Bernard Mokam, The New York Times ; They Were Promised New Septic Tanks. Trump Called It ‘Illegal DEI.’
The Justice Department ended a deal that had helped fund a solution to the sewage crisis in rural Alabama. “Almost like we are starting all over again,” one activist said.
"It is a plight that has long plagued residents across Alabama’s Black Belt, a stretch of largely rural counties so named for its dark soil and history of slavery. Cotton flourished in the region for the same reasons that conventional septic tanks fail there: The soil is dense and holds onto water. Today there are more than 50,000 people in the region who pipe raw sewage into open trenches and pits.
Now, a seeming solution to the public health problem has been stymied by an unlikely force: the Trump administration’s war on diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
Three years ago, the Biden administration concluded in its first-ever environmental justice investigation that Alabama officials had failed to adequately address the sanitation crisis disproportionately affecting the Black residents of Lowndes County. The state agreed to an interim agreement that unlocked millions of dollars in federal funding to provide homeowners with septic tanks that could handle the difficult soil.
But soon after President Trump returned to office last year, the Justice Department ended the settlement, calling it “illegal DEI.”
The administration also scuttled a separate $14 million E.P.A. grant that had been earmarked to install new systems and provide work force training across Lowndes, Hale and Wilcox Counties.
Community activists fear the region may be doomed to enduring wastewater challenges forever."
