The New Deal sparked a sanitation revolution

Above: The description for this photograph, taken in Carbon Hill, Alabama, September, 1937, reads, "Depicting old method of collecting sewerage before installation of modern disposal plant by WPA." Photo courtesy of the National Archives.

Above: The new, WPA-built sewage disposal plant in Carbon Hill, Alabama, 1937. Photo

courtesy of the National Archives.

Above: The New Deal's Public Works Administration (PWA) provided funds for the construction of the Blue Plains Waste Disposal Plant, located in the southern part of Washington, DC, along the Potomac River. The original facility was completed in 1937. The District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (DC Water) notes that "Before 1937, wastewater flowed through the District in open sewers and discharged untreated to the nearest waterway." Image and quote from a DC Water information brochure, available at the facility.

Above: Today, the Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant has grown into a sanitation metropolis, serving a much larger population and able to treat about 384 million gallons of wastewater per day - greatly reducing pollution into area waterways. Image and statistic from a DC Water information brochure, available at the facility.

Above: This is one of the original, PWA-funded buildings at the Blue Plains facility - a pumping station, still serving the nation's capital today. Photo by Brent McKee, 2019.

Above: A sculpture of the Seal of the District of Columbia, on the front of the pumping station. "Justitia Omnibus" is Latin, and means "Justice for All." Back in the day, you could actually decorate public buildings like this, and be creative; but today, this sort of activity is illegal (I'm only half-joking). Photo by Brent McKee, 2019.

Above: Even lamps were decorative back in those days. This is one of two on the front of the pumping station. Photo by Brent McKee, 2019.

Above: The inner workings of the pumping station, much of it original. Photo by Brent McKee, 2019.

Above: Original New Deal steel, in the subterranean bowels of the pumping station. Photo by Brent McKee, 2019.

Above: Another of the original PWA buildings at the Blue Plains facility. DC Water reports that its "in-house lab conducts more than 100,000 tests a year" to comply with wastewater treatment regulations (from an information brochure available at the facility). Photo by Brent McKee, 2019.

Above: A Blue Plains engineer, outside the PWA-funded (and since-then-expanded) laboratory building. Engineers like this guy are the great unsung heroes of our society, working hard every day to keep us, and the environment clean (and with little federal help - see below). Photo by Brent McKee, 2019.

The New Deal sparked a sanitation revolution, which greatly reduced, and in some cases virtually eliminated sanitation-related diseases, for example, cholera, dysentery, and hookworm. Some of this New Deal work included: PWA-provided funds for hundreds of large-scale sewage projects across the nation, including the then-territories of Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands; installation of 24,000 miles of new sewer lines by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) (enough sewer line work to encircle the planet); 800 garbage incinerators built or repaired by the National Youth Administration (NYA); and 12,000 new bathroom facilities in our state & national parks & forests, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).

And we're still using many of these New Deal systems & structures today... almost universally oblivious to their origins.

And here's the thing: We're relying too much on past labor. The New Deal policymakers that gave us this great heritage of public works never envisioned that we would become so lackadaisical about our infrastructure. In their latest report card, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave America's wastewater facilities a D+ letter grade, and highlighted pathetic federal investment. Even the Republican Party's state-run media empire knows there's a problem, reporting that poverty and substandard sanitation is bringing certain diseases back ("Life-threatening hookworm, believed eradicated from US, resurfaces in Alabama," Fox News, November 21, 2018).

We're also relying too much on state & local funding, which have evolved into highly regressive revenue systems (see, e.g., "Who Pays?" Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, October 2018). These state & local revenue streams (taxes, tolls, fees, fines, and utility bills) place a disproportionate burden on middle and low-income residents. For example, DC Water notes that "Customers bear the bulk of the costs [of the facilities' environmental protections]. DC Water has received limited federal funding for environmental projects under construction at Blue Plains, but their ultimate cost is nearly $4 billion" (from the DC Water information brochure noted in the photo captions above, emphasis added). In other words, as the super-wealthy keep adding billions to their already-record fortunes, thanks to persistent federal tax-cuts-for-the-rich, state & local authorities must keep asking middle and low-income residents for more... and more... and more.

The fact is, we need another New Deal for our sanitation and environmental protection needs. But that's not happening; instead, our regressive revenue burden just keeps getting heavier under trickle-down, coddle-the-wealthy, neoliberal economics.   

Above: A WPA poster, promoting modern WPA-built outhouses, or "sanitary privies." Between 1935 and 1943, WPA workers built 2.3 million privies. These privies helped reduce disease and illness in rural communities. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.