Trump administration kills landmark pollution settlement in majority-Black county

Decision will affect mostly low-income Alabama residents as DoJ dismisses agreement over untreated sewage as DEI

The Trump administration has killed a landmark civil rights settlement requiring Alabama to address raw sewage pollution in majority-Black, residential areas south-west of Montgomery, dismissing it as an “illegal” diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) agreement.

The decision could condemn low-income people in Lowndes county, about 40 miles south-west of Montgomery, to indefinitely continue living with no or failing sanitation infrastructure.

Throughout recent decades, untreated sewage flowed from some residents’ toilets into their yards because the government has not provided sewer infrastructure, and residents could not afford septic systems. Failing septic systems in the region back up during rain, causing raw sewage to surface in yards, and some residents have dug ditches to try to drain it away from their homes.

Local officials did not offer assistance, and instead threatened residents who did not install new systems with prosecution or property seizure. The Biden administration negotiated the settlement with Alabama officials in mid-2023, using federal civil rights rules to resolve an environmental injustice for the first time.

“We will no longer push ‘environmental justice’ as viewed through a distorting, DEI lens,” the US Department of Justice assistant attorney general Harmeet Dhillon said. “President Trump made it clear: Americans deserve a government committed to serving every individual with dignity and respect, and to expending taxpayer resources in accordance with the national interest, not arbitrary criteria.”

The announcement comes after Donald Trump’s executive order banning federal agencies from pursuing initiatives and programs related to diversity, equity and inclusion.

At least 300 families have been affected and about 80% of septic systems were estimated to be failing in the region. The area is over 70% Black.

“We’re very concerned,” said Catherine Flowers, an author and environmental activist who was born and raised in Lowndes county, but now works on the issue from Huntsville. Failing sewage isn’t just a problem here, Flowers said, but throughout America. “The question is: is the Trump administration going to make this a priority?”

The state health department said it would continue to work with residents to fix the problem as long as funding is available, but that remains in question. Lowndes sits in the nation’s “Black belt”, and many of those struggling live in rural or unincorporated areas, where the poverty rate is about 30%.

The clay-like soil found in this part of the country makes the area unsuitable for water drainage; most homes in Lowndes are not hooked up to municipal sewer lines, relying instead on costly septic systems.

Many residents there face serious health risks. An independent study in 2017 found ringworm, which had largely been eradicated in the US. The justice department in 2021 opened an investigation after years of complaints, and as flooding increased with the climate crisis. It found local officials “failed to take meaningful actions to remedy these conditions” and often left residents to fend for themselves.

The situation “doesn’t have anything to do with DEI”, said Sarah Stokes, an attorney with Southern Environmental Law Center, which is based in Birmingham and has worked on issues in the region.

“It has to do with basic human rights, basic rights to water, basic rights to sanitation, and everybody deserves that – it doesn’t have to do with one group,” Stokes said.

In some instances, local officials “threatened residents of Lowndes county with criminal penalties and even potential property loss for sanitation conditions they did not have the capacity to alleviate”, the justice department found.

Cover photo:  Aaron Thigpen, 29, observes a site where raw sewage is dumped through a PVC pipe only a few yards away from a home in Lowndes county, Alabama, on 10 July 2017. Photograph: Bob Miller for The Guardian