Mobile, Alabama’s grassroots environmental justice fight isn’t about “jobs versus the environment”. It is about an inclusive municipal planning process versus well-oiled advertising campaigns, cronyism, and misinformation coming straight outta Houston. But it’s 2015, we need not poison people or degrade their property in order to prosper. Much of downtown Mobile’s tourism industry, as well as public health officials and community advocates agree with this sentiment.

The zoning ordinance proposed by the Planning Commission on above ground petrochemical storage tanks is an insult to residents, property owners, and breathers everywhere – but particularly to Africatown’s many historical significances. Throughout the last two and a half years of trying to be heard clearly, downtown communities have organized together to consistently say “No More Petro Tanks on Our River Banks”. Given the size and scope of what has been previously proposed, the passion and commitment that communities bearing the brunt of the locally-unwanted land use are displaying is unprecedented for Mobile.
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