This is an opinion column.

This is the sort of picture coal lobbyists in Alabama don’t want you to see. This is the sort of picture a bill before the Alabama Legislature would make it a crime to take.

We look down on a patch of woods by a river. In the midst of evergreen trees and dormant hardwoods is a gray swath of land lined with sickly yellow veins creeping toward the water.

There by the water is what we’ll call the Triangle of Death, at least the size of a football field where nothing grows. On one end is the Maxine Mine owned by the Drummond Company. And at the other is the Locust Fork River, just a few miles upstream from where the Warrior River Water Authority and Bessemer Utilities pull drinking water.

When a granddad takes his grandchildren fishing, this is the sort of thing that keeps them from eating the fish.

This picture was taken by a drone.

The folks who made that mess down there want to make pictures like this one illegal. And the Alabama Legislature is ready to help them. A bill sponsored by state Sen. Cam Ward and state Rep. Chip Brown would severely restrict where drones can fly — to almost nowhere there’s people or roads or power lines or running water.

Or dead earth downhill from abandoned mines seeping toxins into waterways.

They’ve been working on it for a while.

Eyes in the sky

In Alabama, drones have become a crucial tool for environmental watchdogs protecting our air, water and soil.

“This allows us to document things you can’t see from the ground and get a better understanding of where things are coming from,” said Nelson Brooke from Black Warrior Riverkeeper.

Three years ago, Black Warrior Riverkeeper noticed some bad stuff in the water in the Locust Fork and one of its tributaries, but they couldn’t easily see where it was coming from. So they put a drone in the air and followed the discharges back to the Maxine Mine. The watchdogs sued Drummond for illegally discharging some awful stuff into the water — acids, heavy metals and other coal waste. Last year, they won a summary judgment in federal court.

In that lawsuit, they used drone footage and pictures as evidence, including this one above.

Drones are a problem for polluters, and for a while now they’ve been looking for a way to take them out of the sky.

In 2018, Drummond vice president David Roberson and Balch & Bingham lawyer Joel Gilbert went on trial for bribing a state lawmaker, Oliver Robinson. But Balch & Bingham billing records introduced into evidence by prosecutors showed other things the defendants had been working on, including legislation like this bill. These records have given an unshuttered window into what Drummond wanted.

On April 18, 2017, Gilbert recorded in his billing records: “Conference calls with Mr. David Roberson regarding drone legislation and amendment to legislation to cover Drummond facilities; review draft legislation; email to Messrs. Bob Geddie and David Roberson regarding proposed amendment to legislation to cover Drummond facilities.”

This is around the same Riverkeeper took Drummond to court with that drone footage.

Three years later, it’s the Coal Association that’s pushing this bill.

No-fly zones

This bill would prohibit flying drones over “critical infrastructure,” a term of law this bill redefines to include pipelines and mines.

It makes the watchdog work Riverkeeper did a crime.

“If this were really about safety, would a terrorist really care about a Class A misdemeanor, where you could get one year in jail and a $6,000 fine?” said Sarah Stokes, a lawyer for the Southern Environmental Law Center.

But where this bill gets really messy is how it defines a pipeline: “Flow, transmission, distribution, or gathering lines, regardless of size or length, that transmit or transport oil, gas, petrochemicals, minerals, or water in a solid, liquid or gaseous state.”

Those italics are mine because those words are important. Technically, under this bill, flying a drone over a garden hose in your yard would be a crime. Nor could you fly one over roads or power lines. Drone hobbyists are out of luck, too. Basically, you won’t be able to fly a drone anywhere near civilization. And certainly not near coal mines and other heavy industries that are backing this bill.

If you like coal ash in your drinking water, this is the bill for you.

Yes, someone should regulate drones, and that someone — the Federal Aviation Administration — already does. (I need to note that my company sometimes uses drones and is not a completely disinterested party here. We have drone pilots who must get licenses from the FAA and adhere to the FAA’s rules. I’m told those regulations are extensive.)

Or perhaps you’re uncomfortable leaving environmental protection and enforcement to a bunch of litigious nonprofits. Maybe you believe this is a job for the government, not tree-hugging volunteers.

And I’d agree with you. Except, the Alabama Department of Environmental Management has abdicated that role. Last year, when 3M self-reported that it had illegally dumped toxins in the Tennessee River, ADEM didn’t tell anybody, not even the folks who pulled their drinking water downstream.

Instead, it has fallen to environmental activists to do that work. These nonprofits and volunteers are the only ones keeping polluters honest. They’re our eyes in the sky.

And this bill would make them blind.

The folks pushing this bill would have you believe it’s for security, from terrorists and the like.

Only this bill isn’t about protecting us from some ne’er-do-well who might dump poison in a regional water supply.

This bill’s purpose is to protect the ne’er-do-wells who already are.

Kyle Whitmire is the state political columnist for the Alabama Media Group.

You can follow his work on his Facebook page, The War on Dumb. And on Twitter. And on Instagram.

More columns by Kyle Whitmire