Posted on 02/12/2021 12:39:54 PM PST by dynachrome
Sharon Smith has to plunge her toilet to get it to flush. On rainy days, wastewater spills into her yard from nearby drainage ditches. Twice in the last year her house has flooded, leaving behind the sickening smell of sewage, she said.
Her carpets are ruined, the floorboards are buckling, the bathroom wall is pulling away from the tub, she said. In the laundry room, the worst-hit part of the house, the smell of mold lingers. “I want to move, because this flooding is ridiculous,” said Smith, 59.
For decades, residents of Centreville, a nearly all-Black town of 5,000 in southern Illinois, just a 12-minute drive from downtown East St Louis, have been dealing with persistent flooding and sewage overflows. The smell of it is in the air all over town after a rain, and bits of soggy toilet paper and slicks of human waste cling to the grass in neighborhoods where children used to play on warm days, locals said. Kids don’t play outside any more. Gardens don’t grow.
Like Smith, other locals say their water tastes odd and refuse to drink from their taps, relying on donated shipments of bottled water. They worry about the long-term health effects of living under such conditions, and they say that for years elected officials and local utility companies inadequately addressed their cries for help.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Parts of Centreville are up the bluff and semi-rural. There is no problem there.
I don’t know anything about the race of the residents, although I think it’s less white than surrounding communities. Carondelet and other towns have similar problems.
I think you’re absolutely right.
No matter what happens, it’s the white guy’s fault. Everything.
Even by not being there it’s white people’s fault. Whites not there it’s bad. Whites move in, “RACIST GENTRIFICATION.”
You’d think their 100% black city council would have this sorted. There must be one white person left causing all these problems.
http://www.cityofcentreville-il.com/city-council/
And especially funny when every member of the city council is black.
Looks like the black officials aren’t acting white enough.
actually I saw a documentary about that area yesterday. Cairo which is close by. the area is where the Ohio and Mississippi rivers meet. was big time during 1800s with steamboats. and Gen Grant used it as a launching pad into the Mississippi south to Vicksburg. But floods like crazy. My feeling is when it’s use declined and whitey left why not too did you. that area would make a great wetlands area unless you wish to spend trillions for levees. any normal people along the Mississippi know there history and knows what happens often.
I’m a multi-degreed Horticulturalist/Botanist/Entomologist and NO, they don’t in growing fields, They are toxic.
Lack of whiteys....Sewer problems....
It’s gonna get worse when it all hits the fan.
My husband and I bought a house in Denver in an “iffy” neighborhood. It was all we could afford. The first year, there was a drive-by shooting next door. And I called social services because they had a toddler wandering around in a backyard with weeds higher than she was.
We painted the house, installed new windows, I planted roses and my husband built a fence.
Then I got together with neighbors and we created a neighborhood association. Every Saturday morning, we would go to the playground and clean up the graffiti on the play structures.
New businesses opened up, including a high-end wine shop and a Starbucks.
Ten years later, we sold our house for $114,000. Last I heard, it was nearing a million dollars.
Gosh I miss Denver.
If properly-composted with non-toxic material, perhaps. Otherwise, you’ll get real sick from any crop grown in Human Poop.
This could be why there are problems:
https://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2021/02/12/expecting-math-students/
Oh, thanks! I didn’t know that. I assumed all poop was the same. LOL!
I suppose it must be related to the food we eat.
The sewage system is systemically racist. Isn’t that why it’s called a system?
Yep, Thanks.
they’re all off building a better Wakanda
Taking responsibility for your community isn’t a race issue.
Whitey went Galt on them.
I know where that is. It’s hard to miss — that big hill in the middle of the flat land. I didn’t know that they had problems like that.
I know contractors who built spec houses in city subsidized subdivisions that catered to the Amish. A couple of them told me about the homeowners who called them 3 and 4 years later to come by and fix their water heater or AC that was broken as if it were the contractor’s responsibility.
One of these folks said, (paraphrased) “If I’d know that I had to fix things I’d have never bought this place.”
“just a 12-minute drive from downtown East St Louis,”
pretty sure this is a clue.
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