"The Justice Department today [Tuesday] announced a landmark investigation into wastewater issues in an Alabama county that is home to prominent environmental justice activist Catherine Flowers.
Flowers, who now serves as a White House environmental justice adviser, detailed the sewage problems that plagued Lowndes County, Ala., in her book "Waste: One Woman’s Fight Against America’s Dirty Secret."
The county is now the focus of a first-of-its-kind investigation by the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division that will examine whether state and local health officials manage wastewater disposal in a way that discriminates against Black residents.
“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,” said Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, in a statement today."
Hannah Northey and Pamela King report for E&E News November 9, 2021.
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