NEWS & INSIGHTSOther

The Grass is not Greener on the Septic Tank

Grass grows above a septic tank pipeline; Photo Credit: South Port Realty
Grass grows above a septic tank pipeline; Photo Credit: South Port Realty

In the 1800s Lowndes County, Alabama had booming plantations powered by slaves and produced cash crops like cotton. When slavery ended in the 1860s, in a way so did Lowndes County. Not much has changed in Lowndes in the last 150 years. If you’re in town and turn off the main road you’ll turn onto a dirt road. It’s also still a very segregated and racist county where blacks are often not sold land based purely on skin color and where whites still owned 90% of land in the late 90s. Bloody Lowndes, as it’s called for its location on the rusty buckle of Alabama’s Black Belt, is as dilapidated as the old colonial homes that line the streets.

Lowndes and the surrounding counties are not only socially backwards, but they’re also backed up. There’s little infrastructure to support their residents, including a major lack of sanitation infrastructure such as septic systems. The Alabama Department of Public Health reported that nearly 40-90% of households have inadequate septic systems. Backyards bubble and stew with human waste.

Backed up Septic Tank Yard
Backed up septic tank; Photo Credit: Catherine Coleman Flowers

Even though in order to install and fix septic tanks you need municipal certification, septic systems are considered the responsibility of individual residents. New septic systems can cost anywhere from $6,000 – $30,000. Lowndes and the surrounding counties of Sumter and Wilcox, which also lack proper sanitation, are some of the poorest counties in the country. Septic systems appropriate for their current situation cost around $10,000, plus $200 every two years for maintenance. Census data shows that before the recession over 30% of families in this area lived below the national poverty line and the average annual income is slightly over $14,000.

In 2002, because of the severity of waste build up and the potential for health risks, many residents were arrested for inadequate and/or nonexistent septic systems: despite the fact that this a public problem as many are at risk of illness, and a countywide problem as there are neither the individual nor public funds to fix the problem. This is further complicated by the Black Belt’s fertile and clay based soil, which doesn’t allow water to drain properly and easily pools at the ground level, creating a cesspool of bacteria and parasites.

It’s clear that change needs to finally come to Lowndes County, Alabama. If you want to be part of the solution visit ACREdc.com.

-Jaclyn Hersh, External Relations Officer