You might think raw sewage running through yards would be a thing of the past in the United States. Yet it is so common in the poverty-stricken Black Belt region of Alabama that even the United Nations has become involved in an environmental and public health issue endemic to the area for decades.Compounding the poverty is the rich, dark soil that earned the Black Belt its name in the pre-Civil War era, when it was one of the wealthiest areas of a young country. The fertile clayey soil is great for growing cotton, but doesn’t perk well, and so engineered
