Alabama endures New York City 'poop train' that 'smells like death'

This April 12, 2018 photo shows containers that were loaded with tons of sewage sludge in Parrish, Ala. More than two months after the so-called "Poop Train" rolled in from New York City, Hall says her small town smells like rotting corpses. Some say the trainloads of New Yorkers' excrement is turning Alabama into a dumping ground for other states' waste. (AP Photo/Jay Reeves)

By JEFF MARTIN and JAY REEVES, Associated Press

PARRISH, Ala. — PARRISH, Ala. (AP) - A stinking trainload of human waste from New York City is stranded in a tiny Alabama town, spreading a stench like a giant backed-up toilet - and the "poop train" is just the latest example of the South being used as a dumping ground for other states' waste.

In Parrish, Alabama, population 982, the sludge-hauling train cars have sat idle near the little league ball fields for more than two months, Mayor Heather Hall said. The smell is unbearable, especially around dusk after the atmosphere has become heated, she said.

"Oh my goodness, it's just a nightmare here," she said. "It smells like rotting corpses, or carcasses. It smells like death."

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All kinds of waste have been dumped in Georgia, Alabama and other Southern states in recent years, including toxic coal ash from power plants around the nation. In South Carolina, a plan to store radioactive nuclear waste in a rural area prompted complaints that the state was being turned into a nuclear dump.