Recently, I started reading The Great Mortality by John Kelly. It’s a fascinating look at the history of the Black Death of the Middle Ages, exploring the causes and effects of the devastating plague. One factor that made the Europeans of that period susceptible to diseases of all types was, of course, the deplorable state of sanitation.
By the 14th century, when the Black Death struck, the great water and sanitation infrastructure of the Romans was long gone. According to Kelly, “In much of medieval Europe, sanitation legislation consisted of an ordinance requiring homeowners to shout ‘Look out below!’ three times before dumping a full chamber pot into the street.” Even if a home did have a privy, the waste was simply piped into the alley, or, in at least one case in England, “into the cellar of an unsuspecting neighbor.”
This all may sound comical to us now—can’t you just imagine these scenarios fitting right into Monty Python & The Holy Grail?—but the frightening reality is that there are still people here in the U.S. whose sanitation situation is not much more advanced.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, “Nearly half a million households in the United States lack the basic dignity of hot and cold running water, a bathtub or shower, or a working flush toilet,” the New York Times reported in an article titled “A Toilet, but No Proper Plumbing: A Reality in 500,000 U.S. Homes.” The article profiled several residents of rural Lowndes County, Ala., where “less than half the population is on a municipal sewer line.” Many residents cannot afford to install or repair septic systems, so some have found a simple, if unsanitary, solution—they simply run a pipe from the toilet to some nearby woods.
WQP often covers projects that address access to safe drinking water and sanitation in developing nations, but it’s important to remember that there are people here in the U.S. who also still lack access to these two basic human necessities. Small, rural communities often are the ones facing these issues, and they may not have the funding to repair or improve water and wastewater infrastructure or extend services to everyone who needs them. Funding and grants are made available through government entities such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Environmental Protection Agency, but with infrastructure failing in municipalities large and small across the country, there is not enough to go around. Nonprofit organizations such as the Water Well Trust also work to help Americans gain access to safe drinking water.
Do you live or work in a small community struggling to provide residents access to safe drinking water and wastewater services? If so, we’d like to learn more—email us at [email protected].
