2025 is flying by and the Alabama Rivers Alliance and our partners have been busy working hard to defend our rivers and water resources from a multitude of threats! Take a look below and read a recap of our work so far. We hope this work will inspire you to renew your membership today!
Alabama Rivers Alliance utilizes the strategies of collaboration, civic engagement and issue advocacy to achieve the three impacts identified in our strategic plan.
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- ARA is a valuable resource to communities and partners in advocating to ensure clean water for people and nature.
- ARA and its members are recognized by decision-makers and can influence and help guide environmental policy.
- Alabama’s natural and built water infrastructure is safe, equitable, resilient and ecologically healthy
COLLABORATION
27th ANNUAL ALABAMA WATER RALLY
We had a record-breaking year of 175 people representing more than 65
organizations from across the state! Great speakers, networking and celebrating together leads to a more cohesive movement working together to protect our rivers and streams!
organizations from across the state! Great speakers, networking and celebrating together leads to a more cohesive movement working together to protect our rivers and streams!BUILDING REGIONAL COALITIONS
The Tennessee, Alabama and Tallapoosa watersheds are all areas of the state where staffed environmental groups are not as present. ARA supports and develops volunteer groups, and builds coalitions among diverse partners in these watersheds to be a stronger voice for clean water and healthy rivers.
CITY OF MONTGOMERY COLLABORATION
We have hired new staff in Montgomery to help encourage more community engagement around the Alabama River and the city’s efforts to promote the river for tourism and recreation.
DRIFT FUND
In collaboration with Alabama Beer Co, Alabama Scenic River Trail, Alabama
Cup Races and Waterkeepers Alabama, we have provided more than $6,000 in grants to communities and partners across Alabama. Click here to learn more.
Cup Races and Waterkeepers Alabama, we have provided more than $6,000 in grants to communities and partners across Alabama. Click here to learn more.OTHER GRANT COLLABORATIONS
As a result of other collaborations, ARA has been able to help secure more than $150,000 for partner groups in Alabama from national organizations and funders, including the 3-year Southern States SRF project which brought more than $100,000 to the four organizations collaborating to increase the profile of water and wastewater funding in Alabama.
CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
ALSTARs PROGRAM
Our inaugural class of Alabama Special Trained Advocates for Rivers finished up in the spring. Nearly 50 Alabamians signed on to learn more about the Alabama legislature and to begin building relationships with their state legislators.
RIVERS OF ALABAMA DAY – LOBBY DAY
Dozens of Alabamians joined us in 
Montgomery on the state’s officially designated Rivers of Alabama, the 2nd Tuesday or April, to advocate for legislation that protects clean water.
Montgomery on the state’s officially designated Rivers of Alabama, the 2nd Tuesday or April, to advocate for legislation that protects clean water.RIVERS OF ALABAMA DAY PROCLAMATIONS
The Montgomery County Commission and the city of Wetumpka passed proclamations declaring the 2nd Tuesday of April as Rivers of Alabama Day, joining the City of Montgomery who passed the proclamation in 2024.
LEGISLATION
ARA continues to grow our relationships with Alabama’s elected officials and our legislative advocacy on behalf of clean water and healthy rivers against unfavorable odds. The 2025 session was a mixed bag in terms of environmental legislation. Several good pieces of legislation passed, but unfortunately, some really bad ideas also came up this year. While we fought hard against many of them, we weren’t able to stop them all. Read more about the 2025 session here.
SOUTHERN EXPOSURE
We just wrapped our 8th summer of producing the award-winning Southern Exposure Films! In the 2025 collection, we meet Alabama’s salamanders like you’ve never seen them before, and we fall for their undeniable charm. We wind through the Tallapoosa River, where our country’s veterans find healing, community, and the joy of casting a line for red eye bass. We confront the environmental impacts and costs of artificial intelligence as massive data centers pop up across the Southeast, threatening to drain communities of precious water and energy, and we are invited in to witness a small town’s fight to protect its peace and health from the relentless blasts of a quarry next door. And we take a breath with a reflective poetry film that grounds us in family, community, and the simple, nourishing act of being in nature. Click here to watch trailers for the films and click here to see when and where you can watch them near you!
ISSUE ADVOCACY
DATA CENTERS
ARA is working with partners at SELC, Energy Alabama, Black Warrior Riverkeeper, People’s Justice Council and GASP to support the Bessemer and McCalla residents
who will be impacted by the proposed massive data center known as “Project Marvel” as well as connecting with partners across the southeast to develop long term policy solutions for data centers. Last but not least, we created a Southern Exposure film about hyperscale data centers featuring the Bessemer community’s fight to help bring attention to this emerging issue. Click here to read more about data centers in general, and here to read more about “Project Marvel”. Inside Climate News has done an outstanding job of covering this issue.
who will be impacted by the proposed massive data center known as “Project Marvel” as well as connecting with partners across the southeast to develop long term policy solutions for data centers. Last but not least, we created a Southern Exposure film about hyperscale data centers featuring the Bessemer community’s fight to help bring attention to this emerging issue. Click here to read more about data centers in general, and here to read more about “Project Marvel”. Inside Climate News has done an outstanding job of covering this issue. METHANE GAS PIPELINE
ARA is coordinating a broad coalition of partners, including Blackbelt Women Rising, Energy Alabama, Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), People’s Justice Council and other interested river organizations to organize in the 11 Alabama counties impacted by the South System Expansion 4 pipeline project and the Mississippi Crossing pipeline. Read the press release about the FERC intervening, led by SELC, here. Collectively we are working to inform landowners and communities, participate formally in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission process for licensing the projects, and collaborate with partners working in other states impacted by this pipeline project. Click here to learn more about our pipeline work.
WATER / WASTEWATER INFRASTRUCTURE FUNDING
Our work to watchdog drinking water and wastewater infrastructure funding distributed from the federal government through ADEM’s State Revolving Fund (SRF) continues to focus on ensuring communities that need the funding are aware of it and can get the assistance they need to help them navigate the application process. ARA and our partners at Blackbelt Women Rising, Southern Poverty Law Center – Alabama State Office, and Capacity Collaborative are meeting with ADEM staff, engaging with community leaders and local utilities and working with groups in other states to ensure the dollars continue to go to where the need is greatest. Additionally, ARA staff is participating in key academic research to analyze the distribution of federal dollars through the SRF program in Alabama and its ability to reach disadvantaged communities. This research was recently published in Environmental Research Letter’s special “Focus on Innovation in Environmental Engineering for Community-Engaged Research” edition. It’s open source so you can read it for free!
Miller, V. (ARA, AU), Christian, L. (USA), Elliott, M. A. (UA), Lowry, C. (ARA), and Maxcy-Brown, J. (AU) (2025) From Congress to Disadvantaged Communities: An Analysis of Federal Water Infrastructure Investments Distributed to Alabama through State Revolving Funds. Environmental Research Letters
DAMS
ARA continues to lead efforts across the state to mitigate the long-term damage dams have done to our waterways and aquatic ecosystems. This work includes participating in the multi-year, once-in-a-generation processes to relicense hydropower dams, advocating for the creation of a state dam safety program that would bring in much needed federal dollars for dam inspections and safety improvements, helping bring together partners to support and prioritize low head dam removals across the state, advocating instream flow policies and defending against new dam proposals. ARA’s decades-long focus on dams has never wavered, and our leadership in this work continues to bring results.