by Jonathon Meeks, Alabama Chapter Chair
1980, that’s the year that Peggie pinned down as the beginning. Little did anyone know that when Peggie Griffin, a native of small town Ripley, Mississippi, became interested in founding a local Sierra Club group that we would look back and count that year as the beginning of an era. Nearly forty years later a former Alabama Chapter chair and dear friend of Peggie’s, Dr. Bob Hastings, has nominated Peggie for the Sierra Club Special Service Award. The Sierra Club Special Service Award honors a Sierra Club member for strong and consistent commitment to conservation or the Club over an extended period of time.
Peggie’s devotion to the environmental, conservation, and sustainable agriculture movements are without question. Peggie has served her community on many fronts, from using her position as a child development educator to ensure the environmental awareness of generations of school children to fighting polluters, and CAFOs, and too weak enforcement and regulation by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management. Peggie has also served on the Friends of Forever Wild Board, protected creeks from gold mines, coal mines, and interstate bypasses. Peggie’s achievements are so numerous that no one of us could remember them all. Nearly twenty people, including this author, wrote letters of support to the awards committee. I am proud to announce that Peggie Griffin stood out among all of the others, and has been chosen to travel to Washington D.C. to receive this very prestigious Special Service Award.
Tuscaloosa, Alabama is where Peggie met Jim Taylor. Together Peggie and Jim decided that there was a local need and the Sierra Club West Alabama Group was born in 1980. Throughout the years Peggie served in most roles with the West Alabama Group including chair of the executive committee for five years. After having known her for nearly forty years Jim Taylor, a former chair of the Alabama Chapter and one of Sierra Club’s 100-year heroes, had this to say: “Peggie Griffin has for 37 years exemplified the very best the Sierra Club has to offer when it comes to citizen environmental activism. I strongly support her for this award recognizing her lifetime of service to the Sierra Club.”
Also in Tuscaloosa, Peggie played a vital role in protecting Hurricane Creek from a proposed Alabama Department of Transportation project, The Eastern I-59 Bypass. She in her role with the Sierra Club West Alabama group formed the Hurricane Creek Task Force, a partnership between Sierra Club and The Friends of Hurricane Creek. Along with Hurricane Creekkeeper John Wathen and other Peggie lead the fight against the project. “Peggie organized a task force to deal with the bypass and brought in scientists, journalists and a Native American lady to help identify the species along the corridor. She secured funding to get a movie made about the bypass and it’s potential impact on the watershed. It’s called “The Cliffs of Hurricane Creek.” which is still played today as an example of how the bypass will be a permanent disruption in the watershed. Their work permanently stalled the project and preserved the pristine site, including the “Honeycomb Cliffs” of Hurricane Creek, the Crown Jewel of Tuscaloosa County.
Peggie is never one to sing her own song, fortunately her friends are not always as modest as she. Nancy Callahan, author and board member of The Friends of Hurricane Creek. and a member of the Hurricane Creek Task Force, said in a recent article: “Peggie’s leadership was supreme.” John Wathen, the Hurricane Creekkeeper has this to say about Peggie’s work: “It hasn't been built. I attribute a great deal of that fact to Peggie's advocacy. I can say with all honesty that if it weren’t for Peggie leading the charge the bypass would have been built years ago. As it is now her leadership still has a lasting impact since the EIS was ordered redone and the money ran out while they investigated data provided by Peggie and the task force.”
Peggie couldn’t be limited to Tuscaloosa County. As Chair of the Alabama Chapter she oversaw the Beach Mouse Lawsuit against Fish and Wildlife for permitting building in beach mouse habitat, causing the hotel complex to develop more beach mouse-friendly plans and preserving many acres of beach mouse habitat. Even the threat of a slap suite by the hotel complex would not deter Peggie and other executive committee members. She also worked in the east and assisted in efforts by the Friends of Terrapin Creek to protect Terrapin Creek from a gold mine.
Even at a time when it wasn’t popular, Peggie was an early adopter of organic gardening. Sustainable agriculture has always been one of her passions. During her tenure as Chair of the Alabama Chapter she represented the Alabama Chapter on a statewide committee to write suggested changes in CAFO regulations. The resulting stronger regulations prevent the hog CAFO industry from targeting Alabama. In 2000 Peggie came on board as National Sierra Club staff which gave her the opportunity to work on keeping hog factory farms out of Alabama full time. She worked with the chapter CAFO committee to do water testing, proving that the Whitaker CAFO was polluting the waterways of Alabama with high levels of E. coli Bacteria and other contaminants. This data they later used in a legal suite against the Whitaker CAFO which resulted in a settlement requiring many pollution prevention measures by the CAFO. She extended her CAFO work into the film industry by overseeing the making of the movie “Scoop on Poop” the story of hog CAFO’s in Alabama and organizing openings for the film across the state.
The CAFO issues in Alabama led Peggie to segue into a campaign for sustainable agriculture and small family farms. Peggie grew up on such a farm, and this author suspects that contributed to her passion for these farms and farmers. Peggie was a ten-year board member and founding member of Alabama Sustainable Agriculture Network (ASAN), which has grown into a large and well known statewide organization that supports sustainable farms and farmers in a variety of ways. Peggie played an instrumental role in organizing an advisory committee of sustainable farmers to Ron Sparks, the Alabama Commissioner of Agriculture at that time. Peggie hasn’t been Sierra Club staff for nearly a decade, but she remains a dedicated figure in the sustainable agriculture movement in Alabama. She continues her work in this area. She is currently writing a book on sustainable family farms in Alabama, which features only those who use organic practices, entitled “Eating Local Alabama”.
I’m proud to announce that our own Peggie Griffin has been chosen to receive the Sierra Club Special Service Award. This award honors a Sierra Club member for strong and consistent commitment to conservation or the Club over an extended period of time. Over the last forty years Peggie has been a tireless advocate for conservation within Alabama. Unwavering dedication and steadfast resolve enabled her genesis of sweeping changes across our state. It is clear to this author, and to many who know her, that the healthy and growing sustainable agriculture movement in Alabama would not be where it is today without Peggie’s contribution. Peggie has also played a vital role in the expansion of the Alabama chapter by forming two different Sierra Club Groups and was responsible for leading the effort to revive our chapter during a transition period in the late 90s. The Alabama Chapter would not experience its current state of health and vitality were it not for Peggie’s efforts over the last four decades.
She has never let the well-being of the Coosa Valley Group, my home Group, go by the wayside. I know for certain that the Coosa Valley Group would have withered away without her unwavering dedication to see it succeed. There isn’t nearly space in this article to cover the legion accomplishments of Peggie Griffin. I will close with the same recollection that I used in my letter to awards committee that should illustrate to anyone the magnitude of Peggie’s dedication and tremendous benefit to the Alabama Chapter over the forty plus years that Peggie has been involved with the Sierra Club. I was invited this year to speak on a panel of emerging leaders at the Alabama Water Rally conference sponsored by Alabama Rivers Alliance. I will note that Peggie was unable to attend the conference this year.
On the emerging leaders panel, I answered a question regarding how I became an environmentalist and my journey to chapter chair. As I told my story I mentioned Peggie. I paused for a moment to survey the room. When I asked for a show of hands by those who knew Peggie, more than half the room raised their hands.