FLORENCE-Last Wednesday evening, Feb. 4, over a pot-luck dinner in the Helen Keller Library conference room, members of the local Stop Alabama Tar Sands Mining task force got to meet and discuss issues with kindred spirits from Mobile, Texas and Utah.
The visitors, who drove up from Mobile, where they had been 
attending the Extreme Energy Extraction Summit, included Jesse Fruhwirth and Victor Puertas, both members of Peaceful Uprising & Utah Tar Sands Resistance. Ramsey Sprague and Herb Wagner, both members of Mobile Environmental Justice Action Coalition, David Underhill, from Mobile Sierra Club, and from Texas, Ron Siefert and Cindy Spoon, both members of Tar Sands Blockade.
Representing the Muscle Shoals mining opponents were Shoals Environmental Alliance (SEA) President Charles Rose, SEA members Peggy McCloy, Grant Posey, Jackie Posey, John Crowder, Joel Mize, David Cope, Faye Lacefield and Dr. Jim Lacefield, Shoals Earth Month President Nancy Muse, Janice Barrett & Mark Kolinski, both Lawrence County residents and professional environmentalists, and, from Birmingham, Adam Johnston, Alliance Coordinator for Alabama Rivers Alliance and a Alabama Sierra Club board member. Rose and Cope are also both board members of Tennessee Riverkeeper, based in Decatur, AL.
photo credit is : Janice Barrett
Standing, from L to R: Grant Posey, Joel Mize, Victor Puertas, Jesse Fruhwirth, Charles Rose, John Crowder, Nancy Muse,Mark Kolinski,
David Cope, David Underhill, Cindy Spoon, Peggy McCloy. Kneeling, L to R: Herb Wagner, Jackie Posey,Adam Johnston, Ramsey Sprague,
Ron Siefert. Not pictured: Janice Barrett.
According to Cope, “It was a great opportunity to share our thoughts and experiences with a group of dedicated people from outside our region. Our common concern for preserving the beauty of nature and protecting clean water from contamination was the theme for this meeting.” Echoing this Rose stated, “Sometimes we feel a little isolated from the rest of the state and the rest of the country up here in Northwest Alabama. It was quite gratifying for me, personally, to know that there are people elsewhere that have the same concerns as we do, that see the danger to our environment from this risky, unproven method of extraction. Our fight is in the beginning stages, so we really learned a lot from our guests, who have been at it much longer than we have.”
Tar Sands Blockade is an organizing collective of affected Texas residents and climate justice organizers. In the summer of 2012 they launched their “campaign of peaceful, sustained direct action” to stop the construction of TransCanada’s Keystone XL South tar sands pipeline.
Mobile Environmental Justice Action Coalition (MEJAC) is a coalition of Mobile Bay residents and organization confronting enviro-justice issues and attempting to cease toxic industrial pollution. MEJAC, Mobile Sierra Club and other citizens, especially residents of Mobile’s historic Africatown community, have held public meetings and are in the midst of a campaign to convince the Mobile Planning Commission and City Council to not allow the construction of two giant petrochemical storage tank farms on Mobile’s riverfront. These facilities would house millions of 
gallons of oil, much of it the dirty Canadian tar sands crude activists are still fighting out west.
Founded in 2009 and based in Salt Lake City, Peaceful Uprising’s mission statement is: “To defend a livable future through empowering nonviolent action, while creating the healthy and just world we want to see.”
From Victor Puertas, of Peaceful Uprising & Utah Tar Sands Resistance and native of Peru. “It was great to connect with the people of Muscle Shoals, connect our struggles and connect with other communities facing the same issues. The energy and commitment of the people of Muscle Shoals, Alabama is so awesome”
Utah Tar Sands Resistance sees its mission as: “Standing in the way of tar sands & oil shale mining in Utah, the Colorado Plateau and, ultimately, the entire world.”
The Stop Alabama Tar Sands Mining task force is an informal organization, with 
backing from Shoals Environmental Alliance, Alabama Rivers Alliance, Tennessee Riverkeeper, and other environmental groups. Their purpose is to object to, resist, and to educate the public about the mining of tar sands from the Hartselle Sandstone formation in Northwest Alabama proposed by Lawrence County-based MS Industries. Other companies have also shown an interest in the extraction of this resource.
According to Joel Mize, a retired petroleum engineer with 50-years experience in the energy extraction field, “The tar in tar-sands is very hazardous and can be deadly in water, air and on land; it is important that we keep our eye on the ball, as there will likely be long term interest in mining this material in NW Alabama. We welcome anti-mining support from throughout North American and the world who realize the overall cost to society will outweigh any temporary benefits.” David Cope, a retired UNA math professor, knowledgeable about groundwater and the threats to it, added, “Our hope is that our concern will draw increased attention from the general public in the Shoals, as they become more aware of the significant environmental threats posed by tar sands mining in Colbert and Lawrence counties.”
MS Industries has been drilling exploratory bores and has been buying mineral rights in Colbert and Lawrence Counties in anticipation of surface mining the Hartselle Sandstone, in order to extract the bitumen, commonly known by various names, such as tar sands or oil sands. The actual mining cannot commence until the Alabama Oil & Gas Board finishes regulation to govern this type of mining. The company cannot even apply for a permit until the regulations are formulated, commented on by the public, and approved by the state legislature. MS Industries has have recently applied to Alabama Dept. of Environmental Management for a permit to surface mine “non-asphaltic sandstone.” It is unclear for what purpose they intend to use this material.
MEDIA RELEASE/CHARLES ROSE PRESIDENT SEA
3 comments
How many acres of land has MS Industries bought in Colbert County?
The figure usually reported in media accounts for all lands and interests in lands acquired in the company’s area of interest is around 2,000 acres either by fee title purchase of by purchase of mineral rights.
I have no breakdown by county, but the zone of the company’s current interest is Lawrence, Colbert and Franklin Counties, with most, if not acquisitions thus far in the first two of these. .
Good, well-written story!