Raw Sewage Environmental Racism - Lowndes county Alabama

[JustAnotherGen]

POSTED IN THE AFRICAN AMERICAN GROUP


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/13/alabama-raw-sewage-crisis-trump-dei
There was a deal to fix this Alabama community’s raw sewage crisis. Trump tore it up over DEI
Residents of Alabama’s Lowndes county are still fighting for basic sanitation after Trump’s DoJ canceled a landmark Biden-era agreement

Here in Alabama’s Lowndes county, a majority-Black county with high levels of poverty and a deep civil rights history, an estimated 60% to 80% of households in rural parts do not have a functioning sanitation system. Authorities have known about the raw sewage crisis for decades, which to some extent affects all 67 counties in Alabama.

[It’s unclear when or whether the Perryman family will ever get to experience life without the stench of raw sewage after a landmark 2023 civil rights settlement mandating the state to resolve the crisis was terminated by the Trump administration, dismissing it as an “illegal” diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) agreement. As a result, the state is no longer required to resolve this sanitation crisis – or conduct public health campaigns. It could also restart enforcing sanitation laws that threaten residents without a functioning sewage system with fines and jail time – which the justice department settlement strictly forbade.

Charlie King, chair of the Lowndes county commission, said he had been left speechless by the cruelty of the decision: “Losing the funding will have a devastating effect on the people of the county, who are struggling and don’t have no ways to help themselves. This administration is just not concerned about the poor people, whether they are white or Black, poor people, period. They don’t have a heart for them.

”

Despite mounting evidence of a serious public health crisis and criticism from the UN, it took a civil rights lawsuit brought by a local environmental justice group in 2017 to finally force authorities to do the right thing.

It's deliberate, malicious and misappropriation of my tax dollars. The fact that poor Black people are held to a criminal standard in A White Dominant Culture state is disgusting.

Of course, the UN won't punish us. Its not sexy when it's Black people.

[rogue emissary]

1. Roland Martin does a Series of Felon34 attack on Black America. I'm sure he'll be covering this soon.

He's always calling out black magats to defend this evil.