Eight Mile is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in Mobile County,

Alabama Alabama ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South, Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gu ...

, 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 Prichard is a city in Mobile County, Alabama, Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population was 19,322 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, and was estimated to be 18,816 in 2023. Prichard borders the north side of Mobile, Ala ...

History

2008 Mercaptan spill

In 2008

lightning Lightning is a natural phenomenon consisting of electrostatic discharges occurring through the atmosphere between two electrically charged regions. One or both regions are within the atmosphere, with the second region sometimes occurring on ...

struck a mercaptan storage tank at a Mobile Gas Service Corp. underground

natural gas pipeline A pipeline is a system of pipes for long-distance transportation of a liquid or gas, typically to a market area for consumption. The latest data from 2014 gives a total of slightly less than of pipeline in 120 countries around the world. The Un ...

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; August 8, 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 grou ...

, the chemical

odorant An aroma compound, also known as an odorant, aroma, fragrance, flavoring or flavor, is a chemical compound that has a smell or odor. For an individual chemical or class of chemical compounds to impart a smell or fragrance, it must be sufficien ...

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; February 12, 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; June 23, 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 Sempra is a North American public utility holding company based in San Diego, California. The company is one of the largest utility holding companies in the United States with nearly 40 million consumers. Sempra's focus is on electric and natur ...

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]; June 8, 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 ...

and

San Fernando Valley The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, Los Angeles County, California. Situated to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it comprises a large portion of Los Angeles, the Municipal corpo ...

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

water pollution Water pollution (or aquatic pollution) is the contamination of Body of water, water bodies, with a negative impact on their uses. It is usually a result of human activities. Water bodies include lakes, rivers, oceans, aquifers, reservoirs and ...

remediation ozone treatment process system. Mercaptan was federally reclassified as a hazardous chemical by the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, passed by Congress and signed by President Obama in 2016.

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. T ...

and just north of the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico () is an oceanic basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, mostly surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southw ...

. The elevation is .

Demographics

The mostly

African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...

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

Notable people

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

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Mobile County, Alabama Unincorporated communities in Alabama