Straight Pipes: Inheritance and Environmental Injustice in Alabama Black Belt

Abstract

This thesis explores how race, environmental conditions, and governance structures shape the persistence of straight piping in the Black Belt region of Alabama. Based on qualitative and in-depth interviews with engineers, legal experts, public health officials, and community activists, five interconnected themes emerged: the legal barrier of heirs' property, the racialized landscape of infrastructural disinvestment, the limitations of standard engineering fixes, bureaucratic fragmentation, and the rise of grassroots activism. These findings suggest that straight piping is not merely a matter of infrastructure installation, but rather the result of entangled structural inequalities embedded in historical, legal, and governance arrangements. One key finding is the double hurdle of heirs' property as both a legal impediment to securing sanitation, but also as an institutional alibi for inaction. Similarly, the exclusion of rural Black communities from infrastructure planning and investment processes directly answers the central research question about how race and governance combine to sustain environmental degradation. By foregrounding local knowledge, the study contributes meaningfully to environmental justice scholarship, rural sociology, and the sociology of infrastructure by providing a richer understanding of the allocation, contestation, and frequent evasion of control, expertise, and accountability.