POWERGRAMS

people from a safety standpoint?" said Phifer. "It would have been chaos without help from the sheriff and police department, the fire department, the Emergency Medical Agency, the paramedics and the rescue squad. Safety has always been the highest priority at Alabama Power, and it's the same for Renew Our Rivers." Phifer soon began geing calls from other lake homeowner and boat owner associations interested in hosting cleanups. Within three years, there were cleanups at all the lakes on the Coosa, Tallapoosa and Black Warrior rivers. Then, he began working with Georgia Power's Plant Hammond employees to help them organize a cleanup. With cleanups popping up at lakes across Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Florida, the program in 2002 was renamed Renew Our Rivers. Fiingly, this momentous occasion was celebrated at the Plant Gadsden pavilion. Phifer said the cleanups have become a huge team effort, with company employees working closely with homeowner and boat owner associations and community volunteers. "The cleanups have goen bigger and included more and more people," said Phifer. "That first year, there were so many unknowns and so many things you didn't know how to do. Later, it became clearer, and people began to understand their roles. We became more efficient. It's still a lot of work, but it has become more manageable." PHIFER: VITAL TO H. NEELY HENRY LAKE CLEANUPS Phifer, who retired from Alabama Power in 2009, has continued to play a leading role in the annual H. Neely Henry Lake cleanups on the Coosa River. He oen takes his boat out on the water before the cleanup to look for areas where debris has accumulated. Then, during the cleanup, he helps dispatch volunteers and boats to those areas. Phifer remembers that one year, his cleanup leadership team almost became too confident, thinking they could cover more and more of the river. "We thought we are geing good at this, so we took on 53 miles of river," Phifer said. "Because the volunteers were so scaered, communication became a problem. We had groups that needed to talk to each other, but SouthernLINC and cellphones wouldn't work. Aer that, we began covering more manageable pieces of the river." Phifer encounters sunken boat left near riverbank. Phifer decided to let the public see what was thrown out. 26

• Cover