Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

In 1972, Dr. Lilia Abron earned her PhD in chemical engineering, becoming the first African American woman in the U.S. with the distinction. On Wednesday, March 5, she celebrated her 80th birthday with the people of Lowndes County, where she has used her extensive knowledge and experience to bridge wastewater disposal disparities through the Black Belt Unincorporated Wastewater Program (BBUWP) and Peers Consultants P.C.

“She is the visionary,” said BBUWP Executive Director Sherry Bradley. “She is the one who has gotten us to where we are now.”

Recognized as one of the first professionals in her field to suggest and demonstrate that sustainable initiatives can rapidly advance the condition of the impoverished sectors of the world, Abron was the first acting executive director for BBUWP and continues serving as the organization’s second in command.

“She is very humble,” Bradley said. “She doesn’t take credit for all the knowledge she brings to the table. She comes to Lowndes County often and was present at our last annual meeting.”

Abron earned her bachelor’s degree in 1966 and her master’s degree in sanitary engineering in 1968, working at the Kansas City Water Department, then at the Metropolitan District of Sanitation in Chicago as a sanitary engineer before pursuing her doctoral degree in chemical engineering.

Teaching about water resources at Tennessee State and Vanderbilt until 1976, Abron moved to Washington D.C. and married before accepting a teaching position for civil engineering at Howard University, where she remained on the faculty for ten years. She launched Peer Consultants in 1978 and since then she has focused her efforts on water, wastewater, hazardous waste cleanup, remediation, air pollution and other efforts related to health and welfare of the environment.

“People frequently ask, ‘What do you do?’” Abron said. “If I do my job, the environment will stay healthy and you will be the beneficiary — healthy environment, healthy humans, healthy animals, the whole bit.”

Abron explained her work with waterborne illnesses and how viruses like COVID-19 are spread through the water system. Monitoring systems enabled her and other chemical engineers to discover the virus’s presence and anticipate where the next impact would hit.

“We know how to keep the environment clean,” she said. “We are scientists; we are engineers. We’re public health professionals, so that’s what we do.”

In South Africa, Abron has worked in transforming shanty towns into 25,000 energy efficient homes. She became involved in a national effort to address WASH — water, sanitation and hygiene — issues in the Black Belt. The work connected her with Bradley and joined the initiative which became BBUWP.

“I was able to work with [Sherry] and talked to her,” Abron said. “We got a grant from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) to strengthen BBUWP and I told Sherry, ‘Peer is the wind beneath your wings. My job is to help you grow.”

Abron sees her work in Lowndes County as a task aimed at improving the health and sanitation of communities.

“If I can get the sewage off the ground, that’s the first step, getting decent, on-site sanitation that works,” Abron said. “[We will] have to come in with clean soil, because the ground is so contaminated. But that’s the next step.

“In the meantime, we are improving the homes, because in some homes, the pipes are leaking into the electrical box. We improve the indoor environment and get the contamination off the grass. Kids, they play and then get stuff [on their shoes] and they get sick. So we are preventing that, and we’re making it possible for [people] to enjoy their surroundings.”

Bradley said the birthday celebration was planned to honor the leader who had guided BBUWP in making a difference for Lowndes County residents.

“I love her guidance,” Bradley said. “I love everything she stands for, which is helping people. And that’s what we do.”