The Alabama Black Belt Left to Drown in Sewage After DEI Reversal

For generations, residents in rural Lowndes County, Ala. have lived with raw sewage flowing through their yards, homes and neighborhoods. Now, advocates say a federal agreement meant to address the public health crisis has been dismantled under the Trump administration, leaving many Black residents without answers.

The Department of Justice announced in April 2025 that it was terminating a landmark environmental justice agreement tied to the county’s longstanding sanitation crisis. The settlement came out of the Biden-Harris administration, which required state officials to address failing wastewater systems in the county– where over 70 percent of residents are Black. The agreement also set out to prevent residents, who were unable to afford proper sewage infrastructure, from being targeted, the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) reported.

It all was birthed from a federal civil rights investigation launched in 2021 by the Justice Department and the Department of Health and Human Services. According to that report, Alabama officials repeatedly failed to respond to severe sanitation problems disproportionately impacting Black folks in Lowndes County, the rural area nestled between Selma and Montgomery.

Lowndes County has long been symbolic of the intersection of poverty, environmental racism and civil rights. Community leaders say the sewage crisis reflects decades of government disinvestment in rural Black communities.

Per EJI, federal investigators found many residents lacked access to functioning septic systems because of the region’s dense clay soil, which makes traditional wastewater systems ineffective. Some households resorted to “straight piping,” the practice where sewage is discharged directly into trenches or nearby land. But as a consequence of these desperate actions, researchers and advocates documented residents’ exposure to raw sewage and parasites, including hookworm infections rarely seen in modern America.

The DOJ previously described the dire situation as a form of racial discrimination under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, saying Black and low-income residents had endured decades of neglect. A 2023 interim resolution agreement promised improvements, including public health outreach, infrastructure planning and protection from criminal penalties tied to sanitation violations.

But everything changed once President Donald Trump returned to the White House. His administration reversed course, calling the settlement an example of “illegal DEI” and environmental justice policies, according to the DOJ.

Now, advocates and residents say the decision threatens years of progress in one of the nation’s poorest regions. Catherine Coleman Flowers, founder of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice, told The New York Times residents believed they were finally nearing a solution before the agreement was scrapped. “It is almost like we are starting all over again,” she said.