- "There is a human right for people to live decently, and that means the government has an obligation to provide people with the essentials of life, which include power, water and sewage service," Alston said. "But if the government says, 'oh no, we're not going to do it,' and leaves you to install very expensive septic tanks, that's not how it should work."
The situation is particularly acute in Black Belt counties like Lowndes, where the annual median household income was just $30,225 and 25.4 percent of residents lived below the poverty line as of the 2010 U.S. Census. According to a UN report published in 2011, the "Alabama Department of Public Health estimates that the number of households in Lowndes County with inadequate or no septic systems range from 40 to 90 per cent; it has reported that 50 per cent of the conventional, on-site septic systems are currently failing or are expected to fail in the future."
That's unreal. If you'd asked me ten minutes ago if anyone outside of some hermits had their sewage released above ground, I'd have said no, nowhere in America does a home have their sewage release on the surface. I guess I knew there was extreme poverty in areas like this, but I never would have guessed basic societal obligations like this go unaddressed.Their house, like those of many of their neighbors, discharges its raw sewage via long, aging "straight pipes" that release the effluent aboveground, where it sits in fetid open-air pools.
And you don't have to go far to find this, actually. Those mobile homes might be a couple blocks outside of the nearest town. If the wind blows in the right direction, people in town will smell it. It's not like this "problem" is hidden, or anything. It's just a fact of life. That's just how it is. And you buy a home upwind of the cesspits. There's actually an interesting side-note here... the Tiny House movement has a sewage problem, as well. When I was building mine, sewage treatment was a real issue. Most people go with a composting toilet, but that is still really a sticky issue for your common tiny house hipster. They are not used to being that close to their effluent. I've seen many tiny houses that just pump into a hole (if it is far enough away to avoid inspections), or use nearby bathroom facilities instead. And that's just for human waste. Almost all the tiny houses I have seen pump the sink water out onto the ground or into a hole, and simply try not to wash anything in the sick that might be toxic or stinky or whatever. The eternal maxim holds true: If you go far enough in one direction, you'll come back around the other side eventually.
Or, people stealing electricity that still happens around the U.S. This, from the big city down the road from me.