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Alabama Power Company – Plant Barry Receives Gulf Guardian Award

Release Date: 09/08/2009
Contact Information: Davina Marraccini, (404) 562-8293, marraccini.davina@epa.gov

STENNIS SPACE CENTER, Miss. – The Gulf of Mexico Program recently announced that The Alabama Power Company – Plant Barry of Buck, Alabama will receive a third place Gulf Guardian Award for 2009 in the Business Category. The 2009 Gulf Guardians hold a special significance this year as they will be awarded on the 10^th Anniversary of the Gulf of Mexico Program’s Gulf Guardian Awards Program! (2000-2009). The ceremony will be held on the evening of October 29, 2009, beginning at approximately 6 p.m in the Magnolia Ballroom at the Beau Rivage Resort in Biloxi, Mississippi. The Awards ceremony is being held in conjunction with the Oceans `09 International Conference.

Alabama Power Company’s, Plant Barry conducted a Renew Our River Mobile clean up event from May 5^th to May 9^th, 2009. Plant employees concentrated clean up activities on approximately 10 miles of the Mobile River from Mount Vernon to Creola, Alabama. Additionally, plant employees, family members, and local Boy Scout Troop representatives collected trash on May 9^th along two miles of a local road and at the Ellicott Stone Park located within the LeMoyne Industrial Park. This project was in support of Alabama Power Company’s Renew Our River initiative to enhance the preservation of the Mobile River and the adjoining Dead Lake watershed.

Plant Barry’s “Renew Our River” (ROR) project is part of the Alabama Power Company ROR program, the southeast’s largest river/lake clean up campaign. Plant Barry has participated in this program since 2004. During these six years, more than 160 volunteers have removed 28.5 tons of trash from the Mobile River, the Ellicott’s Stone Park and along Salco Road. This area along the Mobile River was acquired as part of the Alabama Forever Wild Preservation Program. It includes 20,000 acres of delicate swamps, river bottomlands, and bay marshes along 30 miles of the Mobile Bay Estuary system. The River Cleanup benefitted the environment by enhancing its natural beauty, preservation of scenic/recreations use, and support of the environmental and natural wildlife in the local estuary region.

The Gulf of Mexico Program initiated the Gulf Guardian awards in 2000 as a way to recognize and honor the businesses, community groups, individuals, and agencies that are taking positive steps to keep the Gulf healthy, beautiful and productive. A first, second, and third place award are given each year in seven categories individual, business, youth and education, nonprofit organizations, government, partnership and bi-national efforts.

Stanley Meiburg, Acting Regional Administrator of U.S. EPA Region 4 said, "The Gulf of Mexico is a priceless treasure. As a unique habitat, a place which gives pleasure to countless Americans, and a source of some of our most valuable resources, it has no equal. These Gulf Guardians who labor to protect and enhance this magnificent sea deserve our highest praise and thanks."

The Gulf of Mexico Program began in 1988 to protect, restore, and maintain the health and productivity of the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem in economically sustainable ways. The Gulf of Mexico Program is underwritten by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and is a non-regulatory, inclusive consortium of state and federal government agencies and representatives of the business and agricultural community, fishing industry, scientists, environmentalists, and community leaders from all five Gulf States. The Gulf Program seeks to improve the environmental health of the Gulf in concert with economic development.

Bryon Griffith, Director of the Gulf of Mexico Program said, “The Gulf Guardian Awards Program is in its 10^th year of honoring citizens, governments and businesses throughout the 5 State Gulf Region for outstanding environmental achievements. Our 2009 award winners are truly an inspiration and exemplify the high quality of projects being done that generate as much excitement and pride as the award winners did in the beginning. With the addition of the Binational Gulf Guardian award in 2005, we now appropriately pay tribute to the bond we share in protecting this treasured resource with our southern neighbors and friends.”

For a list of all the Gulf Guardian Award winners for 2009, visit the Gulf of Mexico Program web site at https://www.epa.gov/gmpo and click on the Gulf Guardian Award button.


Editor’s Note: For more information about the Gulf Guardian Awards and the Gulf of Mexico Program, call the Gulf of Mexico Program Office at 228-688-3726 or visit our web site at https://www.epa.gov/gmpo.