Birmingham fights against losing control of its water board, citing racial discrimination

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By Safiyah Riddle

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Birmingham city officials sued the Alabama governor on Tuesday in an effort to halt the codification of bill that would strip the city of control over the state’s largest water board, alleging the move “constitutes blatant racial discrimination.”

The bill redistributes power from Birmingham city officials — who currently appoint a majority of the nine-person board members — to the governor, the lieutenant governor and the surrounding suburbs that are also in the board’s jurisdiction. Board members approve rate hikes and manage infrastructure projects.

The bill’s sponsors said that the move was necessary to correct mismanagement and improve the efficiency of the system. The bill passed along party lines 66 to 27 last week and now goes to Republican Gov. Kay Ivey’s desk.

The federal lawsuit names the governor as a defendant, and seeks a temporary restraining order that would prevent the bill from going into effect.

Mayor Randall Woodfin, one of the plaintiffs in the suit, called the bill “unconstitutional on it’s face” at a press conference on Tuesday.

Five counties rely on the Birmingham Water Works Board. Over 40% of the utility’s 770,000 customers are concentrated in the city of Birmingham, and 91% are in Jefferson County. The new system would give more weight to Jefferson County’s neighboring areas that have only a fraction of the customers, but that house the reservoirs that supply the system.

Woodfin said this would deny Birmingham residents the opportunity for democratic input about the system’s governance.

“We live in America, representation matters. It matters at all levels of government, the federal level the state level the local level,” Woodfin said.

Proponents of the bill say aging infrastructure and a lack of investment mean residents pay for water that just gets leaked out of old pipes. The utility has been accused of wasteful spending, ethics scandals and making costly errors in distributing bills, according to reporting from AL.com.

“So many elected officials have been getting so many complaints, and I’m sure yours have too, about the quality and the price of Birmingham water,” said Republican Rep. Jim Carns, who represents Blount County, one of the places that will now appoint a board member.

The lawsuit echoes testimony from legislators who opposed the bill before it passed, who condemned the move as a political takeover that would wrest power from Birmingham’s majority-Black residents and redistribute it to customers in the city’s mostly white suburbs.

“The implication that any perceived problems with the Water Works Board’s management are due to the majority of Board members being appointed by Birmingham is wholly unsupported,” the complaint said.

The lawsuit said the bill, if signed into law, would violate the equal protection clause, the voting rights act and both the state and federal constitution.

A lawyer for the city said the goal is for the governor to send the legislation back to the legislature to make “appropriate changes” — but didn’t specify what those changes are.

“We have not officially been served. However, we are aware of the lawsuit and are reviewing this highly unusual attempt to stop the governor form signing a bill passed by the legislature,” said Gina Maiola, a spokeswoman for the governor.

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Riddle is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.