A community-owned water quality monitoring, mapping, and advocacy platform — built by and for the people of Africatown, Mobile, Alabama.
Africatown was founded in 1860 by the 110 survivors of the Clotilda — the last known illegal slave ship to reach American shores. For more than 160 years, their descendants have built, preserved, and fought for this community.
Today, Africatown faces a different kind of threat — one that comes through pipes, smokestacks, and stormwater drains. EPA's EJScreen tool ranks the community at the 99th percentile for air toxics cancer risk in Alabama. Three Mile Creek has been on ADEM's impaired waterways list since 1996. Mercury was confirmed in Hog Bayou in 2022. PFAS was confirmed in February 2026.
This platform was built to change that — by collecting, mapping, and documenting what residents have known for decades, and delivering that evidence to the agencies with the legal obligation to act.
Three tools working together to document what residents have known for decades and build a record that cannot be ignored.
Community members submit water quality concerns through our Survey123 platform — odors, discoloration, health symptoms, infrastructure problems. Every report is timestamped and geolocated to a specific street.
Approved reports appear on the Africatown Water Quality Map — overlaid with EPA Toxic Release Inventory facility locations and the community boundary. Patterns become visible. Geographic concentration confirms what residents already know.
The documented record — community reports, federal data, mapped patterns, and the StoryMap — is shared with ADEM, EPA Region 4, the City of Mobile, Alabama's Congressional Delegation, and the press. The data makes it harder to ignore and harder to deny.
Initiative Lead · Technology Platform
A nonprofit dedicated to bridging the digital divide and empowering underserved communities through technology. Odi Eka built and maintains this platform, the ArcGIS maps, the Survey123 reporting tool, and the StoryMap.
Strategic Partner · WJTI Program
DSCEJ has spent decades on the frontlines of environmental advocacy across the Gulf South. This initiative was developed as part of DSCEJ's Water Justice Training Institute — one of 10 selected community projects.
Water Quality Partner · SWIM Monitoring
Mobile Baykeeper defends and revives the waters of Coastal Alabama. Their SWIM water quality monitoring program — now suspended due to lack of funding as of April 18, 2026 — provided independent water quality data for Three Mile Creek, Hog Bayou, and Mobile Bay.
Founded 2019 by Joe Womack, Ruth Ballard, and Anderson Flen. Manages Plateau Cemetery. Legal advocate under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act.
Clean Healthy Educated Safe & Sustainable. Uses scientific research to fight environmental racism. Led by Texas Southern University in alliance with HBCUs across the Southeast.
Mobile Environmental Justice Action Coalition. Formed by Africatown residents. Trains community members as EPA Smoke Readers and advocates at every regulatory hearing.
Stewards the 7-acre community garden that has fed residents for more than 50 years.
Representing direct descendants of the Clotilda survivors. Featured in the Netflix documentary “Descendant” (2022).
Founded 1880 by descendants of Clotilda survivors. One of more than 5,000 Rosenwald schools built across the South — and the only one still operating as a school today.
Every statistic on this platform is sourced from verified federal datasets, independent research, or community-submitted reports reviewed by Odi Eka Tech Outreach.
Your experience is evidence. Submit a water report and it goes directly onto the map and into the documented record.