Action Newsletter, Spring 2000

ALABAMA COMMUNITIES IN TRANSITION

Abstract: Alabama has been blessed with an abundance of natural resources. For many communities this abundance is often a source of pride and boasting, but with the pride comes responsibility. Positive action must be taken to maintain or to improve the quality of our natural resources, which should never be taken for granted.

Keywords: natural resources, Green Groups as Clients, abundant, environmental, USDA, National Research Initiative Competitive Grant Program, water, citizen green groups, opportunities

Action is a quarterly publication of the Community Resource Development (CRD) unit of the Alabama Cooperative Extension System (ACES). The mission of the CRD unit is "to help people solve community problems, take advantage of opportunities, and build on their assets. We do this through educational and technical assistance in economic development, leadership development, strategic planning, environmental education, community health, and public policy education. We also link community groups to internal and external resources."

Green Groups as Clients is the focus of this Spring 2000 issue of Action. We examine the emergence of well-organized citizen groups interested in environmental quality issues and the opportunity it presents for ACES. This issue represents one of the many links between the CRD unit and other Auburn University resources. The primary contributor to this issue is Dr. Conner Bailey, a faculty member with the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology in the College of Agriculture. Other contributors are Bryan Walton and Lani Merritt, both research assistants with the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, and Mark Dubois, a faculty member in the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences.

The next issue of Action, Summer 2000, will focus on Leadership For the New Millennium. Dr. Willie Larkin, a member of the CRD faculty, will specifically address Conquering the Leadership Crisis in Alabama. For more information on these topics or suggestions for additional topics, contact the editor at (334) 844-3517, or FAX (334) 844-9022, or e-mail jchesnut@aces.edu.

      J. Thomas Chesnutt, Editor
      Extension Tourism Specialist
 

Alabama's Abundant Natural Resources
Alabama is a state of great scenic beauty and abundant natural resources. Historically, Alabama's economy was based on the exploitation of such natural resources as coal, iron ore, timber, and soil. Roughly 10 percent of the nation's surface waters flow through the state's nearly 41,000 miles of rivers and streams. Significant groundwater resources exist to supply the bulk of the state's public and private water supply as well as for use in crop irrigation. Alabama ranks among those states having the greatest specie diversity, a fact attributable in part to the complex geologic processes that shaped the state. At the same time, Alabama is a leader in the number of species listed as threatened or endangered, reflecting human disturbance of critically important habitats. Alabama is the nation's second most heavily forested states (roughly two-thirds is forested), and more of the state is forested today than at any point in the twentieth century. On the other hand, an increasing proportion of our forests are monocultures of loblolly pine, replacing longleaf pine and mixed stands of oak and hickory interspersed with pine. In short, Alabama's natural endowment is both impressive and a cause for concern.

Surveys of citizen attitudes regarding environmental issues regularly report that Alabamians value environmental protection over job creation, but political leaders aggressively `chase smokestacks' through tax incentives and a willingness to place higher value on economic growth than on environmental quality. As a result, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reported that in 1997 (the most recent year for which data are available), Alabama ranked tenth in the nation in terms of total release of toxins in the state's air and water. Total 1997 toxic releases in Alabama, with a population of approximately 4.3 million, were 15 times higher than those released in Massachusetts, and more than the combined releases of New York and California.

Emergence of Citizen Green Groups
Given Alabama's natural endowments, and the existence of diverse threats to these endowments, it is not surprising that the public would be concerned and take action. Social scientists have long been interested in the emergence of social movements as a form of collective behavior representing dissatisfaction with the status quo. The environmental movement is a case in point, reflecting public willingness to mobilize when they believe the government has failed to provide protection against threats to environmental and public health.

The environmental movement in the United States is represented by a diverse array of groups. Organizations like the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Audubon Society, the Nature Conservancy, the National Wildlife Federation, and the World Wildlife Fund represent the environmental establishment. These groups typically focus their energies on influencing legislative and executive branch decisions at the national level. To meet the need for local action, a large number of grassroots groups have emerged across the nation, and in Alabama.

As part of a larger effort designed to examine opportunities for collaboration between the Alabama Cooperative Extension System and citizen groups concerned with natural resource and environmental issues, a Web-based directory of citizen groups has been established and maintained. Nearly half (48 percent) focus on water resource issues (Table 1). Other groups focus on forests, wilderness and wildlife, or toxics and social justice issues.

Table 1. Focal Interests of Citizen Groups Concerned with Natural Resource and Environmental Quality in Alabama (n=116)
 

Groups Focused on Water Issues
The organizational effort around water resource issues is understandable. Approximately one-sixth of the surface area of Alabama is covered with surface water. Surface water areas of the state are an important link for sustaining the various complex ecosystems such as freshwater wetlands, coastal wetlands, estuaries, and Gulf coastal shorelines and beaches. Surface water areas are also comprised of lakes, reservoirs, ponds, as well as flowing streams and rivers that provide 56 percent of the drinking water for Alabama's 4.3 million people. The state also has 19 major groundwater aquifer systems that supply 44 percent of the state's population with drinking water. The Alabama Water Watch at Auburn University has done much to increase public awareness of the importance of the state's water resources. But organizational activity extends well beyond AWW to include a number of statewide and local efforts. For example, the Alabama Rivers Alliance is an organization from Birmingham that works to unite citizen groups of Alabama to protect and preserve environmentally sound waters. They are open to individuals and businesses for membership and currently have a number of programs in operation. One of these is the Alabama Watershed Leadership Project, which functions to build, support, and unite Alabama's grassroots watershed protection movement. Another is the Healthy Rivers Advocacy Program, whose main focus is to secure the adoption and implementation of clean water and river protection policies and programs at the state level. The Watershed Education Initiative is educating Alabamians on the importance and values of healthy watershed ecosystems, and they also have a program that promotes conservation through river recreation.

In addition to these statewide groups, a number of important local organizations have been formed. One such group, the Cahaba River Society, is concerned with Alabama's longest remaining free-flowing river. The Society is active in networking with other groups such as Friends of the Mulberry Fork River, a non-profit organization located in Blountsville. Friends of the Mulberry Fork River are interested in protecting the river basin while promoting recreational activities for the river. Their current issues of concern are water quality and public access for recreation on the river. Dog River Clearwater Revival is an organization from Mobile that wants to protect and restore Dog River. They are accomplishing this by establishing a citizen monitoring network along the river, compiling its oral history, educating the public, and lobbying for enforcement and compliance of current environmental protection regulations. Save Our Saugahatchee in Lee County is another example of a local group that emerged out of concern for the preservation of rivers and streams in Alabama. All of these groups are affiliated with the Alabama Rivers Alliance and produce regular newsletters to keep members informed of activities.

Examples of citizen groups organized around lakes include the Weiss Lake Improvement Association, in Centre, and Lake Watch of Lake Martin based out of Alexander City. This latter group was formed largely out of concerns related to the discharge of effluent from a large textile mill, turning Sugar Creek into what they call "Stinkum Creek." Public action in the coastal zone includes a group known as West Bay Watch from the Mobile area. This group is affiliated with the Mobile Bay branch of the Sierra Club and is particularly concerned with the impact of industrial pollution in the Theodor industrial area.

The D'Olive Bay, Creek, and Lake Restoration and Preservation Committee wants to restore the eastern side of Mobile Bay, a watershed area of 10,000 acres. Although their main issues of concern are siltation and restoration of creeks, they are interested in the installation of catch basins in watersheds.

Recreationalists are very active in trying to protect Alabama's waterways and leaders of groups representing recreational interests are politically well connected. Anglers for Clean Water is a conservation group located in Montgomery. They are affiliated with a larger organization, the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society (BASS), also based in Montgomery. Of the two, BASS is the larger group, publishing three magazines, hosting a TV series, and sponsoring highly publicized fishing tournaments. Both groups have supported "Fishermens' Right to Know" legislation that involve the public posting of signs listing chemicals flowing through discharge pipes at industrial facilities. Their purpose is dual: to promote fishing as a sport and to protect aquatic ecosystems.

In addition to fishers, there are a number of other recreational groups interested in the water quality of Alabama's rivers and streams. Among these are the Bama Backpaddlers Association, a group based in Trussville that is dedicated to whitewater canoeing and kayaking, whose activities centrally focus on improving water quality. The Coosa River Paddling Club is a group from Montgomery concerned with conservation and recreational access to the Coosa River. Citizen groups interested in recreation in and on the state's waters are matched by more terrestrially centered groups such as the National Speleological Society, the Alabama Trails Association, and the Vulcan Trail Association.

Opportunities for the Alabama Cooperative Extension System (ACES)
A large number of citizen groups formed in Alabama focus on issues associated with wilderness and wildlife and on public health issues associated with the presence of toxins in the environment. These groups represent the professional and working class populations in urban and rural communities and reflect the diverse citizenry of Alabama. They have, however, one common characteristic: limited involvement with ACES.

Traditionally, farmers and rural residents represented ACES' primary clientele. Today, ACES, like its counterpart in other states, is going through a crisis of identity as resources are shifted away from agricultural production toward broader mandates and needs. We understand the discomfort this process entails, but we also believe that this change brings with it new opportunities. One of these opportunities is to forge effective working relationships with organized citizen groups who frequently need the kind of access to professional and technical assistance that ACES is designed to provide. Technical assistance is needed in determining how best to manage a wetland or other ecosystem, mediating a local dispute between a developer and a group of citizens who want to protect a stream, and in assisting local groups make contact with water quality, wildlife, or other specialists.

Despite the existence of such needs and the availability of human resources within ACES, few of the 120 citizen groups registered in our Directory of Alabama Grassroots Organizations have had any contact with ACES, and most people we have interviewed have had no knowledge of what ACES does. Those who claim to know something about ACES believe that ACES works primarily with farmers and the 4-H program. The broader mandate to which ACES and other Extension Systems nationally are moving has not been effectively communicated to most citizen groups in Alabama that focus on natural resource and environmental issues. There is an ever growing and increasingly well-organized group of citizens whose needs currently are being underserved. These same groups represent an important clientele who may become significant supporters as ACES strives to maintain its social and legislative mandate in the twenty-first century.