Winner, 2026 Eric Moe Award for Best Short on Sustainability

Sallie Smith doesn’t know how to retire. The 80-year old from Alabama admits “when I see something that’s a problem, it tends to call my name… and once it’s done that, I need to see it through.” The problem now is threatening her beloved Mobile Bay. Alabama Power’s ‘Plant Barry’ – Southern Alabama’s largest coal-fired power plant – has been depositing its waste ash into an unlined pit next to the plant for decades. It’s a ticking time bomb; if the levees were to be breached, 21 million tons of toxic ash would be released into the Mobile River and Bay.

Sallie recruits fellow retirees Diane Thomas and Savan Wilson to her cause, and together they set off on a late-life crusade to try and force the plant – and the EPA – to move the ash to safer ground. But Sallie is racing against more than one clock. The cancer she once beat has returned and metastasized. With only months to live, can she and her friends pull off one final fight for their community, the Bay, and for the generations to come?