Another Flint, but in Louisiana this time
American been in steep decline for years, before so-called American democracy ever reached many towns
Water is coming out of the faucets brown in the town of Tallulah, Louisiana where I am from. Which media company or journalist could see the bigger story that nearly every issue there is plaguing the United States today is represented in my small town of Tallulah, Louisiana? American been in steep decline for years, before so-called American democracy ever reached the town where my dad lives. The Madison Journal has been writing about the crisis for a long time, yet the situation is worsening.
Tallulah is the microcosm of a much larger pattern of problems Americans face in their daily lives as we barrel headfirst into an election cycle (I wrote this in October ‘24). I would like to offer front row seats to what is really happening in communities all across America leading up to the election.
Water, as a starting point, is much more than a localized issue. The impact of restricted access to clean water and sanitation has long been discussed as THE reason for unrest in our future. We can invent news ways to generate energy but water is a precious and finite resource
The outcome I want is for my town of Tallulah to serve as a sort of early warning system. (Listening to this song coincidentally as I type this. 🐝 )
Furthermore, is it possible to draw attention to the fact that learning skills & improving our ways of working using AI that I’ve dedicated my life purpose, time, energy, bank savings attempting to share with others should be applied to these very real, urgent, acute infrastructure issues - not the bullshit everyone is spending all their time talking about, like how yet another frivolous Harvard kid just created the worlds most insidious & dangerous use of these technologies possible just for fun bc they aren’t back flushing a boiler today like we are (the Harvard student stalker glasses last week gives me serious concern).
C & I just arrived to my home town of Tallulah, LA to visit my dad. Before bed last night I noticed there was no water pressure & the water was running brown when I went to take a shower. Turns out that’s been going on for a few years now, outages every other week & brown water & is getting worse.
I took notes while my uncle explained what was happening as he dropped me off. He had to drive me the 2 blocks back from his house bc of all the regular shootings in town - 3 more ppl killed in this small town last night in a drive by. Our friend J came by today when my uncle was here & was saying gangs shoot ppl - anyone not just other gangs, like last night one victim was a 30yr old disabled woman - & then they post a drill rap abt it on youtube with lyrics abt the murder they committed. I’m afraid to even look. Some of examples of online noteriety being a form of currency among today’s youth. Terms like dry snitch needing to be known.
Back to water, my dad & C spent all day back flushing the boiler trying to get the water to run clear enough to bathe. Uncle R also has water safety reports I asked him to send as well. R says he read that there are thousands of similar cases across Louisiana alone.
There is NO clean water in a place that is 80% black, >60% below poverty line, no decent school or healthcare. Racism keeps the the black & white communities mostly segregated.
Skills are in short supply as a result, few ppl have any experience. Medical skills, technical skills, business skills, hard to find when schools, the legal system, & healthcare have been failing the poor for decades.
Dr T is our parish coroner & town Doctor, who at 83 is spending his time trying to understand why the Tallulah Hospital is in such bad administrative condition given the needs of the local population.
This doesn’t look like the swimming pool where my friends went to High School.
Back to water, again. The water is also why the rates of cancers, miscarriages, & other illness are so high. We are in the MS river delta which is industry runoff from the manufacturing plants starting in Canada.
We’ve also been covered in farming chemicals from crop dusting & irrigation for decades (my dad was a cotton, soy, corn farmer). Everyone has skin cancer (me inc), but my dad also has a small cell spindle cell retroperitoneal sarcoma - one of the rarest forms of kidney cancer there is - the organ that removes ingested toxins. He was given the prognosis of weeks to months 15 yrs ago!
My father currently has a broken shoulder from a recent biking injury, so he shouldn’t be lifting heavy bottles of water. But he has a truck to drive to the store & money to purchase distilled water. He is also educated well enough to understand the health implications of the situation, experienced enough to understand the political problems that have created this mess, & smart enough know that the water needs to be checked regularly in a place like this given the history of mismanagement & cruelty. Many don’t have those things even.
The Mayor lives down the street from my dad so I saw him when we arrived last night. He is woefully under-qualified for the task at hand, most everyone here would be though. However, he should have at least had the sense that when an elderly neighbor who pays both his water and tax bill with me as a daughter sent him this photo, the correct Mayor of Tallulah reply is not, ‘my water is fine.’
