Could Decades of Environmental Justice Activism Result in “Once in a Generation” Legislation?

The bipartisan infrastructure bill and the $1.85 trillion social safety net and climate change bill being furiously negotiated by congressional leaders originally contained $45 billion to replace every lead water pipe in the United States as well as other water safety and sanitation improvements. Although replacing all lead service lines, estimated to be as many as 12.8 million lines across every state, has strong bipartisan support and is projected to create 560,000 jobs and generate $104 billion in economic activity, at press time it was still uncertain if these provisions would remain in the final legislation, which the Biden administration had hoped would pass before the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow, which begins October 31.

Inequality in America extends to the most basic of necessities: access to drinking water and sanitation. More than 2 million Americans live without any running water or basic indoor plumbing, and 44 million people are served by water systems that have had recent health violations. This situation disproportionally impacts people of color, low-income people in rural areas, and tribal communities, according to Closing the Water Access Gap in the United States, a report from the US Water Alliance and DigDeep, an advocacy organization. The report also found that less than 9% of capital spending for water and wastewater systems comes from federal agencies, compared to 1977 when 63% came from the feds.

The Biden administration’s push for cleaner water is the result of decades of advocacy by environmental justice activists, largely led by women of color. “The focus on water contamination is the result of decades of quiet activism led by fierce and brave women of color, who have helped put a human face on a hidden problem,” said George McGraw, CEO of Dig Deep and co-author of Closing the Water Access Gap. “Water is complicated. Water pipes are literally underground, and these advocates have done more than anyone to push this issue forward, to the point that we now have a once-in-a-generation chance at legislation on this.”

In 2015, the water contamination crisis in Flint, Michigan, made national headlines, drawing attention to an issue that most people weren’t aware of. “Flint wasn’t the first or the last” such incident, said Angela Guyadeen, director of the Safe Water Initiative at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). “But what is important about Flint is that it was Ground Zero, because before that many people assumed our water was safe to drink.”

Water contamination is making headlines again, this time in Benton Harbor, Michigan, where about 85% of residents are Black and 45% have an income below the poverty line. For the past three years, there have been high levels of lead found in the city’s drinking water that led local and national organizations to file an emergency petition with the EPA, and finally getting Governor Gretchen Whitmer to take action. While the location is new, “there is an undercurrent to the water crisis stories that follows the pattern of Flint,” said Guyadeen. “The community spoke up about their water, but for too long their complaints were not heard. This has happened once again in Benton Harbor and in other places around the county, and happens more often in low-income communities of color because the government has disinvested in many of these communities — leading to aging and underfunded water systems. In addition, lack of enforcement, such as sloppy testing and inconsistent follow-up of the laws, exacerbates these problems. These consequences hit low-income communities and children of color, especially Black children, the hardest because they shoulder a greater burden of lead exposure.”

There is a myriad of factors that contribute to drinking water systems with health violations being found in the most marginalized communities. “Smaller systems servicing smaller populations can’t make up the costs needed to stay in compliance with user fees alone, or the user fees become too high to be affordable,” said Amanda Klasing, a specialist in water and sanitation rights and co-director of the women’s rights division at Human Rights Watch. “Likewise, aging systems need maintenance, and cities with population decline have less resources even for basic operation. One of the biggest issues is that water isn’t recognized as a right, so governments from the local to the federal are not stepping up to ensure all communities have what they need to guarantee universal access, and that leaves many marginalized communities unprotected.”

While the Safe Drinking Water Act, passed in 1974, was meant to guarantee there would be equitable access across the country, the law has not been enforced equitably. In fact, Watered Down Justice, a 2019 report from NRDC, Coming Clean, and the Environmental Justice Health Alliance found that counties with a higher percentage of people of color, low-income people, non-native English speakers, and crowded conditions have higher rates of drinking water violations. Further, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) “regulates only a small subset of drinking water contaminants, and the agency has failed to adopt a single new standard for an unregulated contaminant since 1996,” according to the report, and it is estimated that there are many more violations than is known. Advocates are cautiously optimistic about this EPA, which is already implementing changes. On October 18, the agency announced a “Strategic Roadmap” to contend with PFAS (poly and perfluoroalkyl substances, or so-called “forever chemicals”) water contamination nationwide. Provisions include holding polluters accountable and increased monitoring and enforcement of provisions under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

“It is highly appropriate for the federal government to ensure everyone has access to safe drinking water and sanitation, not just as a human right, but also for environmental reasons,” said Lynn Thorp, national campaigns director at Clean Water Action. “Not having these basic amenities sends the message that you are forgotten, especially when there is one community that has it right next to one that doesn’t.”

“We are still living in a plantation mentality, and making real changes means talking about things that people don't want to talk about, like critical race theory,” said Catherine Coleman Flowers, author of Waste: One Woman’s Fight Against America’s Dirty Secret, founder of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice, and an adviser to the Biden administration. She has brought attention to the public health emergencies related to lack of access to proper sanitation that are especially prevalent in low-income rural communities through her advocacy work that began in Lowndes County, Alabama, where some people have criminal records only for having a failed septic system. “We found parasites in our water and people have hookworm, things you would associate with a third world country. This is a failed paradigm where the local government is too poor to maintain an adequate sewer system, and the business community doesn't want to be in places like this that don't have basic amenities, so there aren't jobs here, and it’s a cycle. The reason you see BIPOC women leading in this grassroots movement is because they have been on the front lines; they are in the communities that have been suffering and continue to suffer.”

In the 1970s, with the passage of the Safe Drinking Water Act and other environmental provisions, the United States was “once the envy of the world,” said Thorp. “These laws were once cutting edge. But on the implementation side — how we are putting them to work — we have unfinished business on preventing water pollution that impacts our drinking water and our water quality.”

All eyes are on Congress this week, and advocates are hopeful that the reportedly $555 billion portion of the infrastructure bill budgeted for climate change mitigation is off the chopping block. “We are at a critical stage right now with climate change overwhelming our inadequate water and sewage systems,” said Flowers. “If Congress doesn't address this right now and are only worried about people having to pay more taxes, then people will have to pay for this anyway, very soon. There is a basic standard of living that everyone should have access to."