The Justice Department said it was reached a tentative agreement I protested with one health department in Alabama and one of its local counties over practices it found discriminated against generations of black residents.
Under an agreement announced Thursday, the Alabama Department of Public Health and the Lowndes County Department of Health will improve wastewater infrastructure, measure health risks associated with exposure to raw sewage, and purchase appropriate treatment systems. He said he would stop penalizing residents who can’t afford it.
Kristen Clarke, Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, said the agreement was “a new beginning for black residents of Lowndes County, Alabama, who have endured health hazards, insults, and racism for too long. chapter”.
Lowndes-raised environmental activist Catherine Coleman Flowers says that county residents, like many other rural residents, live on home and business premises rather than centralized sewage treatment plants run by local managers. It said it uses a sewage system installed in government. But the county alone is punishing residents for sanitary issues they have no control over, she added.
“Onsite septic tanks have failed across the country, but Lowndes County is the only place where they have been dealt with in a punitive manner,” Flowers said. 2020 MacArthur “Genius” Grants For her work in raising public awareness of water sanitation in rural areas.
In a statement, the Alabama Department of Public Health, which cooperated with the investigation, denied conducting the program in a discriminatory manner.
lownes countyHome to about 10,000 people in rural Alabama, the state is nearly three-quarters black and has a poverty rate more than double the national average.The unincorporated portion of the county is not connected to the city’s sewer system and is approximately 80 percent of residents Relies on on-site drainage systems such as septic tanks. 40% have broken home systems or none at all.
However, these systems are not compatible, dense soil It’s prevalent in central Alabama, where for generations residents have used pipes to channel feces and wastewater into holes and ditches in backyards and vacant lots. Given the heavy rains and non-porous soils, the waste will rot, exposing residents to health risks. 2017 survey It found that 73% of residents had been exposed to raw sewage in their homes, and a third tested positive for hookworm, an intestinal parasite.
“We’ve been here for years, but my kids haven’t been able to go out and play in the yard once a year. Please, the ground remained so soft that you could walk on it as if you were sinking.” In 2021, he told “60 Minutes.”
Alabama health officials then fined these residents for sanitary violations resulting from their exposure to sewage, essentially giving them “double punishment for being criminals for these unjust acts.” Mr Clark said.
Clark added that authorities were aware of the disproportionate burden placed on black residents, but failed to remedy the situation.
The survey was the Department of Justice’s first environmental justice survey and ran for nearly 18 months. If the Alabama Department of Public Health fails to comply with the terms of the contract, the agency will reopen the investigation.
