- Aug 17, 2010
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By Brian Wheeler BBC News, Alabama
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Sheila Tyson, a community activist in the deprived West End area of Birmingham, tells the BBC how her community has been affected
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Altered States
But the real victims of the financial collapse in the US state of Alabama's most populous county are its poorest residents - forced to bathe in bottled water and use portable toilets after being cut off from the mains supply.
And there is widespread anger in Jefferson County that swingeing sewerage rate hikes could have been avoided but for the greed, corruption and incompetence of local politicians, government officials and Wall Street financiers.
Tammy Lucas is the human face of a financial and political scandal that has brought one of the most deprived communities in America's south to the point of what some local people believe is collapse.
She says: "If the sewer bill gets higher, my light might get cut off and if I try to catch up the light, my water might get cut off. So we're in between. We can't make it like this."
Mrs Lucas's monthly sewerage rate bills - the amount levied by the county to flush away waste and provide water for baths and showers - has quadrupled in the past 15 years. She says it is currently running at $150 (£97) a month, which leaves little left out of her $600 social security cheque for food and electricity.
"We need to keep the water running because we're women," she says. "We need to take baths. I try to pay the sewer bill and the water bill together and then what little I got left I try to put on my lights. I got to have lights."
'Just outrageous'
Her neighbour in one of the poorest districts of Jefferson County's largest city, Birmingham, a father of four who asked not to be named, has already made that choice.
The poorest citizens in Birmingham, Alabama, say they can no longer afford running water
His modest rented home, next to a busy freight train line, is one of a growing number in the area that now has a blue portable toilet next to it.
He says he finds it cheaper to buy drums of water from a petrol station and pay a sanitation company about $14 a month to remove waste from his "porta-potty" than pay the combined sewer and water rate bill, which some months can reach $300.
"Most people who live here are on social security," he said.
"They can't spend this kind of money on sewerage. It's just outrageous. It's too high.
"I pay my sewerage bill, then I'm going to slack on my groceries. Then what am I going to eat?"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16037798
Advertisement
Sheila Tyson, a community activist in the deprived West End area of Birmingham, tells the BBC how her community has been affected
Continue reading the main story
Altered States
- How does Alabama solve a problem like Maria?
- Three generations coping under one roof Watch
- How a Midwestern town reinvented itself Watch
- Foreign investors fuel Florida housing boom Watch
But the real victims of the financial collapse in the US state of Alabama's most populous county are its poorest residents - forced to bathe in bottled water and use portable toilets after being cut off from the mains supply.
And there is widespread anger in Jefferson County that swingeing sewerage rate hikes could have been avoided but for the greed, corruption and incompetence of local politicians, government officials and Wall Street financiers.
Tammy Lucas is the human face of a financial and political scandal that has brought one of the most deprived communities in America's south to the point of what some local people believe is collapse.
She says: "If the sewer bill gets higher, my light might get cut off and if I try to catch up the light, my water might get cut off. So we're in between. We can't make it like this."
Mrs Lucas's monthly sewerage rate bills - the amount levied by the county to flush away waste and provide water for baths and showers - has quadrupled in the past 15 years. She says it is currently running at $150 (£97) a month, which leaves little left out of her $600 social security cheque for food and electricity.
"We need to keep the water running because we're women," she says. "We need to take baths. I try to pay the sewer bill and the water bill together and then what little I got left I try to put on my lights. I got to have lights."
'Just outrageous'
Her neighbour in one of the poorest districts of Jefferson County's largest city, Birmingham, a father of four who asked not to be named, has already made that choice.
His modest rented home, next to a busy freight train line, is one of a growing number in the area that now has a blue portable toilet next to it.
He says he finds it cheaper to buy drums of water from a petrol station and pay a sanitation company about $14 a month to remove waste from his "porta-potty" than pay the combined sewer and water rate bill, which some months can reach $300.
"Most people who live here are on social security," he said.
"They can't spend this kind of money on sewerage. It's just outrageous. It's too high.
"I pay my sewerage bill, then I'm going to slack on my groceries. Then what am I going to eat?"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16037798