For 30 years, residents of Centerville, Illinois, have been forced to live with pools of their own feces. Nearly every time it rains in the town, where 96 percent of the residents are Black, raw sewage bubbles up from the ground like a crappier version of the oil-spewing scene from the Beverly Hillbillies. When the streets flood, as they do multiple times a year, neighbors have to take out boats to navigate poop-filled waters. Afterward, soggy toilet paper bits hang from shrubs like Christmas lights.

It’s not like residents haven’t tried to get the problem fixed. Earlie Fuse has lived in Centreville for 29 years. In that time, the 80-year-old says he has spent thousands of dollars to protect his family from the encroaching waste, replacing multiple walls that have collapsed under the weight of water damage. His basement, once a place for entertaining guests, is now an uninhabitable mud den.

Centreville’s sewage problems have caused residents, the flooding has taken a toll on locals’ mental and physical health. People who live in the area are exposed to heightened levels of bacteria and mold. They are more likely to suffer from illnesses, such as hookworm and typhoid, that have been largely eradicated in other parts of the U.S. Centreville doctors have speculated the area’s water may even be linked to heart attacks.

But despite the abundance of information, local leaders failed to act. In 1989, the Environmental Protection Agency awarded a grant to the nearby town of East St. Louis, which shares the same water system as Centreville, to repair the defunct sewage system. But rather than fix the overwhelmed drains, East St. Louis officials misappropriated the funds, diverting it to its general fund to help alleviate its $35 million debt. That was a low blow for Centreville, regarded by many accounts as the poorest city in America.

Read the full article about Centreville by Adam Mahoney at Grist.