890: How Aging Water Systems Are Pushing Sewage Into U.S. Homes
Walter Byrd remembers the first time sewage came bubbling out of his toilet like it was yesterday.“It was just pumping up through there,” Byrd says. “One of the bathrooms was so full of waste, at least 4 inches high in there. It smelled just like a hog pen.”He sopped up the murky, foul-smelling water and doused the floor with bleach. But the sewage kept coming. On rainy days, it overflowed from drainage ditches into his yard, carrying wads of toilet paper and human waste.The eight-bedroom home in Cahokia Heights, Illinois, had been a source of pride for Byrd when he first built it in 1996. He…
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