Race

The Clean Water Act (CWA), passed in 1972, is one of America’s most important pieces of environmental legislation. The law regulates the release of pollutants into surface waters, and establishes federal enforcement authority. A key component of the CWA is the “citizens’ suit” provision which gives individuals the right to sue not only polluters themselves, but also the government for failure to exercise its enforcement authority.

The CWA’s citizens’ suit authority was recently invoked in a case out of Rochelle, GA, a de-facto segregated, rural, deep-south town. In Rochelle, the majority of the black population lives to the north of the railroad tracks, whereas the majority of white residents live south of the tracks. The city’s sewage system, like many in the [Read More…]