April 24, 2024
Dr. Beverly Wright and Dr. Robert D. Bullard released the following statements in response to EPA rule
Bullard Center
Date
April 2, 2024
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For Immediate Release – April 2, 2024
USDOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg to Visit Elba, Alabama Historically Black Shiloh Community Damaged by Flooding
This Wednesday, April 3, USDOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg will tour the historically Black Shiloh community in Elba, Alabama, which has flooded repeatedly since a highway expansion project was completed in 2018. Dr. Robert D. Bullard, who is often called the “father of environmental justice,” and the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice supported a delegation of Shiloh community leaders' trip to Washington, DC, to meet with USDOT Assistant Secretary Christopher Coes and other transportation officials in February 2023, during Black History Month. The leaders requested Secretary Buttigieg come to the flood-damaged Shiloh community as part of the Bullard Center’s “Journey to Justice” Justice40 Initiative. Elba is Bullard’s hometown.
The historically Black Shiloh community has been burdened with ongoing flooding for six years. The federal officials will hear from Shiloh homeowners who suffer flooding during heavy rains. A Fall 2023 ABC News investigation documented major flooding challenges in the community—especially among the elderly, persons on fixed incomes and military veterans. The tour will be led by longtime Shiloh resident and community leader Pastor Timothy Williams. Before the highway was built, land in the Shiloh community was level and the community did not flood. The highway was elevated—placing the community in a bowl with stormwater draining downhill—flooding homes, property and businesses.
Shiloh becomes a lake during hard rains—flooding septic systems and causing sewage backups in homes. The constant flooding of the land is causing subsidence, with homes sinking into the red clay and contributing to structural damage to homes’ foundations. Sadly, flood-related claims are being denied by insurance companies. Some residents are now at risk of losing their homeowners insurance altogether. Shiloh homeowners are left with mounting bills from the flooding. These extra flood-related costs are especially burdensome for elderly and low-income families on fixed incomes.
Shiloh is a historic community. Some Black residents’ land has been in their families since Reconstruction. Now, their inheritance is being washed away by flooding. Bullard and his colleagues chronicled the disproportionate negative impacts of highways on Black communities like Shiloh two decades ago in their 2004 book, Highway Robbery: Transportation Racism and New Routes to Equity.
Shiloh residents are also concerned about the gas pipeline they recently discovered. The gas pipeline ran dozens of feet away from Shiloh residents’ homes prior to the US 84 highway expansion. It was later rerouted to the new US 84 right of way, just a few feet from residents’ homes. A gas pipeline leak occurred in the Shiloh community on the evening of December 31, 2023.
Although the highway flooding and pipeline problem were created more than six years ago, the community and its allies are calling on USDOT Secretary Buttigieg to work with the community and local government officials to leverage federal transportation funding under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Inflation Reduction Act and Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods Grant Program to correct the flooding and pipeline problem in Shiloh.
The Community Tour will start at 4:00 pm CDT in Elba, AL Shiloh Community (Location: 14632 US Highway 84 Elba, AL 36323).
Media Coverage: Media planning to attend in person are encouraged to RSVP by 12 P.M. CDT on Tuesday April 2, RSVP to David Castillo at David.Castillo@tsu.edu.
About the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice
The Robert D. Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at Texas Southern University was launched in 2021 to address long standing issues of systemic inequality and structural racism that cause disproportionate pain, suffering and death in Black and other people of color communities. The Bullard Center works to promote environmental, climate, economic, energy, transportation, food and water and health justice. Texas Southern University is a student-centered comprehensive doctoral university committed to ensuring equality, offering innovative programs that are responsive to its urban setting, and transforming diverse students into lifelong learners, engaged citizens, and creative leaders in their local, national, and global communities.
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