DOJ launches probe into ‘racist’ sewage
9 Nov, 2021 22:13 / Updated 9 hours ago
The US Department of Justice has launched its first-ever “environmental justice” investigation, looking into complaints on behalf of black residents in rural Lowndes County, Alabama about the disparate impact of waste disposal.
“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,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said on Tuesday, announcing the investigation.
The Civil Rights Division will look into the Alabama Department of Public Health and the county health department to see if they failed to safely dispose of raw sewage in the area. The rural area between Montgomery and Selma is overwhelmingly poor and African-American.
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The investigation will look at “policies and practices” that may have caused black residents “to have diminished access to adequate sanitation systems and to disproportionately and unjustifiably bear the risk of adverse health effects associated with inadequate wastewater treatment, such as hookworm infections,” the DOJ said.
https://www.rt.com/usa/539834-environmental-justice-sewage-alabama/
