Eight Mile is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

in Mobile County,

Alabama (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = " Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County , LargestMetro = Greater Birmingham , area_total_km2 = 135,7 ...

, United States. The community is named for its distance from the city of Mobile. Part of it was annexed in the mid-20th century by the city of Prichard, Alabama.

Geography

Eight Mile is located west of

Mobile Bay Mobile Bay ( ) is a shallow inlet of the Gulf of Mexico, lying within the state of Alabama in the United States. Its mouth is formed by the Fort Morgan Peninsula on the eastern side and Dauphin Island, a barrier island on the western side. The ...

and just north of the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United ...

. The elevation is .

Demographics

The mostly

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...

enclave had a median income in 2014 of $35,000. This is more than $8,000 lower than the state median.

2008 Mercaptan spill (natural gas odorant)

In 2008

lightning Lightning is a naturally occurring electrostatic discharge during which two electrically charged regions, both in the atmosphere or with one on the ground, temporarily neutralize themselves, causing the instantaneous release of an average ...

struck a mercaptan storage tank at a Mobile Gas Service Corp. underground natural gas pipeline at the Whistler Junction gas transfer facility within the Eight Mile community.DeSmog Blog: "Eight Years After a Mercaptan Spill, Residents of Eight Mile, Alabama, Call For Evacuation"
by Julie Dermansky; 8 August 2016. An estimated of

Mercaptan In organic chemistry, a thiol (; ), or thiol derivative, is any organosulfur compound of the form , where R represents an alkyl or other organic substituent. The functional group itself is referred to as either a thiol group or a sulfhydryl gro ...

, the chemical odorant added to natural gas to help detect leaks, spilled into the soil and groundwater for six months, according to Alabama state environmental officials.Blog @ AL.com: "Mobile Gas may have leaked more than 6,000 pounds of mercaptan in Eight Mile over six month period"
by Ben Raines ; 12 February 2013. It has migrated to ponds and surfaced, polluting the community's air. Beginning in 2011, residents in Eight Mile began complaining of an overwhelming mercaptan odor and associated health problems. They have concerns about the damage to their health from the chemical, and to property values from its persistent rotten egg smell. They appealed for a state and federal investigation.WKRG−News 5.com: "Eight Mile Residents Cry For Help From The Feds To Investigate Mercaptan Gas Leak"
by Emily DeVoe; 23 June 2016. Mobile Gas officials maintained that the odor had nothing to do with their operations; they did not publicly acknowledge the leak or the lightning strike until April 2012. In subsequent court documents, Mobile Gas acknowledged the leak, but claimed the responsibility is with the waste cleanup firms they had hired to get rid of the spilled chemical. Sempra Energy acquired the Eight Mile facility several months after the accident and owned it until September 2016.Alabama Department of Environmental Management, Eight Mile Mercaptan Summary]; 8 June 2016; @ eight-mile-summary-6-20-16.docx . Sempra Energy also owns the well that caused the massive 2015−16 Aliso Canyon gas leak in the

Santa Susana Mountains The Santa Susana Mountains are a transverse range of mountains in Southern California, north of the city of Los Angeles, in the United States. The range runs east-west, separating the San Fernando and Simi valleys on its south from the Santa C ...

and

San Fernando Valley The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, California. Located to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it contains a large portion of the City of Los Angeles, as well as unincorporated ar ...

of Southern California. In 2015 Mobile Gas started operating a new

water pollution Water pollution (or aquatic pollution) is the contamination of water bodies, usually as a result of human activities, so that it negatively affects its uses. Water bodies include lakes, rivers, oceans, aquifers, reservoirs and groundwater. ...

remediation ozone treatment process system. Mercaptan was federally reclassified as a hazardous chemical by the

Frank R. Lautenberg Frank Raleigh Lautenberg (; January 23, 1924 June 3, 2013) was an American businessman and Democratic Party politician who served as United States Senator from New Jersey from 1982 to 2001, and again from 2003 until his death in 2013. He was orig ...

Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, passed by Congress and signed by President Obama in 2016.

Notable people

* Mikhail Torrance, professional basketball player, was born and grew up in Prichard. *

Kadarius Toney Kadarius Toney (born January 27, 1999) is an American football wide receiver for the Kansas City Chiefs of the National Football League (NFL). Toney played college football at Florida and was drafted by the New York Giants in the first round o ...

, professional football player.

References

Unincorporated communities in Mobile County, Alabama Unincorporated communities in Alabama{{Short description, Unincorporated community in Alabama, United States