The national media is finally catching on to something I learned about the hard way almost 30 years ago.
After a sewer pipe dumped raw sewage into the Potomac River in January, other reports have emerged of raw sewage backing up into people's homes through bathroom drains and the like. This happened to me in 1997 because there were no limits on development, which strained local sewer systems and forced sewage up through the shower drain. It happened in other local neighborhoods later, especially along 19th Street in Covington, because there were no limits on luxury developments in nearby communities.
In all cases, the poorest residents bore the brunt of luxury development.
Now folks all over the country say the same is happening to them. People in Cahokia Heights, Illinois, said raw sewage backed up through their toilets and bathtubs. A settlement was reached with the city about it, but then the federal government tried to cancel the settlement, saying it was an unlawful DEI program. Residents of Lowndes County, Mississippi, suffered from hookworms because of sewage backups. And people in Baltimore have repeatedly found piles of feces backing up through their drains. It gets worse every time it rains or someone in the city flushes their toilet.
One Baltimore resident found strands of used toilet paper in his yard because of a sewage backup. He also had to replace his whole bathroom floor. For 20 years, the city has had a consent decree with government regulators to fix the problems, but the city now wants to extend the deadline another 20 years.
Perhaps the developers should be required to live in a dwelling where sewage backs up like this. The same goes for federal officials who try to cancel settlements stemming from these backups.
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