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Alabama Power says it has reached a settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency over concerns about millions of pounds of coal ash dumped in unlined ditches near Mobile.

“Importantly, nowhere in the agreement does the EPA allege or determine that Alabama Power’s (coal ash pond) compliance program has affected any source of drinking water, or otherwise endangered human life, animal or aquatic species, or the environment,” Alabama Power said in a press release Friday.

Plant Barry is 597 acres and holds almost 22 million cubic yards of coal ash, about a quarter of the state’s total coal ash.

The company further stated that testing has shown no impact to the Mobile River.

The EPA did not respond to a request for comment.

The settlement does not address the millions of tons of coal ash sitting in groundwater, a potential violation cited by the EPA. Environmental advocates say the ash is polluting nearby waterways.

“The most pressing problem remains unresolved: millions of tons of coal ash remain saturated in groundwater in the unlined pond, polluting nearby waterways in a manner that does not comply with federal law,” said Mobile Baykeeper, an environmental group.

The group stated in a press release on Wednesday that the EPA could still take action on an outstanding violation to require the toxic ash to be removed.

Alabama Power said the settlement requires the utility to increase monitoring of its coal ash ponds by adding groundwater monitoring wells and updating its emergency action plan to account for severe weather.

Coal ash contains toxins that are harmful to human health and can cause cancer, including mercury, arsenic, cadmium and others according to the EPA.

In 2023, the EPA revoked Alabama’s coal ash permitting plan, pushing back against the state’s environmental agency and its utilities. Alabama Power said that creating further buffers around coal ash waste, currently stored in unlined ponds alongside rivers throughout the state, would cost billions of dollars.

The EPA said last year that Alabama’s plan fell short of federal standards. The EPA said then it had informed the Alabama Department of Environmental Management about problems with its plan, but the state had not remedied them. As a result, Alabama faced the possibility of excavating and relocating millions of tons of wet coal ash slurry or develop a method of safely storing it in place.

In 2024 the United States Supreme Court ruled on a case to significantly limit the regulatory powers of federal agencies like the EPA.

For decades prior to 2015, many plants disposed of their coal ash, waste leftover after the combustion of coal in a power plant, by flushing it into nearby unlined ponds near rivers. The heaviest ash particles would settle to the bottom of the ponds and water would flow from them into nearby rivers. Starting in 2015, new regulations forced coal-fired plants nationwide to switch to dry coal ash disposal

Alabama’s unlined coal ash ponds contain about 100 million cubic yards of coal ash on about 2,000 acres spread throughout the state. One ash pond at other large ponds include Plant Gaston in Shelby County, and Plants Miller and Gorgas, both in Jefferson County, each containing about 25 million cubic yards of coal ash.

Prior to the settlement, the state’s utilities faced a significant responsibility to clean up the ponds.

Alabama Power’s announcement today only address the pond at Plant Barry in Mobile.

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“Closure by removal would take decades to complete, which exceeds the regulatory closure timeframes, and there is not enough available landfill capacity to accept the approximately 100 million cubic yards of ash in our ponds,” said Alabama Power Vice President of Environmental Affairs Susan Comensky at a public hearing on the EPA’s decision last year.

Alabama Power estimated in 2020 that would cost $3.3 billion to leave the coal ash ponds in place but cover them with a protective liner, which is a less expensive option than moving the coal ash.

Update: This story was updated at 3:30 pm on Oct. 2 to clarify comments from Mobile Baykeeper.

A strike involving 45,000 longshoremen spanning ports along the East Coast and Deep South that could create chaos in the U.S. economy and infuse an October surprise into next month’s presidential election, has its origins in Mobile.

To be more specific – at a gate leading into the APM Terminals south of downtown Mobile.

“Machines don’t pay taxes,” said Mark Bass, president of the International Longshoremen’s Association Local 1410, which consists of approximately 1,500 workers in the Mobile area. “They are not subject to what we do.”

The automated processing gate, which Bass described as an entry point for trucks at APM Terminals, represents one of the key sticking points in negotiations that are capturing national attention during the first day of a strike through some of the busiest ports in the U.S., including Mobile.

The New York Times, in an article almost one month ago, described the gate as the main negotiation problem between the union and the United States Maritime Alliance, a group of companies that move cargo at ports. It’s unclear exactly how the gate operates, but according to the Times it uses a combination of digital scans and checks performed by I.L.A. members.

The negotiation sticking point, while born in Mobile, is resonating nationwide as port districts grapple with emerging technologies aimed to improve operational efficiencies and cut costs. Economists say the issue is not unlike what other industries face amid worries that technology will eliminate jobs. But supply chain experts also claim that in order for U.S. ports to stay competitive with their international counterparts, they must be open to utilizing technology.

“There are two issues holding everyone back, wages and automation,” said Margaret Kidd, a supply chain expert at the University of Houston.

“The issue of automation is very concerning,” she added. “There is no industry that hasn’t change over the last 130 years. Technology makes our jobs easier and more efficient and safer in many cases. The U.S. is undermining our competitiveness by not embracing technology in critical transport modes.”

For now, the issue in Mobile is creating differences of opinion between the local ILA union head and the Mobile Chamber.

Bradley Byrne, president & CEO with the Mobile Chamber, said he felt automation is a “red herring” in the contract talks, even if Harold Daggett – the union’s president and chief negotiator – has vowed to “never allow automation” to come into the union and push out workers.

Byrne said the auto gate at APM Terminals, a division of Danish-based shipping giant Maersk, was included in the construction of the company’s Mobile container port in 2008. The company has since expanded several times and encompasses 134 acres south of downtown Mobile.

“There were two collective bargaining agreements since 2008, and this issue was never an issue before,” Byrne said about previous ILA contracts approved in 2013 and 2018.

A representative with Maersk has not responded to requests for comment.

The union’s existing contract, which expired Monday, allowed for semi-automated machinery but barred equipment that did not allow for any human interaction.

The “auto gate” at APM Terminals is considered semi-automated and has been at the Port of Mobile for 16 years. The technology has also not changed since the terminal opened, and only became an issue since existing contract talks were broken off by the union in June.

“(The ILA) is using (automation) as part of their negotiation tactic,” Byrne said. “The automation is there for safety of the workers more than anything else. It keeps them from being in the line of traffic trailer (trucks). I don’t buy that it’s the real issue that is part of these negotiations.”

Bass, in response, invited Byrne and others to come to the docks and “learn the docks before he can speak on the docks.”

“(The Chamber) is in business and they are trying to solicit work here,” Bass said. “I’ve heard them say this, ‘We’re the fastest growing port in the nation.’ I’ve yet to hear him say why. You know why? All of those workers that are here. How can we be the fastest growing port without complimenting the workers? Anyone with common sense recognizes that it’s the workers.”

Byrne agreed with Bass, saying that people operating the machinery with the port “deserve to be paid a fair wage.”

But he said that the opening demand of 77 percent pay raises over six years was simply “too much.”

“The port operators offered a 50 percent increase over three years and that’s pretty darn generous,” Byrne said, acknowledging what the U.S. Marine Alliance reportedly offered the union on Monday before the strike began at midnight Tuesday.

Daggett has since said that he would be open to a 61 percent wage increase over a six-year contract. U.S. West Coast port workers ratified a contract last year, retroactive to 2022, that included a 32 percent pay increase over six years as well as a one-time bonus for working through the early days of the pandemic.

The West Coast ports have since allowed fully automated machinery dating back to 2008. West Coast dockworkers also receive better pay and pensions than union workers on the East and Gulf Coast ports, according to the New York Times reporting.

Bass said in Mobile, longshoremen earn anywhere from $20 an hour to $39. On an annual basis, they can earn as low as $41,600 to $81,120, but those salaries can fluctuate based on the hours that are worked.

“This is my 35th year. I tell people ... come to work on the docks and live in my shoes and see how you like it,” Bass said. “The average person cannot do it. We miss birthdays, wedding anniversaries, and all the normal things like the Alabama (Crimson Tide football) games. We miss all of that because guess what, when a ship pulls in, we are here 24 hours, 7 days a week.”

Pete Simonson, an assistant professor in the Marketing, Supply Chain Management and Analytics department at the University of South Alabama, said he is sympathetic toward the plight of the union workers fearful over how automation might threaten jobs.

“We can say, ‘yeah, it has to happen and it’s better for the overall economy,’ and then we say, ‘too bad, you’re out of a job and good luck with something that doesn’t pay a fraction of what you’re making now,’ it just doesn’t sit well with people,” Simonson said. There has to be and there will be automation. But I’m sympathetic of people saying, ‘How do we make this work for everybody?’”

Kidd, the supply chain expert at the University of Houston, said automation should be viewed favorably in that it can create “new and modern” high skill jobs and improved working conditions.

“They should be looking at the long haul to negotiate for guaranteed jobs and upskilling and training so they can be the workforce for the future at a modern terminal,” Kidd said, noting that international ports – such as a port in Singapore – are becoming highly sophisticated and fully automated.

Container terminal operator ECT opened the world’s first automated container terminal in Rotterdam in 1993.

John Dove, a professor of economics at Troy University, said there are tradeoffs over automation.

“It’s an efficiency argument that will lower costs but, in the short-term, that leads to labor layoffs and things of that nature,” Dove said. “That’s really become one of the sticking points we are seeing right now.”

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