This article is from the fall 2024 edition of Mobile Baykeeper’s print quarterly, CURRENTS. The magazine is mailed to active members who have given more than $50 in the past year. To get on the magazine’s mailing list, donate here.
By Cade Kistler
Every time a rainstorm hits Prichard, Alabama, the streets are awash with sewage spills. This isn’t just an inconvenience — it’s a public health crisis that has been festering for decades, largely ignored by those with the power to make a change. The residents of Prichard deserve better. It’s time ADEM, the EPA, and our elected officials step up in a big way.
The situation in Prichard is dire. The water and sewer infrastructure is crumbling. Recent assessments have revealed that 70 percent of the water pipes require replacement within the next 20 years, demanding an investment of approximately $240 million. Further, the wastewater side of the utility will require replacement of about 32 percent of sewer pipes over the same period, requiring a $100 million investment. Overall, the utility will need more than $400 million invested over the next two decades to deal with its problems.
This systemic neglect mirrors broader patterns of environmental racism seen in other cities like Flint, Michigan, and Jackson, Mississippi. In those cases, the requisite outrage in local, regional, and national media spurred the appropriate response from state and federal agencies. But for Prichard, a predominantly Black community, the response has been tepid at best. To date, even though everyone wants to celebrate the finding of the Clotilda and nearby Africatown’s history, they seem content to sweep the water woes of Prichard (tens of millions of gallons of sewage overflows), under the rug.
Many of those living in Baldwin and Mobile counties are familiar with the big picture details of the Flint and Jackson water catastrophes, but don’t know about the crisis going on in their own backyard on the Gulf Coast.
Not to excuse issues of other wastewater utilities, but for scale, in 2023, all the sewage spills reported by every utility in Baldwin County combined (1.53 million gallons) were only about one quarter of the amount of sewage spilled by Prichard, roughly 4.5 million gallons. In 2022, the difference was even more striking with all the Baldwin County utilities reporting 2.69 million gallons spilled, compared to more than 18.7 million gallons of sewage spilled into local waterways by Prichard.
Prichard’s water and sewer system is receiving a $5.8 million financial infusion from ADEM. This funding is a good start, intended to “help jump-start the process” toward addressing the serious problems plaguing the system. The initial funding will pay for the rehabilitation of water tanks, design work for future water and sewer repairs, upgrades, and financial audits. While these measures are important, in the face of a nearly $500 million problem, they are merely a Band-Aid on a gaping wound. The reality is that Prichard’s utility is hemorrhaging millions of dollars annually, and its customers, already overburdened by their bills, cannot bear the brunt of these costs alone.
John Young, the court-appointed receiver of the Prichard water system, acknowledges the gravity of the situation, having worked in struggling utilities around the country, including in Flint. He says Prichard is in the worst shape of any utility he’s ever dealt with.
This is not just about infrastructure and being able to swim safely in our waters; it’s about justice, health, and the dignity of our neighbors. We cannot continue to ignore the plight of Prichard’s residents. They deserve clean water, just like every other American. The residents of Prichard have waited long enough. With a new master plan in place that details what’s needed to fix the severe problems the utility faces, the time for action is now.
Prichard’s water crisis is a glaring example of environmental injustice that demands our attention and resolve. Every American, regardless of their ZIP code, race, or income, deserves access to clean and safe water. With billions of dollars of infrastructure funding being made available, we need to call on ADEM, the EPA, and our elected officials to step up and make the necessary investments to secure clean water for Prichard.
You can watch a documentary by Southern Exposure on the Prichard water crisis, Wastewater: A Tale of Two Cities, below.
Learn more and take action here.
