Eight Mile, Alabama

Eight Mile
Unincorporated community
Eight Mile

Location within Alabama

Coordinates: 30°45′49″N 088°07′37″W / 30.76361°N 88.12694°W / 30.76361; -88.12694Coordinates: 30°45′49″N 088°07′37″W / 30.76361°N 88.12694°W / 30.76361; -88.12694 [1]
Country United States
State Alabama
County Mobile
Elevation[1] 33 ft (10 m)
Time zone Central (CST) (UTC-6)
 • Summer (DST) CDT (UTC-5)
ZIP code 36613
Area code(s) 251
GNIS ID[1] 117888

Eight Mile is an unincorporated community in Mobile County, Alabama, United States.[1] The community is named for its distance from the city of Mobile.

Geography

Eight Mile is located west of Mobile Bay and just north of the Gulf of Mexico.[2] The elevation is 33 feet (10 m).[1]

Demographics

The mostly African American enclave had a median income in 2014 of $35,000 which is more than $8,000 lower the state median.[2]

Mercaptan spill (natural gas odorant)

Lightning struck a mercaptan storage tank in 2008 at a Mobile Gas Service Corp. underground natural gas pipeline at the Whistler Junction gas transfer facility within the Eight Mile community.[2][3][4] An estimated 500 US gallons (1,900 l; 420 imp gal) of Mercaptan, the chemical odorant added to natural gas to help detect leaks, spilled into the soil and groundwater for 6 months, according to Alabama state environmental officials.[5] It has migrated to ponds and surfaced, polluting the community's air.[3] Beginning in 2011, residents in Eight Mile began complaining of an overwhelming mercaptan odor and health problems. They have concerns about the damage to their health from the chemical, and to property values from its persistent rotten egg smell.[2][3][5][6][7]

Mobile Gas officials maintained that the odor had nothing to do with their operations and did not publicly mention the leak or the lightning strike until April 2012.[5] In subsequent court documents Mobile Gas acknowledged the leak, but claimed the responsibility is with the waste cleanup firms they had hired failed to get rid of the spilled chemical. Sempra Energy acquired the Eight Mile facility several months after the accident and owned it until September 2016.[2][8] Sempra Energy also owns the well that caused the massive 2015−16 Aliso Canyon gas leak in the Santa Susana Mountains and San Fernando Valley of Southern California.[2][3]

Mobile Gas started operating a new water pollution remediation ozone treatment process system in 2015.[3] The Alabama Department of Environmental Management odor patrol reports indicate that there is more mercaptan in the air now than before it started operations.[3][8] An ADEM odor patroller noted in January 2016 that she had to leave the area to finish her report because the mercaptan smell was overwhelming.[3] Mercaptan was federally reclassified as a hazardous chemical by the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, passed by Congress and signed by President Obama in 2016.[7]

Notable person

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Feature Detail Report for: Eight Mile (Mobile County, Alabama)". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey. Retrieved January 8, 2013.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Penn, Ivan (October 15, 2016). "We cannot breathe:' A poor Alabama town has lived with the rotten egg stench of gas for 8 years". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 15 October 2016.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 DeSmog Blog: "Eight Years After a Mercaptan Spill, Residents of Eight Mile, Alabama, Call For Evacuation"; by Julie Dermansky; 8 August 2016.
  4. ↑ Facebook.com: We Matter Eight Mile Community Association
  5. 1 2 3 Blog @ AL.com: "Mobile Gas may have leaked more than 6,000 pounds of mercaptan in Eight Mile over six month period"; by Ben Raines ; 12 Februray 2013.
  6. ↑ WPMI−Local 15.com: "8 Mile residents seek state & federal help with odor"; by Modupe Idowu; 20 June 2016.
  7. 1 2 WKRG−News 5.com: "Eight Mile Residents Cry For Help From The Feds To Investigate Mercaptan Gas Leak"; by Emily DeVoe; 23 June 2016.
  8. 1 2 Alabama Department of Environmental Management, Eight Mile Mercaptan Summary]; 8 June 2016; @ eight-mile-summary-6-20-16.docx .
  9. ↑ "Mikhail Torrance". Rolltide.com. CBSi Advanced Media. Retrieved 16 March 2015.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 12/3/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.