‘They’re all dry’: Residents fear Alabama Power drilling is draining wells
Peter Adkins said when he and his neighbors started seeing their well levels bottoming out
By Jon Paepcke
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VANDIVER, Alabama (WVTM) — Residents living on Shelby County’s Lake View Circle treasure the mountaintop neighborhood’s serenity.
“It’s private, beautiful views. And you’re only 15 minutes to everything,” Tommy Fish said.
However, within the last few weeks, the tranquility of those living there was shattered.
Peter Adkins said when he and his neighbors started seeing their well levels bottoming out, they called in plumbing experts for advice.
“Y’all got a major leak somewhere. Somebody up here or somewhere the water is leaving the mountain,” Adkins said.
So, he and Fish drove down to a nearby project site, where an Alabama Power contractor had been drilling a 4,000-foot hole to run fiber optic cable through the base of their mountain.
“They acknowledged that they had hit some type of water vein, a fisher, aquifer that totally erupted in there in this mountain right here in the course of their drilling,” Fish said.
Ever since, water has been gushing out in hundreds of gallons, and more neighbors’ wells are running dry.
Last week, attorney Stewart Springer convinced a judge to temporarily stop the drilling.
“I don’t know how you get water back in there. Are they going to run a garden hose from Birmingham back out here to fill an aquifer with millions of gallons of water that they spilled out? Springer asked.
Right now, residents like Adkins are relying on temporary water tanks the power company provided just to shower and flush toilets in their in own home.
“If this aquifer, sir, gets drained, depleted of its natural resource, it will affect everyone from Shoal Creek all the way to Leeds,” Fish said.
In court filing late Monday afternoon, Alabama Power denied the paragraph in the neighbors’ complaint accusing the drilling of leading to tens of thousands of gallons to leak out of the mountain and dry up the wells.
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