Not so green

THE ISSUE

Forbes magazine's first "America's Greenest States" survey placed Alabama near the bottom of the list, in no small part because of the lack of a state regulatory effort to enact and enforce environmentally friendly policies.

Alabama isn't doing a very good job of protecting the environment, and it appears there are no new efforts planned by the state environmental agency to enact stricter regulatory enforcement or aggressively promote cleaner practices.

So says Forbes magazine in a survey of state environmental policies and practices, which ranked Alabama 48th among the states.

A story earlier this month in the Birmingham News backs up the financial mangazine's conclusions. The News reported that the Alabama Department of Environmental Management has not followed a plan to reduce materials dumped in sanitary landfills, though the plan has been in existance for more than a decade. An ADEM spokesman was quoted saying the agency has no plans to ask the Legislature to authorize enactment of the plan or to beef up regulatory and enforcement authority.

ADEM already had been gigged by a federal agency for its lax enforcement of its own policies, so what's the big surprise here?

The Forbes survey used benchmarks to measure how states are protecting the environment, including consumption patterns, air and water quality, waste disposal management, and policy. Alabama didn't fare very well in any of those categories.

Waste disposal is particularly interesting. The Birmingham News reported ADEM does not track how much material is dumped in landfills nor how much material is recycled statewide. Both were mandated in the decade-old plan to reduce waste flow to landfills by 25 percent. An ADEM spokesman estimated that 8 percent of waste is recycled in Alabama. That's compared to the EPA's estimate of 32 percent nationwide.

This week, the state Court of Civil Appeals upheld a lower court ruling overtunring an ADEM permit for a mining operation to dump waste in a creek already high in pollutants.

Alabama is becoming a top destination for heavy industry again with the announcements of a steel plant and auto makers in the past two years opening facilities here. These companies will provide jobs with good wages for state residents. But the incentives offered these companies should not include the health of Alabama's environment. That is no bargain.

And what's needed at ADEM is aggressive leadership that acts as an advocate for the environment and the health of Alabama's people, which often go hand in hand. As it is, ADEM is not even a paper tiger; it's simply dormant.