Drummond ordered to clean old mine site, pay $3.65 million

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) – The Birmingham-based Drummond Co. Inc. must clean up an abandoned site and pay $3.65 million under an agreement approved by a federal judge in a lawsuit over environmental pollution in north Alabama.

The settlement was announced in a statement by environmental groups.

It follows years of litigation over contamination of the Locust Fork of the Black Warrior River. The old Drummond site hasn’t been mined since the 1980s.

But activists argued that discharges of acidic water, toxic metals and other contaminants were still getting into the water.

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8/12/2022 1:50:37 PM (GMT -5:00)