Alabama Power wants to build a lake on top of a mountain. But local residents are fighting back.

People in St. Clair County packed a meeting on Monday to oppose the plan to build a lake as a so-called power storage facility atop Chandler Mountain, a plan they say could drive people from their homes in the small town of Steele.

The project is still in the proposal phase and the exact boundaries have not been released, but the project seems likely to force many residents out of their homes, either by selling to Alabama Power, or through eminent domain.

“This will destroy our town,” local resident Fran Summerlin said at a standing-room-only town hall meeting at the Steele Community Center that drew more than 140 attendees on Monday night.

“I think this project is barbaric and unethical to take land and homes from human beings in 2023,” said Kurt Nassif, who runs a tire business in Steele, which sits about 13 miles southwest of Gadsden.

Summerlin and others have been organizing local residents in opposition, handing out yard signs that say “Stop the Project,” as well as starting Facebook groups, a petition and email lists to galvanize opposition.

“We are victims of a powerful corporation,” Summerlin said. “Because of greed and because of money. Our community has been targeted because they thought we were too weak to fight: I want you to fight back.”

At this point, the Chandler Mountain Project is only a proposal. Many of the details, including the exact location of the project, are not set in stone. But the plan calls for two reservoirs at different elevations, one atop the mountain and one below.

Alabama Power declined AL.com’s request for a phone interview to discuss the project, but answered questions submitted by email on Thursday. The company said it is too early to determine whether property owners will lose their land for the project.

“Though Alabama Power is taking initial steps in the federal licensing process for Chandler Mountain, no decision has been made to develop and construct the project,” the company said. “It may be years before the company will know whether acquiring additional property at Chandler Mountain will be necessary.”

The reservoirs would be bounded by five dams and connected by an underground reversible turbine pump station.

Alabama Power could then pump water from the lower reservoir to the upper one when there is excess energy on the grid, during non-peak hours. Then the company would release the water back down to the lower lake during peak hours to generate electricity when it’s most needed.

“Providing for our customer’s future energy needs and potential state growth requires planning today,” the company said. “A pumped storage hydro facility could provide a viable, clean energy option for our customers. We regularly evaluate opportunities to improve our technology and operations so we can continue to power our state with the clean, reliable and affordable energy our customers depend on.”

Alabama Power has filed preliminary application documents with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to build a pumped storage hydro project on Chandler Mountain, but approval and licensing for the project could take up to a decade before construction can begin.

“We will continue working closely with local community leaders and landowners as we perform additional studies in the area,” the company said. “If built, the Chandler Mountain project could potentially produce the amount of energy used in nearly 400,000 homes annually.”

But it might do so at a steep cost to the residents and wildlife that currently reside near Chandler Mountain.

Steele is a town of about 1,000 residents located 40 miles northeast of Birmingham, along Interstate 59. The project would also impact Little Canoe Creek, which would have dams built on it, and Neely Henry Reservoir, where Alabama Power would draw water to fill the reservoirs.

“We’re very concerned about this proposal that Alabama Power has put forward,” said Jack West, policy director for the Alabama Rivers Alliance.

“We’re really concerned about the impacts to Little Canoe Creek and Jake Creek and the sensitive aquatic species are there,” West said. “We’re really concerned about potential impacts to recreation in the area. We’re really concerned about potential withdrawals from Neely Henry Reservoir to fill this project. That was surprising to us.”

The company said this facility could support the use of additional intermittent renewable energy like solar and wind, if completed.

“Energy storage is expected to become increasingly important as customer demand grows for more renewables, making solar and wind a greater part of the company’s energy mix,” Alabama Power’s response said.

“Storage enables greater integration of additional renewables (wind, solar) into the grid because it can be used to maintain reliable service when intermittent renewable generation is not available.”

Still, the project is opposed by groups that favor more renewable energy.

“Alabama Power’s Chandler Mountain project is simply a massive land and cash grab for its Wall Street investors,” said Daniel Tait, executive director of Energy Alabama. “The fact that the power company is quite literally willing to blow up a mountain and destroy a town for profit speaks volumes to its character and values.”

Tait also highlighted the company’s history of limiting distributed solar and not prioritizing energy efficiency programs in its territory.

“Alabama Power has spent the last two decades fighting more affordable and cleaner options for power supply and storage,” he said. “Solar, energy efficiency, battery storage, and even increasing the connectivity of its grid to neighbors, are all more cost-effective options to support the grid.”

The project will also be a net user of energy because it takes more power to pump the water to the upper reservoir than is regained when the water flows downhill.

“No storage option is actually clean when charged with expensive and dirty coal and gas like is currently being proposed,” Tait said.

St. Clair County Commissioner Stan Batemon, who attended the town hall meeting, said he believes there are better ways to achieve energy storage goals.

“I just think it’s a ridiculous idea,” Batemon said. “There’s got to be a better way in today’s world than destroying 20,000 plus acres of farmland, deer, minnows, whatever. It doesn’t make sense.”

Steele residents at the meeting are hoping to generate significant turnout for two scoping meetings, hosted by FERC to gather public comments about the project.

The meetings will be held July 10 at the Rainbow City Community Center. The afternoon session runs from 2-4 p.m., with an evening session from 6-8 p.m.

Summerlin said she believes the project would force many of Steele’s residents out, putting the local school at risk of closing and killing the rural community where she grew up and trained horses for 45 years.

“My family farm is one of the ones that is going to be affected, very much,” Summerlin said. “I will lose it. And my brother’s buried there.

“If my daddy knew that this was happening, he couldn’t take it.”