We all know that Mobile County boasts some of Alabama’s most incredible natural beauty and history. From “America’s Amazon” to Africatown, Mobile is rich in natural diversity and culture, but it’s also home to the James M. Barry Electric Generating Plant, commonly known as Plant Barry. Here on the banks of the Mobile River, which feeds into the Mobile Bay, Alabama Power generates electricity by burning coal and fracked gas and plans to build at least one additional gas unit at a cost to ratepayers of over one billion dollars.
A fossil fuel power plant like Plant Barry located so close to a fragile wetland ecosystem has been a recipe for disaster since it started burning coal in the mid-1950s. Unfortunately, Alabama Power has failed to take care of pollution properly and the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) has failed to regulate Plant Barry’s’s pollution to be in line with state and federal clean air and water standards.
That’s where the Sierra Club and Jerome Dees of J.D. Walker Law entered the picture. The Sierra Club, represented locally by Dees, has filed an appeal of Alabama Power’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit at Plant Barry, arguing that ADEM is allowing Alabama Power to illegally discharge hundreds of millions of gallons of heated wastewater into the Mobile River. In warmer months, Plant Barry is allowed to discharge water as hot as 112 degrees F., which is lethal to many fishes in the river and far above the limits required for healthy aquatic communities. Not only that, the water pollution from Barry damages the ability for Alabamians to enjoy all the Mobile River and Mobile Bay has to offer.
This case is personal to Jerome. His family arrived in north Mobile County, in the mid 1700s and settled shortly thereafter on the western bank of the Mobile River as some of the earliest Black landowners in Alabama. Portions of his family remain there and throughout the Mobile Bay area to this day. While he currently resides in Birmingham, Jerome grew up hearing stories of how his mother and her seven siblings would go swimming in one of the many creeks that branch off of the Mobile River. That this river where generations of Alabamians have swam, fished, and explored is being used as a dump for toxic and heated wastewater drives Jerome to join the fight for environmental justice in Mobile.
Justice is central to all of the legal work Jerome has practiced throughout his career. Upon passing the bar, he answered the call to public service first by serving as an assistant district attorney in Birmingham, prosecuting white collar corruption. He then served as a drug court prosecutor and focused on offering citizens struggling with substance abuse an opportunity to receive help and avoid a criminal record. Following his time as a prosecutor, Jerome worked as a public defender, representing people who would not otherwise have been able to afford legal counsel. After five years practicing criminal law, Jerome entered private practice as a criminal defense and civil rights attorney. From suing the Alabama Department of Corrections for physical abuse of inmates to suing the University of Alabama for its handling of campus sexual assault, Jerome has sought justice - in all its forms - for the place he calls home.
The more oppressed and democratically suppressed a community is, the more likely it is subject to pollution like the kind spewing from the coal and gas boilers at Plant Barry. Environmental law is not just about a community’s natural surroundings but the intersection of political, health, and economic inequities. That’s why Jerome believes, “it is of critical importance that administrative bodies like the Alabama Department of Environmental Management execute their sworn duties - not just to preserve the incredible biodiversity that Alabama has to offer, but also to ensure that the citizens of this state have clean water to drink and clean air to breathe.”
For more information on Sierra Club’s ongoing efforts to curtail pollution at Plant Barry, sign up for our email updates here!