During Sunday services in a small, post-industrial city near the coast of Alabama, parishioners sometimes use bottled water to flush the toilets.
At Sure Word Outreach Ministries in Prichard, a city of about 19,000 just north of Mobile, low water pressure is just a fact of life, said pastor Archie Rankin.
After decades of mismanagement, lawsuits, federal raids and criminal indictments at the Prichard water and sewer board, leaky pipes cause low water pressure, and sewage floods people’s yards.
Residents here typically buy bottled water rather than drink from the tap.
“I wouldn’t give it to anyone in my family,” Rankin told AL.com. “It’s only good for flushing, and we can’t even get that.”
Yet that water carries a premium price tag.
The average customer in Prichard pays $92 a month for their water and sewer bill. That’s more than double what the median customer pays in fast-growing Huntsville at the other end of the state and about 42% more than what’s paid by average Mobile customers nearby.
Just under a third of Prichard residents live below the poverty line. Median household income in the city was $35,331 in 2023, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. The town is around 88% Black.
The failing infrastructure threatens the city’s future, as Mobile suburbs grow in nearly all directions, save Prichard. But no one, not the state nor the federal government, is riding to the rescue. Every time a proposed solution seemed within reach, it collapsed – in court or at the negotiating table.
In short, Prichard’s pipes are only growing older, the sewage backups continue, financial woes are mounting, and there is no end in sight.
John Young, an outside consultant who has worked for challenged water systems throughout the country, was put in charge of the Prichard water utility by a judge two years ago.
“I’m not trying to scare people, but I spent five years in Flint, Michigan. This system, from an infrastructure perspective, is worse than Flint,” Young told AL.com. “And so there is the possibility here of some real public health and environmental issues.”
Mark Parnell, an attorney for the Prichard water board, called Young’s comments “irresponsible.”
“Mr. Young has been operating the systems since November 2023,” Parnell said in an email to AL.com. “He alone is now responsible for any environmental or public health dangers. The water is safe.”
But the utility problems began long before 2023. So how did Prichard, like Flint and like Jackson, Miss., get to this point?
The Prichard Waters Works & Sewer Board tower in downtown Prichard, as pictured on Saturday, May 18, 2024. John Sharp | jsharp@al.com
Indictments, money problems
The story of Prichard’s water utility is a cocktail of neglect, corruption and a lack of economic growth.
Since 2022, seven people related to Prichard’s water and sewer utility have been indicted on criminal charges. Former water board manager Nia Bradley has been indicted twice, for fraud in federal court and theft in state court.
But the city’s water and sewer system has struggled for decades under poor leadership. In 2004, two other Prichard water system employees were indicted on charges of negligence, and one was found guilty of discharging pollution into public waters.
Back then, the two workers were charged with allowing between 25 and 35 million gallons of raw sewage to leak into a wetlands area, due to a break in a sewage pipe that was not discovered for months. Utility board Superintendent Paul David was found guilty in 2005, but he appealed and the case was eventually dismissed.
At the time, the Prichard utility reached a deal in court to fix problems at its wastewater treatment plants. Mobile County Circuit Court Judge John Lockett ended that agreement in 2010, after he determined the utility had made all of the necessary changes.
Still, problems persisted, despite yet another lawsuit brought by the state in 2004 and a separate suit from environmental nonprofit Mobile Baykeeper.
By 2022, federal and state law enforcement raided the water and sewer board office in Prichard amid an “all-encompassing” probe of the water system. A Mobile County grand jury indicted Nia Bradley, the operations manager, on theft charges.
This spring, federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment against Bradley and six other people, alleging fraud. One of those indicted was a former member of the water board; another former board member was not charged but is also alleged to be part of the scheme.
Prosecutors allege that Bradley and another utility employee directed payments to fake businesses set up by other co-conspirators, in exchange for kickbacks and other benefits.
The water board declined to comment on the ongoing criminal cases.
Meanwhile, the persistent problems have snowballed into a financial mess. In 2023, Prichard’s water and sewer utility defaulted on a $56 million loan, worsening the current crisis.
Parnell said the board can’t change the past.
“The current PWWSB is and has been focused on correcting the current situation,” he said, “and improving the utility service for its customers in the future.”
Archie Rankin stands outside of his church, Sure Word Outreach Ministries in Prichard on Oct. 9, 2025. Sure Word struggles with low water pressure due to the troubles Prichard’s water and sewer utility is facing. Parishioners use hand sanitizer and fill toilet bowls with bottled water. Margaret Kates | mkates@al.com
Toilets don’t flush
Rankin grew up in Prichard. Though he now lives outside of the city, he’s there every day to pastor his 200-member church.
He said there’s always been issues with Prichard’s water and sewer services, but it’s only gotten worse in the last 20 years.
“Ever since the water board was organized there’s been issues,” he said.
The water pressure is so low at his church that parishioners have to use sanitizer to clean their hands. Rankin said that during heavy rains, sewage backs up into the church, causing flooding.
“I’d like to see things change, while we’re still here,” Rankin told AL.com.
About 60% of the drinking water the utility buys from its nearby neighbor is lost each month, leaking out of the pipes.
On the wastewater side, more than 2.6 million gallons of raw sewage flowed through drainage ditches and into creeks in 48 hours in July.
That wasn’t all that unusual in Prichard, where heavy rains regularly roll in off the Gulf Coast. In May, more than 4.5 million gallons of sewage backed up and overflowed in 48 hours.
Between 2021 and 2023, more than 45 million gallons of sewage was spilled across 309 incidents, according to an analysis by Mobile Baykeeper. This year alone, at least 14.3 million gallons of raw sewage have been spilled in Prichard, according to records from the Mobile County Health Department.
“I’m not trying to scare people, but I spent five years in Flint, Michigan. This system, from an infrastructure perspective, is worse than Flint.”
John Young, court-appointed receiver in Prichard
And the challenges faced by the utility affect more than just the people of Prichard — the utility also serves people in Chickasaw and unincorporated Eight Mile. An estimated 24,000 people are served by Prichard’s water and sewer utility.
It also affects coastal Alabama as a whole. The millions of gallons of sewage that flows into ditches and creeks eventually makes its way to Mobile Bay.
Hope for change
Change may be coming.
Last month, voters elected a Black woman as mayor for the first time in the town’s nearly 150-year history. A longtime advocate for better water and sewer systems, Carletta Davis, easily defeated incumbent mayor Jimmie Gardner in a race for the town’s highest office.
Carletta Davis, a longtime advocate for better water and sewer systems, defeated incumbent mayor Jimmie Gardner in a race for Prichard’s highest office. Margaret Kates | mkates@al.com
The water and sewer issues weighed heavily on residents’ minds in the voting booth, Davis told AL.com.
“I asked voters what would be driving them to the polls, and they said the water,” said Davis. “People really do want to see a change in what we know to be normal.”
Davis handily defeated the former police chief, who served two terms as mayor. And the town also has three new council members taking office in November. Once they are sworn in, four of the five people on the council will be women.
But the town’s new leadership faces headwinds as it tries to improve water and sewer service. The utility board, while appointed by members of the city council, operates independently.
Once a farming community, the city was founded by Cleveland Prichard in 1879. It became an industrial hub in the early 20th century, following the outbreak of World War I and the increase in shipbuilding in Mobile. The city’s water works and sewer board was incorporated in 1943 to serve the cities of Prichard and Chickasaw.
Companies built workforce housing in the city.
One such workforce housing development has become a flashpoint in Prichard’s utility struggles. In 2023, news outlets reported that Prichard water and sewer lost nearly $2.7 million per year pumping water into Alabama Village, a housing development built for shipbuilders in World War II. Jay Ross, an attorney for the utility, told one news outlet that the utility was considering condemning the properties in the village, paying residents and moving them out.
Over the decades, major employers like the International Paper Company and Brookley Air Force Base shut down, leaving little economic engine in Prichard.
In 1960, Prichard was home to more than 47,000 people, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. The town’s population has declined by nearly 60% since then.
Today, Prichard’s median income is just over half the median income of Alabama, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. In 1960, the town was around 53% white. Just 9% of Prichard’s residents are white today.
Rankin argues that the current water and sewage crisis is holding Prichard back.
“Would you want to open a business here where you can’t use the water?” he said. “We’re in a crisis, we’re trying to keep our head above water.”
He said the town’s residents deserve better.
“The spirit in which we come up, we learn to love each other and help each other,” Rankin said. “Just like Blount and Vigor [rival high schools], it’s always been competitive, but full of love and family.”
Called the “City of Champions,” Prichard has exported some big names: Super Bowl champion Kadarius Toney attended Blount High School. Major League Baseball Hall of Famer Billy Williams, who is immortalized in Mobile’s new Hall of Fame Walk, was born in Whistler, a historic community within Prichard. So was Ethel Ayler, a Broadway actress who played Clair Huxtable’s mother on “The Cosby Show.”
It’s hard to argue that Prichard can foot the cost of repairing its utility on its own. Prichard is the only city in Alabama to have declared bankruptcy twice: once in 1999 and again in 2009, when it stopped making pension payments.
Sewage over flows into a drainage ditch at in Prichard on Thursday, Feb. 12, 2004. The overflow point is marked by the two orange cones in the background. More than 20 years later, the city continues to deal with sewage backups. Mike Kittrell | Mobile Press Register file
Fierce independence
Still, Prichard officials are determined to fight a takeover by the larger utility that serves most Mobile County residents.
Young, who also served as receiver in Jefferson County during its 2011 bankruptcy (caused by a failed sewer reconstruction project), strongly favors a takeover by the Mobile Area Water and Sewer System, and outlined that option in his master plan submitted to the court.
But Gardner, the outgoing mayor, called Young’s recommendation “predetermined,” and called for a review of his time as receiver.
Davis, the incoming mayor, said a takeover would be giving away the city’s autonomy and future.
“I am not asking the citizens to go back to the status quo of where we’ve been before…We know that we have to have the proper leadership over our water system,” Davis said. “If the political wills change in Mobile, then what would that mean for our water system?”
Prichard’s water board said merging with the Mobile utility is not an option.
In a filing submitted to the court in August, the board’s lawyer said the merger is contingent on Young obtaining $49 million in grant funding to offset the cost to customers of Mobile’s utility. Recent cuts to federal water and sewer infrastructure grant programs make it even less likely those funds will be obtained, Parnell argued.
But other residents aren’t so sure keeping the utility independent is the right idea. One woman at a recent town hall said Prichard residents would back letting the big city utility take over.
“Put it on the ballot tomorrow, and some of the same people who said they don’t want it, they’re going to walk in there,” said Alberta Young, a resident of Prichard, at a town hall in April. “The big fish have to eat the little fish sometime.”
In recent court filings, Prichard’s utility argues that it is just fine on its own. At the end of 2024, a completely new board was appointed, according to a recent court record. Since the board is new, they should not be judged based on the actions of the past boards, Parnell argues.
“The historical actions of the past boards of directors or the previous employees of the [Prichard water works board] are irrelevant to the current and future operations and governance of the [board],” Parnell wrote in a May 14 filing. “[John] Young, nor this court, can make the conclusion that this Board of Directors will not be able to properly govern the [utility.]”
The Prichard Waters Works & Sewer Board in downtown Prichard. John Sharp | jsharp@al.com
The private solution
Prior to the default in 2023 and the ongoing court case, the board had worked out an agreement to hand control of daily operations to a coalition of private companies, Parnell said.
Last month, after years of little movement, the bondholders for Prichard’s utility, who initiated Young’s tenure as receiver when the utility defaulted, agreed to hear from the private companies.
The board argues that partnering with a private company will mean that needed repairs will get done faster. The private company is able to provide an immediate infusion of cash, whereas a takeover will take time.
“Under the concession agreement, there is $100 million available to immediately begin making the needed infrastructure repairs,” Parnell said in an email. “These repairs can begin as soon as the concession agreement is closed, which would be within 6 months. Also, under the concession agreement, there will be funding to immediately get the bondholders paid.”
Davis said she is against privatizing the utility. She hopes public funds, from the Alabama Department of Environmental Management or the federal government, will flow to Prichard so the water and sewer utility can be restored while still being owned by the city.
Parnell said that, if the Mobile utility were truly open to merging with Prichard’s water board, they would have said so. Young first proposed the idea last summer.
In August, Prichard’s water board sent a letter to Barbara Drummond, chair of the Mobile water board, to ask that it publicly take a position on the merger within 14 days of the letter’s arrival.
The Mobile water utility has not said publicly if they are open to merging with Prichard’s water utility. Monica Allen, a spokesperson for the utility, told AL.com that the utility is focused on serving its customers.
“I think it’s a little unfair to always involve us in a situation that’s not our situation,” Allen said. “We’re not the only solution, and are we the best solution for our customers?”
The Alabama Department of Environmental Management hosted a public hearing on Tuesday, March 30, 2021, in Saraland, Ala. John Sharp | jsharp@al.com
Where is the state?
Prichard can’t count on Alabama for much help.
There has been little intervention from the state since those lawsuits 20 years ago. Mobile Baykeeper has been petitioning the state to pay for needed improvements.
The utility is under consent orders from the state department of environmental management for both its water service and sewer service. It has received around $6 million from the state for improvements, despite estimations that more than $400 million would be needed to repair the water and sewer utility.
Young says that’s because Prichard’s utility doesn’t meet the state’s technical requirements to receive grants.
“People are not going to give you grant money unless you can prove to them that the entity that’s receiving the money has the technical management, financial management capabilities to properly manage that money and manage the system,” Young said in an April town hall. “We do not have that in Prichard.”
The lack of involvement from state officials in Prichard is in stark contrast to how they have approached Birmingham Water Works, the largest water provider in the state.
In May, the state Legislature passed a bill that regionalized the Birmingham Water Works board, now called Central Alabama Water, shifting primary control away from the city of Birmingham and to its suburbs. The lawmakers said they made the change to improve customer service and give representation to the growing suburban cities.
In the most recent round of awards from the state department of environmental management for drinking water projects, Prichard received just $100,000 from the state. Mobile’s water and sewer utility received more than $28 million, and South Alabama Utilities in Mobile County received $12 million.
A spokesperson for the department said the $100,000 was only for research and development of a project, and more money would be available later.
Alabama State Sen. Vivian Davis Figures (D-Mobile), and State Rep. Napoleon Bracy (D-Prichard), who represent Prichard, did not respond to requests for comment for this article.
“Would you want to open a business here where you can’t use the water? We’re in a crisis, we’re trying to keep our head above water.”
Archie Rankin, pastor in Prichard
Meanwhile, in 2023, the Southern Environmental Law Center and others, filed an emergency petition to the EPA, asking for federal intervention.
The EPA responded in February of 2024, saying it would work with the state in support of Young’s tenure as receiver, but did not offer to provide assistance beyond that.
Archie Rankin sits at his desk at Sure Word Outreach Ministries in Prichard, Ala. on Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025. Rankin has tried numerous times to get the water and sewage issues at his church fixed, but with little success. Margaret Kates | mkates@al.com
‘Poison pill’
This isn’t the first time that a merger with Mobile’s water and sewer utility has been proposed to solve Prichard’s water and sewer troubles. But each time, Prichard’s water board has found ways to tank the deal.
In 2012, a referendum to merge the two utilities was put on the ballot in Alabama, and it passed with nearly 70% support. (88% of Prichard voters supported the move at the time.)
Prichard’s water board appealed to the state Supreme Court, which nullified the referendum because it was held statewide.
Later, in 2014, Figures passed a bill that would allow for a referendum just in Mobile County.
That referendum passed, though by a much narrower margin, and the Mobile utility was set to take over in Prichard. But in a last-minute move that Mobile officials called a “poison pill,” the Prichard board entered into an operational contract that would have left the Mobile utility on the hook for at least $32.8 million over five years.
Mobile backed out of the merger.
“That’s great news on behalf of the city,” said Tony Ephraim, who was the mayor of Prichard at the time. “It’s always been our system. It should be our responsibility to resolve our problems.”
Prichard, as always, was left on its own.
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