Wastewater failures for Lowndes County’s Black residents at center of DOJ investigation
A sign welcomes visitors to Lowndes County in White Hall, Alabama. The U.S. Department of Justice opened an environmental justice investigation in November 2021 into the Lowndes County Health Department, along with the Alabama Department of Public Health, for their wastewater disposal and infectious disease and outbreaks programs.
The U.S. Department of Justice is opening up an investigation into the Alabama Department of Public Health and Lowndes County Health Department over concerns that the wastewater systems in rural Alabama discriminate against poor Black residents.
The investigation, opened Tuesday, is looking into the health departments’ wastewater disposal and infectious disease and outbreaks programs.
In a press release, the department said it is examining whether ADPH and LCHD are violating Civil Rights Law and whether the departments’ policies have reduced Lowndes County’s Black residents’ access to sufficient sewage and water systems and increased their exposure to harmful infections associated with poor wastewater management, such as hookworm — an intestinal parasite widely eliminated elsewhere in the U.S.
Lowndes County, where the population is largely poor and Black, has had complaints of poor infrastructure leading to raw sewage pooling in residents’ yards or backing up into their homes.
“Sanitation is a basic human need, and no one in the United States should be exposed to risk of illness and other serious harm because of inadequate access to safe and effective sewage management,” Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for the department’s Civil Rights Division, said in the press release. “State and local health officials are obligated, under federal civil rights laws, to protect the health and safety of all their residents.”
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 blocks recipients of federal funding from discriminating based on race, color or national origin. The probe into Lowndes County’s sanitation systems is the department’s first Title VI environmental justice investigation for one of its funding recipients. No conclusions have yet been drawn.
This story was produced by the Gulf States Newsroom, a collaboration between Mississippi Public Broadcasting, WBHM in Birmingham, Alabama, WWNO in New Orleans and NPR.
Man sentenced to 30 years after police officer shot friend
Alabama’s felony murder law holds someone liable for murder if they participate in a felony that results in someone's death.
US ‘concerned’ by Mexican seizure of Alabama company’s port
Mexico’s seizure of the Caribbean cargo port stretched into its second week Tuesday. Vulcan Materials said that police and prosecutors still had not presented any legal paperwork to justify the seizure.
Proposed Ivey budgets: Income tax rebates; public money for charter schools; modest pay raises
Gov. Kay Ivey’s proposed budget for 2024 will call for state money for start-up charter schools, tax rebates for those who filed income taxes in 2021 and some pay raises for state employees.
Birmingham City Council delays BSC funding decision until at least mid-April
The struggling college is seeking $30 million from Alabama’s Education Trust Fund, as well as $5 million from Birmingham and $2.5 million from Jefferson County.
In the quest for new cancer treatments, researchers look to outer space
The Southern Research team is studying how bacteria reacts in the microgravity environment, and whether it prompts the development of novel cancer therapies.
BSC prez ‘disappointed’ legislature didn’t approve funding but will continue push to stay open
The Alabama Legislature opted not to spend some of the state’s $1 billion-plus allocation from the American Rescue Plan Act to keep the financially troubled liberal arts college open.
