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- [00:02]
Kathryn Coleman Flowers
We have to expand the definition of environmental justice because we can't let people think that. Because if you are not black and poor, you are not going to be victimized by this. That's not true.
- [00:15]
Al Edson
On this week's More to the Story, environmental activist Kathryn Coleman Flowers. She talks about how problems like contaminated water and poor sanitation cut across racial lines. And we discuss President Trump's order to shut down a program to clean up raw sewage, a program Katherine helped help bring about because it was deemed illegal. Dei, stay with us. Hey, It's Al. And 2025 has been a brutal year for public media. I gotta tell you, it is not easy to produce fearless journalism at a time when truth itself is under siege. The one thing it takes is is community. That's you. Your support, your time, your willingness to listen, share and engage. That's what keeps our reporting alive and thriving. Every time you tune into our work, you're part of the community that says, yes, facts matter. Yes, power should be challenged, and yes, independent voices are essential. Right now, we need that community to step up for us and donate. We've got a big year end fundraising goal and we need you on board if we're going to get there. This show just cannot exist without listeners who care enough to help us pay the bills. Listeners like you. So I'm asking you, can you help? Any amount works for us. Just text give to 88857 reveal. That's give to 888-8577-3832 and we'll send a donate link or visit revealnews.org 2026 thank you. This is more to the story. I'm Al Edson. In America, we often take for granted things like clean water, basic sanitation. These seem like problems for other less developed countries, but not so much of rural America. Even parts of US Cities have infrastructure that's straining and aging, especially as climate change makes storms stronger and flooding more likely. Kathryn Coleman Flowers has been at the forefront of these issues for decades, most notably in Lowndes County, Alabama, a poor region in the Deep South. But her activism was also takes her around the country to communities, both urban and rural, black and white, that lack the very basics we all need to survive. Her latest book is called Holy Ground on activism, environmental justice and finding hope. Katherine, how are you doing today?
- [03:10]
Kathryn Coleman Flowers
I'm doing fine. How are you?
- [03:12]
Al Edson
I'm good. So I want to zoom back a little bit because I think that if you do not live in a rural area, you can kind of not think about these issues. It feels like It's a world away, and not something that is happening in the United States. But in the United States, we are actually dealing. And not just in rural areas, but like all across the United States, we're dealing with issues with clean drinking water, open sewage, all of those things. Can you kind of, as a environmental justice activist and someone who works in this field, can you kind of lay out big picture, like, what's going on in America that we just don't talk about enough?
- [03:52]
Kathryn Coleman Flowers
Well, first of all, let me just expand to talk about what's happening in urban America. A lot of our wastewater treatment systems, the big pipe systems, have only been built to last for 50 years, and they've already gone beyond where they should be in the first place. So a lot of places are having problems now with sewage raining back in people's homes. That's true in Detroit. When it rains a lot in Detroit, people are having piles of sewage backing up in their basements. We saw the same thing in Mount Vernon in New York, outside of New York City, we've been told, we've been contacted by people in the Bronx that talk about when they're weather events, they have sewage running back into their homes as well. So it's not just in rural areas. Our infrastructure has not been designed to keep up with the demands of a changing climate. And some of them haven't been built to keep up with the demands of population growth, and that's a problem as well. So we're finding sanitation issues around the country. And we're not just hearing from poor people in Lowndes County. We're hearing from people in Malibu. We're hearing from people in affluent areas. In Florida, there are people in the Atlanta metropolitan area that own septic tanks. So a lot of people in metropolitan areas that are not deemed rural communities are also on septic tanks. But not only are we finding that as an environmental justice issue, but we. We recently went to East Palestine and Ohio, where a train derailed two years ago. The area is probably about 95 to 97% white, but they're poor, they're powerless. And consequently, a lot of people that were exposed to the toxins from that derailment are complaining about their health. They're complaining. They still feel that the land and air and water is contaminated. So what we saw there were people screaming for help. They want the same kind of help that people in Lowndes county are asking for. We talk about what's happening in Memphis and what is happening there. When they built a data center that did not deal with the environmental harms that is causing that community. I think that we have to expand the definition of environmental justice because we can't let people think that because if you are not black and poor, you're not going to be victimized by this. That's not true. We all drink the same water. The people in Flint. When I went to Flint and I understood that environmental justice. We can't narrowly look at environmental justice. If you were white in Flint, you drank the same water. It didn't treat you differently because you were white. Everybody is impacted by it. It's just that the communities that have the greatest impact tend to be those communities that are poor. Yeah. And maybe if you're not a billionaire and you only have a few meetings, you could be marginalized too.
- [06:56]
Al Edson
Can you tell me, how did you come to this work?
- [07:00]
Kathryn Coleman Flowers
I came to this work. It was kind of an evolution. Initially, I was a teacher. Well, first of all, I was an activist in high school. And at that time, the issue was education, my education.
- [07:15]
Al Edson
Can you tell me, take me back to where you were in high school? Because I feel like that's an important part of it.
- [07:20]
Kathryn Coleman Flowers
Right?
- [07:20]
Al Edson
Like, it's not just that, like, you were an activist in high school. You were a black girl who was an activist in the Deep South.
- [07:27]
Kathryn Coleman Flowers
Yeah. So I was living in Lowndes County, Alabama, which is between Selma and Montgomery. And my principal at the time would stop school at 12 o' clock so that we could have parties. And everybody was happy about that because that meant there was no class. I was unhappy about it because I wanted to go to college. And I felt like my education was being shortchanged. So I was approached by a group that was organized by the American Friends Service Committee, who was at that time looking at education in the south because there were a lot of issues around the desegregation of public schools. And they approached me and started teaching me what the Alabama law was. And based on the Alabama law, I was documenting things in my high school that were in violation of that law. Based on the documentation of those violations, we were able to bring charges against the principal saying that he had violated the Alabama code as related to education. And ultimately he was removed. And then later I became a teacher. And then after I moved back to Alabama, I didn't teach in Alabama. I started working, doing economic development and found out it was not easy to do without having infrastructure. You can't recruit businesses into a community that don't have water infrastructure, sewage, infrastructure, in some cases natural gas. That's one of the Requirements. So in that process, I met a gentleman named Bob Woodson who was helping me with the economic development side when he came to visit for the very first time. He came to Lowndes County, a county commissioner called me and said, you should take him by this family's home. When we went there, we saw raw sewage running down the side of the road from their compound where they live. And we found out that the husband and wife had been arrested because they could not afford on site septic. That worked. And that's how I came to this work around sanitation. That was the beginning.
- [09:41]
Al Edson
So sanitation isn't sexy. When you're talking to people about the sanitation issues in rural counties, specifically like in Lowndes county, how do you get people to engage in this?
- [09:57]
Kathryn Coleman Flowers
Well, the way I get people to engage in sanitation issues, yeah, you're right, it's not sexy. But everybody has to use the bathroom. So whether it's sexy or not, it's a requirement that no matter where we go in the world, people, this is one thing we all have to do. And when we talk about it, and we're talking to rural communities, whether they're rural communities of people that are black, rural communities, people that are hispanic, or whether we are talking to people from more affluent communities that are using septic, we hear the same complaint. It doesn't work well and nobody likes it coming back into their homes. You know, straight piping is one thing. Straight piping is when you flush your toilet and it goes straight out into the ground, there's no kind of treatment whatsoever. However, there are a lot of people that are paid for on site septic and it doesn't work.
- [10:54]
Al Edson
And so can you just give me, before we dive deeper into that subject, can you give me an understanding of what Lowndes county is like right now?
- [11:03]
Kathryn Coleman Flowers
So Lowndes county is still very rural. And when we talk about rural, I think when people think about a rural community, they think about people living five miles from the nearest house. That is not true. What we find in a lot of rural communities is that the settlement patterns are. If you look in Lowndes county right now, we were recently, last week we were in Lowndes county, we were on Macpherson street street. Everybody on Macpherson street is related to each other. So the settlement patterns in these rural communities is that a lot of people that live in these areas, they know each other, they've been there for years. So there's a special kinship to the land. There's also pride in land ownership. There's pride in the history of Lowndes county, in that the original Black Panther party was founded there. People there are very prideful, but they're also very poor. You have people there that are very poor. And the septic systems that we were looking at while we were there last week averaged around $26,000 each.
- [12:12]
Al Edson
Yeah, I used to be on a septic system in the house, an older house that I had. And maintaining septic systems are hard, but also, like, just getting a septic system put in is really cost prohibitive, Especially if you're, you know, in an economically depressed area.
- [12:32]
Kathryn Coleman Flowers
Yes, it is cost prohibitive. We are trying to figure out ways in which we can fill that void. That has been a void since I've been doing this work since 2002, is figuring out how to make sure families not only have access to septic systems, but. But septic systems that work. Because I think the popular narrative has been when they fail, the families are blamed. What we're seeing is that the climate change is impacting these septic systems, but the septic systems haven't changed in terms of the designs to deal with the fact that the climate is also changing, that we're getting more water in Laos County.
- [13:16]
Al Edson
What's the regulation? Because earlier you said that you went to a house and you saw the sewage coming down, and the family, the husband and wife were arrested because they did not have a septic tank. So what is the regulation? How long has that been in place? And why hasn't the state been able to help people get into a septic system?
- [13:39]
Kathryn Coleman Flowers
Well, first of all, the regulations are written by the state, and the state enforces them. The state is also responsible for training the installers. They train the people that pump the septic systems. The state is involved in every step of the process, and it's not free. You have to pay for it. And then the tank itself is a completely different animal that's separate, but you have to pay for that as well. When we first moved to Lowndes county, people had outhouses, and they went from outhouses to cesspools and from cesspools to septic tanks. And what we're finding is that the septic tanks, even if you have a septic tank, they fail. But when the septic tanks fail, it's not. The onus is on the homeowner. The liability is transferred to the homeowner. And I think that that is part of what the problem is. Now, the state itself, in Alabama, they don't have money to put in septic systems. But we found that in other states, they have revolving loan funds and so forth, where they actually help people get septic systems and then they pay it back, and then they help someone else get septic systems. That was not the case in Alabama. It was left up to the homeowner. And what we tried to do, first of all, is bring this to the attention of. Of people beyond the state to force the state to do something, which led to our filing the complaint. That was one of the reasons why we filed a complaint with DOJ in Health and Human Services against the state of Alabama over this issue.
- [15:24]
Al Edson
And how did the state of Alabama respond to that?
- [15:28]
Kathryn Coleman Flowers
We did a parasite study in 2017, and once it was peer reviewed and published in 2017, the Alabama Department of Public Health responded by putting on their website that our parasites said it was not valid because we used PCR technology which had not been approved by the fda. Now this. Keep in mind, three years later, PCR technology was used to diagnose Covid, but they were not, you know, I guess they were trying to minimize our findings. And we found, during this parasite study, we found hookworm and other tropical parasites that were associated with raw sewage. And. And it was that that led to us filing this complaint because they get their funding, a lot of that funding came from Health and Human Services. And instead of them trying to mitigate the problem, they instead were trying to minimize our study that raw sewage was on the ground. And that led to an investigation by doj. I got a call from them that saying that they would investigate our complaint, which they did. And there was a resolution that was signed between the Department of Justice, Health and Human Services and the Alabama Department of Public Health. What was noteworthy about the complaint? That this was the first time DOJ had used civil rights law to investigate environmental justice issues. It was also the first time ever in history that there was a mitigation of this where there was a resolution in that regard. And when that happened, the state started allocating funding to deal with, as part of the resolution, allocating funding to deal with the problem in Lowndes county that ended in February of this year when the current administration took office and put on their website for DOJ that they were backing out of the agreement because it was illegal dei.
- [17:41]
Al Edson
So the people in Lowndes county who desperately need this sanitation work done were denied it because the Trump administration has deemed this as dei.
- [17:53]
Kathryn Coleman Flowers
Yes, But I have to also give the state some credit, because with the state, the state's response was, as long as we still have money and I don't know how much money they received, but they said as long as they still had money, they would continue to try to work on resolving the problem. So I have to give them credit for that.
- [18:14]
Al Edson
When we come back, Katherine examines the latest threat to the environment, AI data centers and warns that we're repeating past mistakes.
- [18:22]
Kathryn Coleman Flowers
We don't really seem to wake up until the harms are already done and they're irreversible.
- [18:29]
Al Edson
But before we come back, I don't have to tell you the holidays are almost here. Humbug. But since I got you here, you might as well do the one thing on my list. One thing. A rating or review on your podcast app. I mean, look, I'm a simple man and it's free, it's fast, it's easy. Just grab your phone. Now go to your favorite podcasting app. Now search Reveal. Then scroll to the bottom. Right, right, right, right there. Tap those stars. 5. Please write a review. Feel free to tell them you love the host. And while you're at it, I'll also take a mint edition 1939 vintage Superman comic. That'll be great. Okay. Back with more from environmental activist Kathryn Coleman Flowers.
- [19:19]
Josh Sanborn
This is Josh Sanborn, producer at Reveal. This episode is made possible by support from nrdc. The Trump administration is gutting environmental protections on a scale never seen before. It's eliminating protections for endangered wildlife, opening wilderness to oil and gas drilling, and sacrificing the safety and beauty of the planet that future generations will inherit. What we stand to lose can never be replaced. But the Natural Resources Defense Council is fighting back, leveraging the full power of the law to defend our environment. Backed by 3 million supporters, NRDC's team of over 700 lawyers, scientists and advocates has blocked harmful oil and gas pipelines, stopped toxic mines, and protected endangered species through hard hitting lawsuits. They won nearly 90% of cases filed during the first Trump administration. And they continue to win, including a recent case defending climate science. Now, as their caseload grows, they need your support. Join the movement that's defending our environment for future generations. Donate@nrdc.org reveal and your gift will be matched five times. You've seen the headlines. Families torn apart in ICE raids at schools, workplaces, even daycares. What you don't see is what comes detention. Most detained immigrants have no criminal record and no lawyer without representation. Deportation is almost certain. With an attorney, they're five times more likely to succeed. Lawyers for Good Government's Detention Bridge project mobilizes volunteer attorneys so no one faces this system alone. Learn more at detentionbridge.org Foreign.
- [21:13]
Al Edson
Hey, it's Al again. And before we get back to the show, I'm just following up on my request from earlier. You know, the one about how we need your donations before December 31st to ensure that we can keep bringing you investigations like this in 2026. We need you, please, before you grab another cup of coffee or start scrolling on your phone, just text the word go give to 88857, reveal. That's 888-577-3832 or visit revealnews.org 2026 and thank you. This is more to the story. I'm Al Edson, and I'm back with environmental activist Kathryn Coleman Flowers. I want to pivot back to your latest book, Holy Ground. And this book is a collection of very personal essays. What inspired you to write it?
- [22:17]
Kathryn Coleman Flowers
You know, when I wrote Holy Ground, I wanted to leave people with positive messages, to talk about my own experiences and for people to know that at the end of the day, I was still hopeful. Because a lot of times people give up, especially young people. They give up when they run into adversity instead of trying to push through it. And that was the point. And also to show people that if you make a bad mistake, you don't have to wally in it. You change, you move on. And I did that by showing examples of people in history that made mistakes, but they change. And I wanted people to know that we didn't have to stay in a state of wrongdoing or unrighteousness.
- [23:05]
Al Edson
And the first chapter really struck me because it's actually something I think about a lot. And that is the 30 pieces of silver. So I should say that I am the son of a Baptist preacher.
- [23:16]
Kathryn Coleman Flowers
I'm a pk, so I know it resonated.
- [23:21]
Al Edson
Exactly. Exactly. So the things that you were talking about, how for those of our listeners who are not preacher's kids, Judas Iscariot took 30 pieces of silver to betray Jesus Christ in the Bible. He took the 30 pieces of silver and he betrayed Jesus with a kiss. And you take that metaphor at the beginning of your book to talk about the place that we are in in America, not just in environmental justice. You focused on the problem of America, which I love. Can you talk to me about that? Why does that metaphor seem to fit in so many different ways when we think about the issues that are plaguing America today?
- [24:10]
Kathryn Coleman Flowers
The whole point of it was when I talked about America and not specifically about environmental justice, because sometimes when we talk just about environmental justice, people think we're only talking about black people when that's not true, with the environmental injustices that are impacting people's lives are happening around the country. And the one thing that they tend to have in common is that they've been marginalized primarily because they don't have money. So I thought the best way to help people to see this was to use that common understanding of the story of Judas and then try to get them to apply it to what's happening today. Yeah.
- [24:53]
Al Edson
How did you feel on Election Day watching the country decide to put President Trump back in office?
- [25:04]
Kathryn Coleman Flowers
I was confused. I was confused. But then I think back to the Old Testament, where Moses led the Jewish people out of bondage, but they wandered in the desert for 40 years. Hopefully, we won't be wandering for 40 years, but maybe in the next four years, we decided we don't want to be in the desert anymore. I think that we have taken a lot of things for granted. We took democracy for granted. We took freedom. We took the right to vote for granted. And now people are saying that we can't take it for granted, that we can't stand on the sidelines and let things happen. We thought we would never have a king. We thought that you could go to the courts for justice all of the time. But now other people are saying that it's not just that. When we talk about justice, you're not just talking about black people. We're talking about being an American citizen.
- [26:06]
Al Edson
On the flip side, I think that a lot of people that voted for Trump would say the opposite, that they believe that Trump is acting on behalf of God, that he is the divine intervention that this country needed.
- [26:22]
Kathryn Coleman Flowers
Well, I would tell them to read Revelations. I'll also tell them that everybody that cloaks themselves in God are not of God. So I believe that, you know, a lot of those people now are questioning their own faith. They're questioning their own decisions, because it has not been consistent with the things that are Christlike. And recently we were in Italy, and a lot of the conversations were around how we treat migrants. And it made me wonder, and I've stated numerous times that if Christ were to come across the southern border right now, would ICE place him under arrest? And clearly, when I speak to people that are supposed to be part of the Christian family, I call upon them to question their faith. If they believe that this is the right thing to do and the right way to do it.
- [27:20]
Al Edson
In your opinion, what does environmental justice look like under the Trump administration? Is this a partisan issue under Trump?
- [27:29]
Kathryn Coleman Flowers
I don't think that environmental justice is a partisan issue. I think that environmental justice under the Trump administration is going to help people to understand why it's not a partisan issue, because a lot of people that will be impacted by no regulations will be those same people that thought that they would benefit from this presidency and the decisions that they are making. I believe that we're going to see more people protesting environmental harms because they're going to see the effects of making decisions without regulations being in place to protect the communities that they live in.
- [28:11]
Al Edson
Who are, what industries do you consider to be the biggest offenders against environmental justice?
- [28:19]
Kathryn Coleman Flowers
Oh, wow. There's so many of them. It depends on where you are in the country. You know, who are the biggest offenders? It depends on where you are. If I was in Eastern Carolina, I would say, you know, the factory farms, because they're polluting the air, the water and the soil. If I was in Cancer Alley, I would say the multinational corporations that exist there that are producing lots of chemicals that are also contaminating, you know, the air, the water, and the soil. So it depends on where you're located, you know, and the new kid on the block are the data centers. I don't even think we know the impact of the data centers yet, because that's a new thing.
- [29:00]
Al Edson
Yeah.
- [29:01]
Kathryn Coleman Flowers
So we're going to have to revisit that to see. Unfortunately, we don't really seem to wake up until the harms are already done and they're irreversible.
- [29:12]
Al Edson
Exactly. I think with the data centers, the only thing that may shine a little bit of light on it is that people are beginning to notice that their electric bills are significantly higher. Wherever these data centers are, and a lot of times when the middle class or when people who have money, their pocketbooks are affected, suddenly those issues kind of move to the forefront.
- [29:37]
Kathryn Coleman Flowers
Yes. I think that whenever people's, as you said, their pocketbooks are impacted, then of course, they start asking questions and complaining. Because I read recently that the power that's used to power a data center could power 80,000 homes. But I'm also seeing that there's not an equal way in which they're being built, because there's a data center that's being built in Alabama where a lot of the power is being generated by solar. That's not what's happening in Memphis. They're using technologies differently based on who's negotiating. But apparently whoever was negotiating on behalf of the people in Memphis weren't the people that were living in those neighborhoods that are being impacted by it. And consequently, that's why we got, we got. And I think that what's going to be very important going forward in the future, no matter who's in the White House, is community engagement, so that the communities can be a part of designing what it looks like. The communities would know firsthand what kind of jobs are coming out of this. Are there jobs beyond construction jobs? Because the way they generally sell it to the community is all the jobs that are coming. But how many people are actually going to be employed working at these locations? Who's going to pay the bill? As you've mentioned, in a lot of communities, people start seeing that their power bills are going up. Why? Why are they paying for this?
- [31:07]
Al Edson
And if a data center is making your electric bill go up and they're getting to make all the money off of it, they should be breaking you off. You should get a check as well. Why should they get all the profits and you get nothing?
- [31:23]
Kathryn Coleman Flowers
Well, and again, it goes back to how we need to redesign what economic prosperity looks like. And part of that should go to the communities. I think they can still make billions of dollars and communities can prosper as well, too.
- [31:38]
Al Edson
Absolutely. Kathryn Coleman Flowers, thank you so much for coming onto the show and talking to me today.
- [31:44]
Kathryn Coleman Flowers
Thank you.
- [31:48]
Al Edson
That was environmental activist Kathryn Coleman Flowers. If you liked this episode, you should check out our reveal episode, the Great Arizona Water Grab. It's about how a surprising group of investors is fueling a global scramble for water in the most unlikely of places, the Arizona desert. Lastly, a reminder, we are listener supported. That means listeners like you. You can help us thrive by making a gift today. Just go to revealnews.org gift again, that's revealnews.org gift and thank you. This episode was produced by Josh sanburn and Carl McGurk. Allison, Brett Meyers and Taki Telenides edited the show, theme music and engineering, helped by Fernando my man, Yo Arruda and Jay Breezy. Mr. Jim Briggs, I'm Al Edson. And you know, let's do this again next week. This is more to the story. Okay, so the credits are over and you're still here. I bet it's because you're hoping for that phone number that you know will allow you to donate to your favorite investigative journalism podcast with your favorite investigative journalism host. Well, my friend, here you are. Just text the word give to 88857 Reveal. That's 888-577-3832 or visit revealnews.org2026. Your support really does make a difference. And your favorite investigative journalism podcast host thanks you.
- [33:36]
Kathryn Coleman Flowers
From prx.