Water whys
Over the past two decades, Alabama Power and
other Southern Company employees along with
115,000 volunteers have removed more than
15.5 million pounds of trash from waterways across
the Southeast. What an amazing accomplishment.
Gene Phifer, who planned the first Renew the Coosa
cleanup, and other Plant Gadsden employees had no
idea the impact they would make when they first got
together to clean up a portion of the river around their
plant in 1999.
ey truly birthed a movement, which spread up
and down the Coosa River and eventually across the
state and into Georgia, Mississippi and Florida. Today,
Renew Our Rivers is one of the nation's largest river
cleanups.
In this edition of Shorelines, we sit down with Phifer
for a look back on 20 years of Renew Our Rivers. We
also talk with longtime volunteers on Smith, Lay and
Jordan lakes about their time with the campaign and
what it has meant to the lakes they call home.
We also want to highlight some of the other Renew
Our River cleanups. While most people might think of
the large lakes when they think of Renew Our Rivers,
the program has a presence in cities, too, even large
ones like Birmingham.
Finally, we wanted to give a timeline of the past
two decades and try to put into perspective how much
15.5 million pounds really is.
We invite everyone to join one or more of the cleanups
this year. For a current schedule, see page 17 of this
edition of Shorelines or visit apcshorelines.com/blog.
Enjoy!
— Justin Averette
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| 2019 Vol: 1
