Catherine Coleman Flowers is an environmental and climate justice activist bringing attention to the largely invisible problem of inadequate waste and water sanitation infrastructure in rural communities in the United States.
60 Minutes investigates: Americans fighting for access to sewage disposal
Lowndes County is in one of the most neglected corners of the country. The poverty rate in this majority-Black county is double the national average. Cell phone service is a luxury and so, incredibly, is sewage treatment. Like most states, Alabama requires sanitary sewage disposal. But outside a handful of small towns here, sewage treatment is not provided and for many people, private systems, usually a septic tank, are unaffordable.
It's a public health crisis, one community advocate Catherine Coleman Flowers has been raising hell about for 20 years.
Background
Flowers has dedicated her career to fighting for environmental justice. Much of her work focuses on improving sanitation and water infrastructure in Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and poor rural communities in the United States.
A powerful storyteller and communicator, Flowers has advocated for environmental justice in moving testimony before the United Nations and the U.S. Congress, framing access to clean water and sanitation as a civil and human right.
Professional
Accomplishments
Vice Chair, White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council
2020 MacArthur Fellow for Environmental Health Advocacy
Member of the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force on Climate Change
2022 Harvard Law School Horizon Award for environmental policy contributions recipient
Honorary doctorate in science from Wesleyan University
Founding director of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice
Board Member: Natural Resources Defense Council, The Climate Reality Project, Center for Constitutional Rights and the American Geophysical Union
Practitioner in Residence at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University
Co-Chair, American Academy of Arts and Sciences Commission on Accelerating Climate Action
Accomplished speaker and author of "Waste: One Woman’s Fight Against America’s Dirty Secret"
“Catherine is a shining example of the power individuals have to make a measurable difference by educating, advocating, and acting on environmental issues . . . [and a] firm advocate for the poor, who recognizes that the climate crisis disproportionately affects the least wealthy and powerful among us.”
—Al Gore
Waste
One Woman’s Fight Against America’s Dirty Secret
The MacArthur grant–winning “Erin Brockovich of Sewage” tells the riveting story of the environmental justice movement that is firing up rural America, with a foreword by Bryan Stevenson.
Khaliah Ali-Wertheimer | Jane Fonda | Catherine Coleman Flowers | Kat Taylor
Poor sanitation is too big a problem to ignore, as climate change brings sewage to more backyards across America.
If you or your community are experiencing wastewater issues, let us know.