Alabama top stories in brief

• Gov. Kay Ivey announced May 22 that the Alabama Department of Transportation had purchased the Foley Beach Express Bridge in Baldwin County. Until the state’s purchase, this bridge had operated as a toll bridge, charging $5 for anyone crossing it, but with the state’s purchase, the fees for the bridge have been eliminated. The bridge was purchased from the Baldwin County Bridge Company for $57 million. 

• Juneteenth was added to Alabama’s list of state holidays this year by Gov. Kay Ivey on May 20. Juneteenth was declared a federal holiday in 2021, and bills were introduced in the Alabama legislature to make it an official state holiday. The Alabama legislature bills, which ultimately did not pass, would have required state employees to choose between having Jefferson Davis’s birthday off or Juneteenth. Ivey has included Juneteenth as a state holiday each year since it officially became a federal holiday. 

• The Environmental Protection Agency has denied Alabama’s plan for coal ash disposal, saying that the use of unlined pits to dispose of coal ash does little to protect people or the environment. Toxic coal ash produced by utility companies, such as Alabama Power, has been stored in ponds, called coal ash ponds, at or near electrical generating plants. There are currently nine of these coal ash ponds across the state. However, this means of disposing of coal ash has been linked to safety issues such as groundwater contamination. In 2019, the Alabama Department of Environmental Management fined Alabama Power $250,000 after groundwater monitoring at a coal ash disposal site in Gadsden showed elevated amounts of arsenic and radium. ADEM still plans to appeal the EPA’s ruling.

• The Alabama Department of Public Health is planning to offer autopsies to families of women whose deaths are related to childbirth later this year. The Maternal Autopsy Program began in December 2023 in Baldwin, Jefferson, Madison, Marshall, Mobile, Montgomery, Shelby and Walker counties. Now, ADPH is planning to expand the program statewide, using $478,000 in state allocations. Alabama has the worst maternal mortality rate in the nation, with 64.63 deaths per 100,000 births compared to the national rate of 34.09 deaths. 

• The University of Alabama at Birmingham has stopped performing autopsies on state inmates. UAB previously had a contract with the Alabama Department of Corrections to perform autopsies on deceased inmates’ bodies. However, in January, UAB was named in a lawsuit that alleges that inmates’ bodies have been missing organs upon being returned to their families. Families of deceased inmates who are suspected of dying from an overdose or natural causes will now have to seek autopsies on their own. 

• The Alabama attorney general’s office has asked a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit that seeks to challenge a law criminalizing receiving a payment or gift for helping an individual cast an absentee ballot in the state. Civil rights groups, such as the ACLU of Alabama, filed a lawsuit to block the law in April, saying that the law could lead to volunteers helping people with absentee ballots getting punished. Alabama’s AG office argued in their filing to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama that the law does not violate existing rights, nor does it make it harder to vote.  

• The United Auto Workers union is calling for a revote after workers at a Mercedes-Benz factory in Vance voted against unionization. The union is calling for the National Labor Relations Board to reject the plant’s vote, saying that Mercedes-Benz engaged in unfair labor practices by firing four pro-union employees and allowing anti-union employees to solicit on company time while simultaneously not allowing pro-union employees to do the same. Workers at the Vance plant narrowly rejected unionization, with 2,642 employees voting against unionizing while 2,045 voted in favor — a margin of only 597 votes. The NLRB regional director will have to review UAW’s objections and hold a hearing in order to decide if a second election should be held.  

Our articles you might have missed

• In the latest edition of The Longleaf Hiker, Xander Swain travels to Moss Rock Preserve, where he explores the beauty of its rare sandstone glades and completes his first outdoor bouldering climb. 

Announcements

• The Breathing Room will continue to take a break this month with a plan to return in June. 

• We had some more help with this Roundup. Cady Inabinett is a recent graduate of the University of Montevallo. While there, she worked for UM’s campus newspaper, The Alabamian, and served as the editor in chief her senior year.