"'People Are Literally Being Poisoned": How Sewage Problems in Alabama Got So Bad

[Willie Pep]

This is pretty depressing coming from a wealthy country like the United States. Apparently sewage problems are not just confined to Alabama but exist in other states as well.

Alabama’s Lowndes County, which lies between Selma and Montgomery, has been coping with basic sewage problems for decades.

Most residents of this rural county, who are predominantly poor and black, live too far from cities to attach their homes to sewer systems. So they rely on septic tanks. But installing and maintaining those septic systems is difficult -- not only because they're so expensive but also because they have to be specially designed to work in the region's clay-rich soil.

As a result, many people who live in Lowndes County have open pits of human waste in their yards or raw sewage backing up into their homes after heavy rains. Neither the county nor the state seems to be in any position to help, and at times, they’ve arguably made things worse.

Full article: http://www.governing.com/topics/transportation-infrastructure/gov-alabama-hookworm-sewage.html

[Sophia4]

1. One word: Ignorance.

Two words: Willful ignorance.

I know. I used to live there as a teenager.

[oasis]

2. "Make Me An Angel to Fly From Montgomery"nt

Last edited Mon Jul 23, 2018, 06:51 PM - Edit history (1)

[northoftheborder]

3. Our county, with heavy clay soil, requires....

an aeration system for septic tanks; they have to be serviced several times a year and are expensive to install initially. What a depressing situation for those poor people; Alabama doesn't care diddly-squat for this type of problem. (Not limited to Alabama) Texas border communities have always had this type of problem with sewage. Small dwellings built without systems in unincorporated areas, with each house on it's own - mostly overlooked, with sporadic solutions from the state.

[SWBTATTReg]

4. We have such clays in the soils of the Ozarks (MO)...our ...

state conservation dept will aid homes w/ septic systems (trying to improve and/or crackdown on poorly installed systems). Need an aeration system too in place w/ these systems. I know that some areas have their systems regularly pumped out.

[c-rational]

5. Social and environmental injustice.

[hunter]

6. The U.S.A. is not a first world nation.

It's a violent developing nation with an absurdly obese military budget.

Sewage isn't some problem we don't know how to fix, or don't have the economic resources to fix. We just have to fix it.

[oberliner]

7. Two Americas

Remember this speech at the 2004 DNC?

I stand here tonight ready to work with you and John to make America stronger. And we have much work to do, because the truth is, we still live in a country where there are two different Americas...

... one, for all of those people who have lived the American dream and don't have to worry, and another for most Americans, everybody else who struggle to make ends meet every single day. It doesn't have to be that way.

We can build one America where we no longer have two health care systems: one for families who get the best health care money can by, and then one for everybody else rationed out by insurance companies, drug companies, HMOs.

Still relevant today.

[Aristus]

8. In Alabama, isn't investment in infrastructure 'socialism'?

Asking for a friend...