The U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday that it is ending a settlement agreement regarding wastewater problems in a rural Alabama county where most residents are Black, closing an environmental justice probe launched by the Biden administration.

Justice Department officials said they were ending the agreement reached with the state regarding wastewater issues in Lowndes County. Federal officials said the decision follows President Donald Trump’s executive order forbidding federal agencies from pursuing diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

“The DOJ will no longer push ‘environmental justice’ as viewed through a distorting, DEI lens,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement.

“President Trump made it clear: Americans deserve a government committed to serving every individual with dignity and respect, and to expending taxpayer resources in accordance with the national interest, not arbitrary criteria,” the statement said.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi in February issued a memo rescinding a Biden-era directive to prioritize environmental justice cases.

Wastewater sanitation issues are well-documented in Lowndes County. Poverty, inadequate infrastructure and a type of soil that makes it difficult for traditional septic tanks to work have sometimes left some residents with sewage in their yards.

The Justice Department in 2023 said its probe found Alabama engaged in a pattern of inaction and neglect regarding the risks of raw sewage for county residents. The Alabama Department of Public Health agreed to take several steps as part of the settlement, including not fining people with inadequate home systems, creating a comprehensive plan for the region and other steps.

The agreement was the result of the Justice Department’s first environmental justice investigation under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, a Democrat whose district includes the county, criticized the decision to end the agreement.

“It was about addressing a public health crisis that has forced generations of children and families to endure the health hazards of living in proximity to raw sewage, as the DOJ itself documented,” Sewell said.

She said that the Trump administration “has put its blatant disregard for the health of my constituents on full display.”

Dr. Scott Harris, Alabama’s state health officer, said his department will continue its work in the region. But he noted that work and efforts to help install new septic systems at homes is dependent upon federal and state funding. American Rescue Plan funds helped provide money for new septic system installations.

“It doesn’t change our intent to help as many people as possible,” Harris said. “The real question is going to be what the funding situation looks like.”

Catherine Flowers, an activist who brought attention to the problem in the county, said wastewater sanitation is a problem in many rural areas.

“I pray that today’s action means that this administration will make sanitation a priority for all who are affected throughout rural America,” Flowers said.

Undermined: Fourteenth in a series about the impacts of longwall mining in Alabama.

JASPER, Ala.—Verby Burton said she wasn’t expecting much from Thursday’s meeting of the Alabama Surface Mining Commission, the agency tasked with regulating the surface impacts of underground coal mining in the state.

“And that’s exactly what I got,” Burton said after the meeting. “Not much.”

Burton is a resident of Oak Grove, a rural community in western Jefferson County, about 45 miles southwest of Birmingham, that sits above an expanding longwall coal mine. The impacts of the aggressive form of mining—cracking roads, damaging foundations, causing land subsidence and triggering the escape of potentially explosive methane gas—have plagued the community for years. That culminated in a home explosion atop the mine in March 2024 that that killed grandfather W.M. Griffice and seriously injured his grandson.

In December, after a series of investigations by Inside Climate News into the explosion and Alabama’s lax regulatory response, federal mining officials forced the state’s hand, issuing a so-called ten-day notice requiring the Alabama Surface Mining Commission to demand methane monitoring plans from coal companies in the state. 

In a letter sent in January, the agency’s director, Kathy Love, did just that, requiring that the companies submit new “subsidence control plans” that include measures related to monitoring levels of potentially explosive methane gas in and around homes located above their operations. 

At Thursday’s meeting, however, Love announced that she had unilaterally delayed the March 31 deadline she’d previously imposed for submitting such methane monitoring plans by six months, giving coal companies until Sept. 30 to submit the updated documents. 

“I was under pressure to get an answer out for that ten-day notice, and, unbeknownst to me—I should’ve thought about it—March 31 is not enough time,” she said.

Love did not mention during Thursday’s meeting how she’d determined that the initial 90-day period was insufficient, but a draft letter from her agency to coal companies across the state obtained by Inside Climate News notes that her decision came after a request from the Alabama Mining Association, a lobbying group that bills itself as the “collective voice of Alabama’s mining industry.”

The draft letter says “mine operators sought assistance from the Alabama Mining Association (AMA) to obtain a deadline extension to allow adequate time for the completion of the comprehensive plans.”

AMA then formally requested a 180-day extension of the deadline in a letter to the state agency dated March 18, the letter states, and “upon review of the facts and circumstances,” the Alabama regulator granted the request. 

Meanwhile, residents who reside atop the expanding Oak Grove mine live in fear of a methane explosion in their home. 

Resident Phyllis Wright said in an interview that during a recent thunderstorm, her home methane monitor alerted her to an unsafe level of the gas, advising her to “ventilate and evacuate” her home. Wright didn’t know what to do, she said, and still hasn’t received guidance from mine operators or state or federal regulators as to what should be done in such situations. 

At Thursday’s meeting, Love, citing that incident, initially appeared somewhat dismissive of home methane monitors.

“I don’t know what caused that, but it was just an incident that may have been a false alarm or caused by the lightning,” she told residents and commissioners gathered for the meeting. “I don’t know. I can’t even verify anything like that.”

Asked later by an Inside Climate News reporter whether she would have such a monitor in her home were she to live above an expanding longwall mine, however, Love didn’t hesitate to answer. 

“Yes, I would,” she said. “Just like I have a fire alarm.”

Love emphasized in the meeting that she believes that coal operators in Alabama are going beyond what’s required by law to monitor methane and ensure the safety of those living above mines. Residents like Lisa Lindsay, W.M. Griffice’s closest neighbor, are skeptical of that claim. 

Crimson Oak Grove Resources, the mining company that owns and operates the mine below her home, placed methane monitors under her property following the fatal explosion in 2024. 

Since then, Lindsay told Love and commissioners, she’s requested information on the observed methane levels. Only occasionally has she gotten a response, she said. And when she has heard back from company representatives, their answers aren’t specific, simply telling her that elevated levels of methane were detected beneath her home “fewer than five times.” 

“They’ve refused to tell me what’s happening under my house,” Lindsay said. 

“I don’t know what the justification is for not giving you those readings,” Love responded. “I will make the phone call and see what I can do.”

Oak Grove Resources did not respond to a request for comment. The company hasn’t answered any of Inside Climate News’ questions since the explosion.

“Y’all need to get on it, then,” Lindsay told Love and agency commissioners. “Y’all are the last line of defense for us residents versus the mining industry. Your job is to regulate and help protect us, right? So that’s something that really, really has got to be followed up on. We need to know what’s going on underneath our houses.”

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— The 2023 Washington Huskies made it all the way to the College Football Playoff National Championship game despite not having anywhere near those expectations at the start of the season.

The Huskies offense was one of the most potent units in the country as it had six players taken in the first three rounds of the 2024 NFL Draft. Washington’s front five was a big reason for the team’s tremendous success that season as it won the Joe Moore Award, which is given annually to college football’s best offensive line.

After opting for a redshirt in 2022, Parker Brailsford earned a starting spot on the Huskies offensive line ahead of the 2023 season as the center. He played an integral role in Washington’s stellar season as he was named to the All-Pac 12 Second Team at the end of the year.

When former Huskies head coach Kalen DeBoer took the vacant job at Alabama in January 2024, many players followed him to Tuscaloosa, including Brailsford. The Crimson Tide’s offensive line had a rough 2023 season, but the addition of Brailsford alongside OL head coach Chris Kapilovic made a big difference. Alabama allowed 49 sacks in 2023 but just 24 this past season.

Now that Brailsford has a year at Alabama under his belt, he revealed his hopes for the upcoming season.

“It’s kind of a personal goal but kind of not, I want to win the Joe Moore with my O-Line,” Brailsford said on Thursday.

There’s already an obstacle to this goal, though. Alabama lost co-captain and left guard Tyler Booker to the 2025 NFL Draft, as he has a chance to be selected in the first round. The Crimson Tide has multiple players competing to fill Booker’s practically unfillable shoes as A-Day looms.

“It don’t really matter who they put [at left guard], it always feels the same,” Brailsford said. “Geno [VanDeMark] is a smart guy, Kam [Dewberry] is a smart guy. They’re both doing really good in spring ball and I’m excited to just see that battle and see who wins that.”

Building chemistry is essential to the stoutness of an offensive line. This isn’t as easy when a team hasn’t established its starting five just yet, but this factor hasn’t changed Brailsford’s Joe Moore Award mindset.

“It takes time,” Brailsford said. “You’ve got to see who the guys are that are willing to do it, willing to strain and things like that. It’s not going to be exact during spring ball. Even as the whole O-line––whether it be the walk-ons, twos, threes, ones––we’re all pretty tight.

“It takes a long time. Everybody is different. Some groups are a little faster than others…but we’re all a close group and I feel comfortable with all of those guys. The chemistry is there.”

As previously stated, Booker was a co-captain and perhaps the ultimate leader for the Crimson Tide last season. Finding a new leader to push this year’s offensive line will be needed to win the Joe Moore Award. The transfer portal is a massive component of college sports today and Brailsford believes his experience in it combined with a first season at Alabama could help his case as a leader.

“I think it’s been really good getting that year under my belt because I feel comfortable talking to the guys and I have a relationship with the guys…Change is obviously hard. Like for me, it was a little bit hard and I had some things going on back then. But since I’ve been here, I give myself the room and go and talk to and hang out with the guys. That’s just helped me build relationships.”

It’s clear that Brailsford wants to be a leader of the Crimson Tide offensive line. But how far can his leadership take Alabama’s front five this upcoming season?