Trump shut down program to end human waste backing into Alabama homes, calling it 'illegal DEI'

[Jilly_in_VA]

For the last 14 years, when it rains in Lowndes County, Alabama, contaminated standing water builds up around Annye Burke’s home. When the septic tank breaks down, raw sewage backs up into her toilet, she said.

Although “frustrated” by the unhealthy and inconvenient conditions, Burke said she doesn’t let it get her down. Human wastewater contaminating homes and yards in these rural parts of central Alabama “has become a way of life,” she said. The problem has existed so long and was so pervasive that a 2017 study determined 1 in every 3 adults in the county had the intestinal parasite hookworm.

The Biden administration investigated and allocated nearly $26 million to rebuild Lowndes County’s water infrastructure, with the Department of Justice declaring the majority-Black area was suffering from “environmental racism.”

But earlier this month, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to kill the deal, calling it “illegal DEI.”

The DOJ’s Harmeet K. Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights under Trump, said the agency “will no longer push ‘environmental justice’ as viewed through a distorting, DEI lens,” referring to diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

A 2023 investigation sparked by environmental activist Catherine Coleman Flowers and conducted by the DOJ found that low-income residents of the county, most of whom are Black, have lacked basic sanitation services for generations. Given the area’s especially hard, impermeable soil and the high cost of installing private wastewater systems, many residents have resorted to straight piping to deal with human wastewater. This method involves guiding human wastewater away from the home into a series of ditches and crude piping systems, according to the DOJ report. That water collects in nearby yards, open areas and woods.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/trump-canceled-dei-program-raw-sewage-alabaman-homes-rcna201164

It's not only a nuisance, is't a disease vector. And what do you have to say about that, Bobby JUNIOR? Crickets, of course.

[underpants]

1. I hope their Congress person does something

like resubmitting the program with different language.

[MagickMuffin]

2. Jr, says, at least the contaminated wastewater won't have fluoride in it

These parasites running our government are white supremacist and very privileged, dontchaknow!

[John1956PA]

3. MAGA: Making American Genocide Abound . . .

.

[mdbl]

4. So we're back to a policy of environmental racism.

Someone has to stop this evil asshole.

[progressoid]

5. Did it ever really go away?

Of course, the orange anus just ramped it up.

[mdbl]

8. I used to have hope for the future

I grew up in the age of Aquarius. I didn't think we were on a trajectory to a Guilded Age reboot with a mix of Apartheid sprinkled with ideas from Hitler.

[patphil]

6. Although Alabama is a deep red state, Lowndes County voted for Kamala Harris.

It's a mostly black rural county that went for Harris by over 2 to 1, even though the state went for Trump by about the same margin.
Environmental racism was the correct call, but Republicans prefer to pretend it's a DEI issue.

[orangecrush]

7. FAFO