Terri Sewell joins White House leaders to announce rural wastewater infrastructure initiative
On Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell welcomed U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael S. Regan, and White House Infrastructure Coordinator Mitch Landrieu to Lowndes County, Alabama, to announce a new wastewater infrastructure initiative under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Sewell hosted a roundtable at the White Hall Town Hall to give federal officials an opportunity to hear from local leaders about the unique needs of each community and to address broken and failing wastewater systems in rural Alabama. “Access to adequate wastewater infrastructure is a basic human right, but for too many of my constituents, generations of disinvestment have led to broken and failing wastewater systems that put the health of our communities at risk,” said Rep. Sewell. “Since coming to Congress, I have made addressing our wastewater crisis a top priority, working to secure funding and direct resources to areas in need of help. Now, thanks to the leadership of the Biden-Harris Administration and transformative investments from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, more help is on the way. This joint initiative between the EPA and USDA will be instrumental in our fight to improve wastewater infrastructure for our most underserved communities.” Today, I welcomed @EPAMichaelRegan, @SecVilsack, and @MitchLandrieu46 to Lowndes County where we announced a brand new initiative under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to help fix our broken wastewater systems here in rural Alabama. THREAD 👇🏾 pic.twitter.com/y2dRsKOBcA — Rep. Terri A. Sewell (@RepTerriSewell) August 2, 2022 The Closing America’s Wastewater Access Gap Community Initiative will allow EPA and USDA—in close collaboration with local communities, state and Tribal partners, and on-the-ground technical assistance providers—to leverage technical and financial expertise to make progress on addressing the wastewater infrastructure needs of some of America’s most underserved communities. According to an EPA press release, the new initiative will be piloted in 11 communities across the country where residents lack basic wastewater management that is essential to protecting their health and the environment. Each community or Tribe will receive direct support to develop wastewater assessments with technical engineering support, design wastewater community solution plans, identify and pursue funding opportunities, and build long-term capacity. Catherine Flowers, founder of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice applauded the initiative. “Decades ago, Lowndes County led the charge for voting rights – today we are leading the call for wastewater equity. Most Americans couldn’t imagine raw sewage pooling in their yard just outside the kitchen window, or worse, backing up into their home when it rains too much,” stated Flowers. “I want to thank the Biden-Harris Administration for committing to help us find a solution. Today, we are taking a big step toward achieving a more just future for the people of Lowndes and rural communities across the U.S.” An estimated 2.2 million people in the United States lack basic running water and indoor plumbing. This initiative will help communities access financing and technical assistance to improve wastewater infrastructure to “close the gap” for communities that have been left behind. “The America that we all believe in is a land of opportunity. But, for historically marginalized communities from Alabama to Alaska, that opportunity is stolen when basic sanitation doesn’t work—exposing adults and children to backyard sewage and disease,” said Regan. “By partnering with USDA, states, and leveraging funding through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, EPA is working to restore dignity and opportunity to rural communities here in Lowndes County and across the country.” Agriculture Secretary Vilsack argued that this initiative would help provide communities with vital services. “Access to modern, reliable wastewater infrastructure is a necessity, and the Biden-Harris Administration is committed to doing everything we can to ensure every family and every child in America has access to these vital services. By combining USDA and EPA resources and taking advantage of the historic Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we can restore to these communities a sense of economic vitality and social dignity that the people living there deserve.” “President [Joe]Biden has been clear—we cannot leave any community behind as we rebuild America’s infrastructure with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. This includes rural and Tribal communities who, for too long, have felt forgotten. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides $11.7 billion in loans and grants to communities for a wide range of water-quality infrastructure projects, including wastewater solutions for these communities,” stated White House Infrastructure Coordinator Mitch Landrieu. The EPA and USDA—in partnership with state, Tribal, and local partners—are launching the initiative in: Bolivar County, Mississippi; Doña Ana County, New Mexico; Duplin County, North Carolina; Greene County, Alabama; Halifax County, North Carolina; Harlan County, Kentucky; Lowndes County, Alabama; McDowell County, West Virginia; Raleigh County, West Virginia; San Carlos Apache Tribe, Arizona; and, Santo Domingo Pueblo, New Mexico.
In towns plagued by raw sewage, EPA promises relief
When there’s heavy rain, human waste from the pond of sewage across the street from Charlie Mae Holcomb’s home covers her front yard in rural Alabama. She can’t remember how many times she’s had to rip the flooring out of her small brick house because raw sewage backed up out the pipes. Holcomb lives in Hayneville, a community in Lowndes County of fewer than 1,000, where roughly one-third of people live in poverty, and about 85% are Black. The 73-year-old has become an unofficial spokeswoman for people living with poor drainage and disgusting sewage problems that go back generations. “It’s not just mine; it’s almost all the people. They just won’t talk,” said Holcomb. The heads of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Agriculture came to Lowndes County to announce Tuesday a pilot program to help rural communities that face serious sewage problems like those here. Inferior sewage systems allow waste to back up and pool, threatening public health and degrading basic dignity. Federal officials said the new pilot will help 11 communities assess their sewage problems, plan improvements and receive the financial and technical help to make those plans real. In addition to Lowndes County, the effort will help two West Virginia counties and the San Carlos Apache Tribe in Arizona, among other areas. “The America that we all believe in is a land of opportunity. But for historically marginalized communities from Alabama to Alaska, that opportunity is stolen when basic sanitation doesn’t work – exposing adults and children to backyard sewage and disease,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement. More than 2 million people in the U.S. don’t have indoor plumbing, and even more live with inadequate systems for carrying away human waste and stormwater, the agency said. The EPA said places that have been “left behind for far too long” will be the program’s focus. The Biden administration said billions of dollars from the infrastructure law will help provide grants and loans for water improvements, and it wants to expand this help. President Joe Biden said the infrastructure law will help communities that face unacceptable sewage conditions. “This is the United States of America: no one should have raw sewage in their backyards or seeping into their homes,” Biden said. Lowndes County was a lush cotton country where plantation owners got rich off the labor of enslaved Black people before the Civil War; sharecropping ensnared the descendants of the freed slaves in the decades after. The county, where old plantation homes still dot the landscape, became a center of the struggle for voting rights and civil rights in the 1960s. Now, Lowndes is a poor place in a poor state. The same sewage problems have been cropping up ever since Holcomb moved to Pine Street in 1987, and she’s sick of the government’s inaction. “I want them to fix it. I would love to see them move that lagoon. Find somewhere else to put it,” she said. “If you have all the windows down, sometimes it’s just like the sewage system is in your house.” Many residents in the county aren’t connected to a centralized sewer system. Regular septic systems often don’t function properly because the soil is so dense. In some places, sewage stands outside of homes, and the smell of waste permeates the air at times. Native Americans and people of color are particularly likely to live without proper sanitation services, according to a 2019 report by the nonprofit DigDeep. The head of the EPA’s office of water, Radhika Fox, was previously CEO of the U.S. Water Alliance, which worked on the report. She has long focused on inadequate infrastructure. The report said many communities didn’t benefit from the infrastructure investments the U.S. made previously, creating a “hidden water and sanitation crisis.” The problem is a multi-billion dollar burden, the group says. Catherine Flowers, founder of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice, who has focused on how sewage issues disproportionately impact poor, rural areas, said the new pilot program is a big step for people who live in places like Lowndes County. “Hopefully, out of what is getting ready to happen, we’re going to find remedies so these things will not continue to happen,” she said. Republished with the permission of The Associated Press.
