the largest award being given out through the program, helping turn these renderings into the city’s first accessible waterfront park.
“This is the city’s first, fully waterfront accessible park,” Mobile’s Director of Programs, Jennifer Greene said. “So, you’re going to be able to stand on the beach and touch the water. We don’t have anything like that in our city.”
📚 10/15/26 – NPR.org – U.S. historic preservation law faces the most serious threat in its 60-year history – 🚨 NHPA Section 106 review is one of the few tools Africatown has to make federal projects reckon with its historic places.
”It’s been exactly 60 years since President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) into law, alongside half a dozen conservation bills.
“We have come here this morning to give part of our country back to its people,” Johnson declared at the bill signing on Oct. 15, 1966.
Now, historic preservation advocates say, the government is trying to yank the public’s power away.
“Preservation, from its inception, has worked best with public and private partnership,” Brent Leggs, the president and CEO of the nonprofit National Trust for Historic Preservation, told NPR. “Over the last year and a half, the federal government has divested that responsibility.”
📚 10/15/26 – WHRO.org – Virginia boosting guidelines for environmental justice when permitting projects – ⚠️ Want nice things like this for Alabama communities like Africatown? VOTE!!!
“The state wants companies to consider the cumulative impacts of pollution.
State officials are updating guidance to make developers more mindful of environmental issues their projects might have on vulnerable communities.
The Department of Environmental Quality recently released a draft document that lays out exactly how builders should determine and address potential environmental justice impacts, and now wants the public to weigh in.
The state defines environmental justice communities as areas with predominantly lower incomes or residents of color. They have traditionally faced disproportionate problems from industry, such as air and water pollution.
In 2020, the General Assembly passed the Virginia Environmental Justice Act, which made it policy to promote environmental justice, ensuring fair treatment of and meaningful engagement with such communities.”
📚 10/15/26 – NPR.org – Group that plants fruit trees in vacant lots grows to cities nationwide – ✨ Africatown and Toulminville were just selected for a $70,000 Love Your Block grant for resident-led projects on vacant lots and public spaces, so take notes!
📚 10/15/26 – Mongabay.com – Noise pollution is a public health risk that’s hard to measure and monitor – ⚠️ Africatown families living next to around-the-clock industrial noise already know this is a health issue.
“It’s been known for a long time that noise is more than just a nuisance or an annoyance, but that it’s a serious cardiovascular disease concern,” said Danielle Vienneau, Associate Professor at the UMC Utrecht in The Netherlands, an expert on environmental pollution and its impact on human health.
Regular exposure to high levels of noise pollution is linked to hearing loss, poor cardiovascular health, high blood pressure, diabetes, stress and even adverse reproductive outcomes, according to a 2023 review of existing evidence.
“When we’re exposed constantly to noise, it triggers a stress response in our body… We could think of it as a silent killer,” Vienneau added.
Despite its risks, noise pollution is still a relatively under-researched subject, especially in low- and middle-income countries.”
📚 10/16/26 – TheHill.com – FERC moves to ease gas approvals – “The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Thursday proposed to limit notice and protest periods to either 60 days or 90 days for expansions at liquified natural gas (LNG) export terminals.
FERC Chair Laura Swett (R) said the move would “enable the country to scale up its existing facilities more quickly to supply our allies who are in desperate need.”
. . .
Specifically, the commission is proposing to omit air dispersion models, which simulate how a project’s emissions may interact with other atmospheric pollution to determine air quality impacts.“
📚 10/19/26 – AL.com – Marine life dramatically declined in Gulf of Mexico in years after BP oil spill, study finds – 🚨 Sixteen years after the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, scientists report that fish and krill in the deep Gulf fell by more than half after the spill and have not come close to recovering. Our Gulf is still paying for that spill.
”In a deep, dark part of the Gulf of Mexico, the number of marine animals plummeted by about 60% in the years following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion, a new study found.
In a crucial part of the Gulf between the light surface and the darkest depths, where the BP-operated well failed and dumped 134 million gallons of oil, the number of fish found dropped by 63.5% from the year after the spill to 2015. Crustaceans, including shrimp and krill, a key food for whales, went down 62%, and larger animals like squid and octopuses fell 59.7%, according to a study published Monday in the journal PNAS.
And those populations haven’t come close to recovering, the study found.
Researchers focused on the ocean’s “twilight zone,” a vast area above the seafloor, where much of the surface marine life, including dolphins and whales, feast on creatures. Yet little is known about this gigantic ecosystem, and this region of the Gulf had not been studied before the 2010 spill, said study lead author Tracey Sutton, a biological oceanographer at Nova Southeastern University.
A 2011 post-spill exploration cited in the research, which used six sets of nets at different depths and acoustic sonar, gave scientists a good sense of how much sea life was in the area between the surface and 5,000 feet deep (1,500 meters). They returned to the same place with the same equipment three-and-a-half years later and found sea life was between one-third and one-quarter of what it was in 2011.”
📚 10/22/26 – Fox10TV.com – Second chlorine alarm in a week at Olin plant alarms McIntosh resident – “[Lucille[ Foster said she still has concerns that there isn’t enough communication about the community’s safety during and after these leaks. They are also confused when they hear in-plant alarms and if they are meant for the public too.
She asked the Olin representative to host a community meeting explaining which alarms residents should act on. She said he didn’t have an answer but would follow up.
FOX10 has emails into Olin seeking clarity on both incidents.
The Alabama Department of Environmental Management monitors air and water quality near the plant. It confirmed it is aware of Sunday’s leak and is investigating, but had not heard about today’s incident until FOX10 called. The ADEM representative said she would pass that information along to investigators on scene.”
📚 10/28/26 – AL.com – Alabama city’s new signs urge people not to give cash to homeless people – “The city asked residents to take an active role in addressing homelessness by “making informed choices, supporting local service providers, and helping connect individuals experiencing homelessness with the resources they need to pursue stability.”
📚 10/29/26 – ENR.com – Fraudster Spent Months Posing as Contractor Before Diverting $14.7M Payment – “A fraudster posing as the contractor on Mobile, Ala.’s $300-million Regions Arena project spent months building trust with city employees before a routine $14.7-million construction payment landed in a fraudulent bank account Oct. 2.
By the time city officials realized what had happened, two weeks had passed, and the money was gone.
The payment was owed to Birmingham, Ala.-based B.L. Harbert International under its $237-million contract to build the arena. The FBI and U.S. Secret Service are investigating; Mobile says its computer systems were not breached.
City officials reconstructed the scheme during pre-council and city council meetings Oct. 27, detailing how an initial contact in May developed into a months-long impersonation.”
📚 10/31/26 – Fox10TV.com – ADEM proposes consent order, penalty for operator of north Mobile County landfill – “The Alabama Department of Environmental Management, or ADEM, website says ADEM is proposing to issue a Consent Order with a civil penalty of $38,600.00 to EcoSouth Services of Mobile, LLC, which operates the Axis Industrial Landfill.
According to the ADEM website, the violations listed in the Order consist of: failure to confine waste to a small area, failure to adequately cover waste daily, failure to operate as stipulated in the permit concerning the ponding of leachate and leachate seeps, failure to render empty containers unsuitable for holding liquids and failure to maintain landfill slopes to prevent erosion rills.
”The public notice was listed as October 28, and the post says interested persons may submit written comments, including a request for a hearing, within 30 days of the publication date of the notice.“
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Thank you for all you do to champion Environmental Justice in Mobile & everywhere!
