You're listening to the reversing climate change,
podcast by the team at Nori. The carbon removal Marketplace.
This is a show about the innovators and entrepreneurs
developing solutions to climate change.
Hello and welcome to the reversing climate change
podcast. I'm Ross Kenyan I'm the creative
editor at Nori's carbon removal Marketplace.
Today I have with me, Catherine Coleman flowers, a MacArthur
genius founder of the Center for Rural Enterprise and
environmental justice. And author of waste one woman's
fight against America's dirty secret.
Thanks for being here. Catherine, thank you for having
me. It is my pleasure of all the
things in the world to work on. I have to imagine that rural
sanitation was a bit of a surprise that you could not have
foreseen. Your life going in this
direction. Is that a correct assumption?
That's a very correct assumption.
You know, when I was younger I thought I was going to go with
and become a soul train dancer, that didn't happen and then even
later as ice, Daddy went to college.
I thought I was just being a teacher but I found out that
being an activist and still been a teacher but teaching a
different way. But I never thought that the
focus would be way something so basic to all of us and basic to
two life forms in general. But certainly something all
humans have to deal with and I never thought that it would be
an issue that would get the attention to vote because I was
told it was not sexy, and nobody would be interested.
It. But we found that that was not
the case. No, it, well, I think it's safe
to say it's not sexy percentage, but it is definitely important
and shocking to learn the details of it.
I love stories like this too because we take for granted
having working septic systems or waste disposal things work as
their broadly intended to and at least in the cities that I've
lived in. And that is not the case.
For many Americans were people around the world.
Just frame the issue for people who maybe are not located
rurally. What exactly is the State of
Affairs in Rural America as it comes to sanitation?
Well, I think the biggest problem in the law will
Community, especially, unincorporated communities, is
that they are left to figure out their own Wastewater problems.
And and they are forced by regulations.
Usually one that has been put, you know, in place by the state,
or the county, or some kind of Authority in the area.
And what happens is that when they treat their Wastewater, has
to be treated on the property and a lot of communities people
are straight piping, meaning that they have no wastewater
treatment at all or they have septic systems in a septic
systems are failing. A lot of that is because the sea
level rise, a lot of it because the climate conditions that are
changing and a lot of us just because the technology is just
not working and then of course we see people on these small
treatment plans that are also networking and they have Lagoon
systems which are Really big puns of raw sewage but they
don't care where they are. Cited, in some cases, they're
close to communities housing, developments, and schools, and
out of that. It's pretty much exposing people
to the possibility of getting sick.
So in Rural America, there has been a neglect of this type of
infrastructure Water and Wastewater infrastructure that
people take for granted in urban communities.
When I've stayed with friends in rural areas and they have septic
systems, I think household waste goes into a sort of tank, and
then there's a field that I think it like leeches out into
and sort of filters through, that's how it's supposed to
work. Although, I've also heard of
work having to be done on septic systems is not a cheap thing to
do. But for people who cannot afford
such an elaborate system or have the amount of space necessary to
have this field, it just goes into a pond or goes into some
sort of open-air kind of pond or a lagoon as you say, is that?
Is that what's happening? It's a lot more complicated than
that. I know people that are paid for
elaborate systems and they've still failed.
Wow, it's not that simple. Is not a simple fix it.
You know, septic systems are one of the few things you can buy in
the US and pay that much money for it doesn't come with a
service warranty so it varies from place to place and we've
been in conversations with the association that represents that
industry and they don't want warranties.
Excellent part of our conversations.
They say Maybe we should just have warranties in Alabama, but
they're not just failing in Alabama and failing everywhere.
And it's not just a real problem because I just talked with a
group of people that talk about places like in Raleigh, North
Carolina for an example, around that area.
They built sewer around the around the black community and
they are now failing septic systems.
So I'm finding them in Montgomery, Alabama, where we
thought that it was only out in rural communities, but in Black
communities, we are because of racialized covenants.
At one point But that was the only place people could live
there on septic systems, but they're failing.
A lot of this is film because of climate change and a lot of his
film because of infrastructure that was not designed to work.
The way it was sold to people. It's not working properly and
we're seeing more and more failures exposing people to to
potential health risk, to what degree is it a problem of
density where you have to be somewhat living near enough to
one another that you could have sores that go to some sort of
facility? I imagine, I know race and class
clearly figure into this prominently, but to what degree
is it? A problem of just living far
away from one another in rural environments.
But it sounds like what you just said sounds like that was an
urban environment or Suburban in urban and Suburban environments.
We find to be the same but we've seen what they build factories
in rural environments and they ran the city's sewage there to
treat to provide it for the factory.
So why can't we do it for residence.
So it's not just a problem with density and what we tend to see
this tend to be people People of color, they tend to be poor
people. If you go to Appalachia their
white people with their poor people and they're dealing with
the same thing and then the other problem is, the biggest
problem that we've discovered is that of the infrastructure just
failing. It's not working properly.
I mean it may have worked 20 years ago but even I grew up on
a septic tank and it was coming back into our home.
We didn't know it was a regular problem because we didn't sit
around the kitchen table or when we went to church, we didn't say
the fellow. Did your septic tank fell.
Today is sewage coming back into your bathtub.
Up. We didn't know that.
It was only when we did a house-to-house serving in
Lowndes County that we realize how big this problem was.
And we started talking about it. People from the round from
around the u.s. start reaching out to us and what we're finding
out is that it's not just a rule problem.
It's an urban problem too. And we just had a, we're doing a
study with the guardian where we just found, we're asking people
to self report this problem because there's no real data on
this in the US, which is so unfair.
That's Why we still have this problem?
I believe, and we are hearing from urban areas even with his
density, like Mount Vernon New York.
With sewage is running back into people's homes or Centreville
Illinois. Where sewage is running back
into people's homes. So, a lot of it is a bigger
problem than that. It's also a problem of
infrastructure. And we have to change our
infrastructure who's currently responsible for this.
Now, is it typically done at the municipal level?
It depends on where it is. It when L Municipal area, when
you talk about Municipal, then you've, you know, that's that's
Urban lingo, because a lot of the rural communities are
unincorporated. So in Alabama, is to State
that's responsible and then they have County health department
since the State Health Department.
When you're talking about a larger facilities, the Alabama
Department of Environmental Management.
So it so there's no uniform way of doing it across the u.s.
It depends on where you're located for an example and in
California. I'm not sure what the entity is,
but I know that there are problems in the state of The
fornia. I know it's problems in Alaska,
there's problems in Hawaii. There were problems in Texas.
Their problems across the country, but in terms of the
data being collected is not happening in a uniform way, if
you were to call me and say Catherine or their waste water
problems in this particular area, which data set can I go to
and find that we didn't really know because it hasn't been
compiled and collected like that.
I think the closest thing we can look to is the American Society
of civil engineers who have a report card.
On infrastructure who's given the u.s. a D+?
Yeah, this is a deceptively simple question but but why why
why can't we do this? Is it as simple as something
like Prejudice or racism is there more operating this story.
Why can't we make sure people aren't getting sick from merely
existing? Well, what I found it in some
places is race and some places is is economics and a lot of it
is just simply inequality who deserves access Stu sewage.
And who doesn't it? Should be.
It should be something that everybody has because one of the
things covid is taught us, is that it was an equal opportunity
killer and it affected people. No matter.
You know, people that were more likely to die.
Of course with those with Health Care disparities and so forth,
but it killed a lot of people that were not with it.
You know, that we didn't know they had issues where dying and
we're seeing around the world now and younger people are dying
since they have the vaccines because they weren't available.
But to them until recently. So it was the same thing with
sanitation. I think that it's not a simple
issue. I think there are many factors
that influence who has sanitation and who doesn't
depends on where you're located and that may help determine what
the factor is. But one of the things that
there's overwhelming and all of that is that the people that
tend to not have it or marginalize, and I would include
rural communities as being marginalized to Okay.
I like the template of the environmental justice story, or
one of them gets used as Erin Brockovich, right.
And I love her. We go on, right?
Yeah. Just investor-owned utility
doing not-so-nice things, suing them getting them to fix it.
Getting a nice, big judgment. But a lot of the people you're
dealing with are oftentimes people who are public health
agencies, they're sort of government or public employees.
Then they're not as Cooperative as one might think or one might
expect from the government, is this Story more complicated than
just government good and corporations bad in this
context. Oh yeah, it's more complicated
than that. I think that a lot of it is is
people changing the narrative to suit what they want.
And also, people changing it to make sure that the people that
they've sponsored and support are always the ones to get the
money even if they created the problem.
So that's a large part of it. I thought attributed this to be
like what happened on January 6. You know, some people saw what I
saw. And I guess I'm looking at
because I'm a former member of the military what I saw because
I believe in the Constitution will people that went and
invaded my house, they didn't follow the rules.
I used to work in the Capitol and I knew you just couldn't
walk through there and push through a door.
I would have been shot and I just saw how the rules were
applied their the same thing happens when it comes to septic
and sewage treatment in terms of who gets it.
And who doesn't, if you have the right kind of support and the
right people trying to say, you know, No shape the story to make
it look a different way. Then of course, you're going to
have people to support that option.
That's what's happened. What happens here and we got to
keep in mind that in some of these communities.
They're operating based on philosophies that were built up
years and years and years of having free labor and minimizing
certain groups of people so that they can continue to exploit
their labor. And now we're at a point where
we're looking at all these inequalities and note that the
continued Sustain this, in terms of environmental justice issues,
impacts all of us because out of this is are coming health
problems that don't stay in my community, it can impact
everybody's Community, whether it is even a more affluent
people. I know some people that were
fluent to get covid and I think that all of us are seeing things
differently now because it helps us to drop those skills from my
eyes. The realize we are all one.
We are all human and we're all impacted by this.
So that's why we have to find a solution.
Option that will help all of us. And that's why I tend to reach
across the aisle when I can. It did wasn't that.
It wasn't called Reaching Across the aisle.
When I started doing this work, it's just that for me coming
from the country is being neighborly and reaching out to
my neighbor and seeing, if we can find some common ground, to
solve this problem, because we all realize, it's an issue that
we have to address. I really respect that and it's
not as common as one might hope, but there's even working here or
there's a section about your work with Jeff sessions and, and
being able to collaborate, I don't think people would have
expected to find that in the book like this.
How did that happen? Well, actually met Senator
sessions at a town hall meeting. I was working as economic
development coordinator for Lowndes County.
And what often happens is that the Senators US senators would
actually coming to the community Did this a lot, but go to the
community and meet with constituents to explain what was
going on in Washington and I went to one of those meetings
and I asked him a question because he was talking about the
grant programs that were available for Rural communities
and my question was well how to rule poor rural communities, get
access to these grants if they have to have to have a match and
they don't have a tax base to do that and he couldn't answer the
question. But to his credit, he came to me
afterwards and he said I've always been concerned about
that. Then he went on to tell.
Tell me about the fact that he himself grew up poor and Rural
Wilcox, County Alabama, which is also part of the Black Gun.
He said Captain, I didn't have my family didn't have a
television, you know, home until I was 10 years of age.
So, you know, from that point on, we just bonded and doing
that time, when I got involved in the Wastewater issue, I was
getting death threats and he would actually send someone down
from Washington to go to meetings with me.
So there was never a meeting that I went to in the state
level or neither. I went to an evening where I
didn't have someone from Senator sessions office, either from the
DC office or the Alabama office. That would accompany me and I
think that gave me some measure of protection doing that time.
And he knew we often talked about as he would ask me
sometimes Kathy, why don't you run for office?
And, you know, we would love to have you.
He was talking about the Republican party, but he knew I
wasn't a republican. But, but he said, I will support
you. And I was even an another
stories. There was a woman who was over
the door Daughters of the Confederacy and Selma.
And when they opened up the interpretive Center, the Lowndes
County interpreter Center, which tells the history of the Selma
to Montgomery, March along the, my girlfriend went to
Montgomery, March 30. She was there and she wrote an
editorial saying it calling in a temple orgy of hate and Rose
Senator sessions and said they needed to close it down.
So Senator sessions decided that he wanted to visit.
Visit the interpretive Center and he his office reached out to
me and asked me what I accompany him and I did.
And at that time it was under State control, and I had talked
to some leaders who black leaders across the state and
what and was told that to ask him, could they move it from the
state, controlling it to the Department of the interior?
Which he said on that, that committee that oversaw the
department of the Interior? So as we walk through there at
the end it is talked about voting rights and all The
impediments that were put up to voting, which is really our
running right now. Some states are trying to do the
same thing again but he said, we need to keep this open because
people need to know this history and it was moved from the state
under State Control to Federal control is now run by the
National Park Service. Wow.
Do you have any guidance or tips for someone listening?
How they can better work together.
Maybe not. All the values are shared, or
maybe not even in the same political party as someone.
But I got the sense. Reading your book that your
Christian faith has a lot to do with it, but I'm curious.
How might you frame this? There are two things.
Well 3x, the one with one is in fact, my Christian faith and
then my and one of the things that I've learned that my father
used to always say and he was paraphrasing.
What he saw in the Bible, which was kept even if you make one
step god with me too. So I think we have to make the
step. And then the second part of his
being from a rural community, when you grow up in a rural
community, got to be dependent upon each other.
So you can't, you know, be at each other's throats.
So we have to find ways in which to communicate and even though
we may not have attended church together but we were still
neighborly toward each other and then of course, coming from a
family that did not meet strangers.
So we have to seek common ground.
Round. And one of the things I've
learned about being in the military that I was put in this
situation, you know, all these folks from around the country,
did I did know, but at the end of the day, we at the end of the
experience is six weeks in the basic training.
We had formed lifelong friendships, so we have to find
and we had come from different backgrounds.
I was with people who had never been around a black person
before, but at the end of the day, we became friends that I
think we have to find common ground and find the humanity in.
Each and every person. So I am not going to get into an
argument with people over things.
I don't agree with. Let's first, let's find some
common ground first. When you can find the common
ground and is easy to talk about the hard things.
I've heard people say that the military is the most integrated
place in America, it sounds like maybe that was your experience
too. It was, it was, it was a
different experience for me at that time.
And I didn't even I didn't deal with racism, I dealt with racism
and I remember I had braids at the time and Where the person's
walked into the day room and went to write me up because I
was wearing my hair in braids, but there was nothing in the
uniform code of military Justice.
The UCMJ they said I couldn't wear braids and he wanted to, to
right here, ended up having to give me an apology because my
supervisor at the time we reached out to him and send him,
the rags and said that you're wrong, and he hit the back up.
But I knew that he was, he was, you know, he saw that.
But he did that because, you know, I was black and he was
white and he had power over me and he felt like he could do
that, but he was wrong. And I've seen that throughout,
not just my experience but I tell the story of mine.
My ex-husband's experience in the military as well but it
doesn't mean I don't believe in the military.
My I have three brothers that served in the military.
My father is a vet and I believe in the Constitution and will
defend it. Why would someone make death
threats against you? We were just not want their
taxes raised to pay for sewage system.
Where is the problem? I really don't know I suspect
that they're people that benefit from the problem.
And of course, you know, if you are in a situation where you get
business based on people being reported to the health
department and the health department can criminalize the
individual and forced them to to pay for A business.
Maybe that was it. I really don't know.
I'm still trying to understand that one of the things that
happened during that period of time, someone put a ball python
in my apartment. That's why I would not live in
an apartment anymore. I want to live in a place where
I feel like I can secure it myself because an apartment.
Anybody could have access to it but but those are the kinds of
things that that I encounter doing that time who it was, I
really don't know. They, you know, people that do
stuff like that a cowardly, they never.
Reveal who they are. If it were someone who made
money off of people having, you know, being cited having to
repair make extremely expensive repairs, in some cases worth
more than the home itself. It seems unmanageable entirely,
but they would have made money off of putting in good quality
septic systems to write. It doesn't seem like there's a
well, if they, if they fail within two years and you have to
go back and do it again. Oh, See now we're kind of deal.
Yeah, 3p kind of thing. And then then we saw situations
for an example where a there was a person who he was.
He was a minister at the church in in another County and they
bought this church church property because it was located
close to the highway. And after they bought the church
property, the adjacent landowner who I suspect probably sold the
property ended up filing the complaint against the church
because the field. The Lions have been separated
from the septic tank. The when they flush the toilet,
it was coming out onto his problem.
However where was he when his property was for sale and the
health department, put all of this might against his medicine,
Minister was arrested and the Health Department's put all the
Mind against the minister. And I remember asking somebody
from the health department who I didn't know, at the time,
actually wrote one of the laws that criminalize people for this
and I asked him, why aren't you all trying to help him connect?
A Brundage Water and Sewer since they have a public sewer there,
instead of making him pay thousands of dollars for an
on-site system. That doesn't make any sense and
the person said to me, it's a bad law, but we're going to
enforce it. That's the part.
That's so unfair about it. We went to court and it was
eventually thrown out because the minister was really, he was
just a minister that work for a corporation and he was the wrong
person that they sued. But there was a, this is a case
of people work Reaching Across the aisle that the attorney.
They represent him actually ran. We have to get an attorney to
represent him to sue to get access to British Water and
Sewer. Because the person who bought
the complaint against him, he had the sewer main on his
property. 30 within 25 feet of the church.
So it would have made more sense for the health department to
facilitate them, connecting to source to the sewer system
instead of trying to convict him and put him in jail because he
wouldn't get the the expensive own site system that they wanted
him to get in an area that had access to public school.
That's the kind of craziness that we're dealing with and
that's the kind of unfairness that happens within these
situations that that should not have occurred.
Is there any good? Faith explanation for that.
It does seem like a little bit like Petty tyranny or people
just exercising power, indiscriminate idea.
I think they were exercising, power because even when the
sheriff at that particular time, did not want the health
department to execute that one tried to talk them out of it.
In terms of the example of people walking across the aisle,
a person who's a local River, Keeper reached out to me and
said, I know an attorney that would sue on his behalf.
This attorney had ran for a seat in the State House of
Representatives. Presented as a Republican and he
was white, the minister was black, he ended up and he was
local he Sue because he knew it was wrong but he because of who
he was as a person you know wanting to do the right thing
and wanted to be principal, he sued on behalf of the of the
church. So they can connect to the sewer
system which would would have been.
That was the easiest fix but instead it was almost the same
thing that happened when we were when we did the parasite study
and the health We say that it wasn't even accurate.
I mean, because we use PCR technology which is commonly
used today, they were not Visionaries, but it is commonly
used today in diagnosing and treating covid for an example.
That's the kind of thinking we are going to have to get rid of
some of these bureaucrats that have been in these offices for a
long time. They take their own prejudices
with them and they use them and they get super charged through
policy to impact people in a negative way, instead of the way
it It was intended, which was for the public good.
How should we be thinking about policy?
And how might this be addressed in a, in a larger way?
Well, I think one way in which we need to think about policy
is, is how do we dismantle and take power away from people that
have used this the wrong way? Because often times they are not
replaced, they are still there, they're there until they retire.
Because as long as they have the support of the politicians who
have enabled them or empowered them to practice.
Very neat. They stay there especially on
the state and local level so we need to get rid of them.
I just I just heard from people in a town where an engineering
firm build a failed system. They are really upset because
the engineering firm just got money to extend.
The system that they built, that was failing in the first place
and they said that the town did not want to deal with them but
it was they said it was Agents from USDA that actually showed
up with the engineering. A representative of the
engineering firm that pretty much forced to town to sign the
agreement, or they weren't going to get anything to repair it.
Those are the kinds of things that we need to change.
Is that type that level of corruption.
That's occurring were folk that are in these positions are no
longer public servants, they're not serving the public good.
They're serving themselves and they're serving.
I'm assuming corporations that they represent or the people
that can afford to pay to the lobby, is to make sure that they
always are in line. At the money even if the
technology or the infrastructure they put in place doesn't work,
that's where we're going to break the back of having.
Even if you have all the money to go inside of these problems,
you have the wrong people in place receiving it and designing
systems that don't work. Our children and grandchildren
will be talking about this problem 30 and 40 years from
now, that is a fascinating answer.
Not the direction I expected you to go.
I've always loved the expression that Personnel is policy
administrative rules. Are often times much more
important than legislation or how things are interpreted by
the offices that are charged with carrying out the law.
So, that's such an interesting angle, no one ever focuses on
that, everyone always talks about you need to support HR
2273 support this bill. It will solve everything from
the top down. You're like, it doesn't matter
what you do up there in some cases if the people carrying it
out or not good. I mean, if you look at just look
at the South and how the South put in place in pediments to
voting rights back in the 1960s, it didn't matter that the
Government. The rest of the country was on
another trajectory but the South was going to be the South and
try to do everything. It could sit still enable Jim
Crow and discrimination and we're starting to see some of
that pop back up again, but that happens across the board.
But these kinds of issues are issues that impact the public
good. And I think in order for us to
change that, we got to reveal it.
And that's why I've it least with environmental justice
approach that has to be Community engagement.
I think the live, the anger that we see See bubbling up in this
country. Even from people that I don't
necessarily agree with their political views but a lot of
that anger is coming because they're not nobody's listening
to that. They're being told what to do
from the top down and nobody's listening to them and nobody's
going to these command, just seeing what the real problems
are. And even sometimes a the best
people that may be well intentioned or are actually
killing these communities because they haven't spent any
time there is not their focus and they can't go there and have
a big crowd. These areas of very vital to our
survival as a country. That's where a lot of our food
is grown. You know, that's where a lot of
us are going to have to move to because of sea level rise when
we can't live along the coastal areas anymore.
We saw people moving to these areas even doing covid because
they didn't want to be in crowded confines.
They want to be someplace where they felt like they can roam
around and be okay and not have to come in contact with a whole
lot of people and potentially this this pandemic as well.
Well, so that's why I think it's very, very important.
That will communities where people are also taxpayers also
benefit from what comes from the government.
You shouldn't just go to corporations.
It should also go to those people that are living in these
small towns because to me, small towns is what, that's what
America is all about. That's true.
Americana, I was gonna ask you about that, too.
And some of these cases where people are living with open raw
sewage pits and Things of that nature.
Would they prefer to be connected to some sort of sewer
system? Or would they if they could
afford it? Would they prefer to move?
I imagine, it's a mix. But what do you think about
that? Well, how do you move from a
community where your churches where you went to school?
Your relatives are buried there. I mean, I think that their
cultures and small communities that are there for a reason and
a lot of us can even those that are living in urban areas can
connect their family heritage to these small, these small towns.
I mean, I'm being on genealogy now and a lot of people are
going back to these communities to find out who they are.
And I think the only way we're going to really find out who we
are and really correct. A lot of the wrongs is when we
start getting more in touch with all of America and not just part
of America and that includes rural communities to and I think
that and we should have a choice.
I mean, we got a big country. You know, from sea to shining
sea, when do we get to a point where we had to say that
everybody had to live in a city in order to have access to City
to services that all of us should have access to?
That's not the case in Europe. I just talked to people from the
PDS equivalent of in Italy where they don't have this problem.
When they've actually I've been told by one one journalist who
interviewed me that they've outlawed septic systems in
Germany. I mean we need to look and see
what they're doing. And in other parts of the of the
world to treat Wastewater, you know, we because of the Gates
Foundation and its Noble fight to deal with the toilet.
We just forgot about what happens once you flush the
toilet and that's our Focus throughout our organization, the
center for ruling, the prize and environmental justice is, make
sure that we realize that once you flush the toilet, it has to
be treated and it has to be treated in such a way, they are
nutrients that are in there that we can actually reuse.
And part of our goal is to create the Technologies.
Using not only the best Minds from the engineering and even
aeronautic engineering because they treat Wastewater to outer
space. I mean, I have space to drinking
water quality. Why can't we do that here?
Why can't we create something that you can go to a Lowe's or
Home Depot and buy? It is treat your Wastewater.
It would change the whole trajectory around where you
settle where you live and whether or not you need to be
connect to a store system. That events is gone dumping into
the ocean or To River or some other place where it shouldn't
go, people would have their own composting or reactor for
biosolids. They would have a night soil
making machine in their home, something like that.
Well we haven't we're not going to expose what I concept is yet,
but we do have a concept that we want to develop and we're going
to work on it. And the difference in our
engineering Paradigm is that we're going to have impacted
people at the table at the beginning, helping with the
design, because most of the people that are trying to design
us Lucien have no idea what the problem is because they haven't
had to live with. That seems very wise to me.
I'm sure you'll come up with an entirely different product than
if you did not include them until you were testing it or
really far down the line. Yeah, and that's part of the
failures that I was Consulting. Recently, they, this group
reached out to me and asked me what I have a call with them
about a project. They were contacted by EPA
because this Wastewater system was failing and is this area and
the local people would not cooperate with.
Them. I said, why not?
And he's they said, well, they brought us on board to develop a
system, to educate them about how to manage the system that
they have, because that's why it's failed.
So how do you know that have you talked to them?
They said no, I said that's what's wrong with your design,
that's why they're not cooperating with you.
How do you go into a community? You have never made any contact
with them to tell them. That the reason their system is
failing is because they don't know how to maintain it and they
need to be educated but you never asked them.
Why? Is it feeling?
They know because they deal with it every day.
That's what's wrong with that pair of that.
That's why people are upset. That's why we have a divided
because they're folk coming in that won't listen.
And that's one of the most important things that we have to
do is start listening to each other.
By doing that asking the people themselves, what is the problem?
Explain that to me, what do you think the solution is?
And we probably would come up with better solutions that we
have coming up from the top down.
I think that's very wise. I think there's plenty of great
reasons to do that from ideological ones to more
practical concerns, Catherine, I have to ask you, because I've
been so enamored by the EJ concerns of your book that we
didn't really get to climate, which is okay.
That happens sometimes, because it's all part of it.
It's all part of it. Yeah, you've been involved with
the Joe Biden, task force on climate change.
You're involved with the White House, environmental justice
advisory Council. So I know there's a lot of
intersections here with climate change.
Maybe you can paint that for our listeners.
Well, I can give you an example. You know, I'm a Storyteller
because I'm from the country. So we always know we sit on the
porch and tell stories, right? So one of the places that we can
look at and see what climate change is having an impact is
Miami in the Miami area. They built all these communities
or using septic systems. Miami has a over billion dollar
septic system problem, they're feeling because of sea level.
Rise would sea level rise? That means the water is coming
from the bottom, and the water is also coming.
From the top and he helped or sauce.
And as a result that they're getting a lot of algae, blooms
and fish kills and that's going to continue to increase.
But it's not just my image throughout the State of Florida.
We found that true here in Alabama to we're having more and
more flooding and Noah just issued a report that talked
about how the West is going to get drier and it's going to get
wetter in the East. What does that mean for us?
It means I water tables arise. One of the person's I wrote
about in the book was Pamela rush and Pam.
No arrests lived. In a single-wide mobile home and
a donor came forward and wanted to give her another home because
that one was dilapidated and she was not really protected that
much from the elements because of climate change in the being
so hot and humid, the house was full of mold and mildew and her
daughter was sleeping on a CPAP machine.
What stopped us from moving forward.
Was that when we, the have acre property that she owned when we
wanted to put the septic tank, there we brought out the
engineers. We did all the, it had all the
engineering work done. We pay for it.
And was told that the system debate that she needed on this
property, because the water table was so hot.
It's going to cost twenty eight thousand dollars.
They dug down 25 inches in struck water.
What does that mean? That means that the water to
we're talking about sea level rise but we're not talking about
at least groundwater tables that are also rising and what that
means that that means that flooding is probably going to be
more prevalent. But it also means that the
infrastructure that we put in the ground is not going to to
work the same because it was not designed for that and that's why
we're talking about working on new designs, dealing with the
realities of what's going on on the ground now because people
are still selling us stuff that if it had an expiration date
would have expired 15 or 20 years ago, And we can't do this
with infrastructure because it's too critical to our public
health and that's where climate change intersects.
And that's why we have found hookworm and other tropical
parasites in places like Lowndes County.
And after my book came out, I actually heard from a
veterinarian who told me that they're starting to find
hookworm and dogs in Alaska, what?
That should be a warning to us. All That's the tropical parasite
and it's in Alaska. Yeah, wow.
If someone wanted to keep up with your work, Catherine,
what's the best way for them to do?
So what they are a couple ways when they can go to our website,
which is www.crestbuy.se, EJ dot, or that's the Center for
Rural Enterprise and environmental justice?
You can also follow me on Twitter, I'm on Facebook and on
Instagram, you read the book. We are also engaged in a year
long Ang project with the Guardian newspaper where we're
looking at. Waste water issues around the
country. We're asking people to self
report. So if you're interested in doing
that, you can go to the website on that link and self-report
Wastewater problems because out of that are coming stories but
we are also pulling together documentation on Wastewater
issues around the country. So if you are aware of a
Wastewater issue, you can contact me directly.
I will respond and we can try to make sure that we include that
in the database that we're developing.
Because we feel that policymakers are not going to
make good policy until we have the data to show them.
That this is a problem and it's very widespread and why it is
the way it is. And we need people not the
people that benefit from the crowd.
We need the people that are suffering from the problem speak
to us, because I haven't, that will come to Solutions.
A great place to leave it. Thanks for being here.
Catherine, thank you so much. It's my pleasure links to all of
those things are in the show notes, and if you like what we
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