By: Pierre Craig
Growing up in Dallas, Texas, nothing was more refreshing than a cold glass of water on a hot summer day. Unfortunately, simple pleasures like this may be taken for granted as one city in the Southern United States dealt with a combination of events that caused a severe water crisis that has affected tens of thousands of residents.
The city of Jackson, Mississippi, had struggled with poor and aging water treatment facilities long before heavy rains swept across the Mississippi state capital in August 2022. Prior to the intense summer rains that flooded much of Jackson, the state capital was under a boil water notice for over a month after the Mississippi Department of Health declared water found in pipes that flow to residents’ homes to be unsafe to consume due to high lead and bacteria contaminant counts.[1] As a result, the city was placed under a state of emergency because of the public health threat to Jackson residents.[2]
The heavy rains in August caused significant flooding along the Pearl River, a primary water source in the city of Jackson.[3] The flooding caused damage to two water treatment plants in the city, which led to the plants’ inability to produce sufficient water pressure to dissolve and suspend harmful pollutants found in wastewater.
Although this most recent extreme climate event has exacerbated water supply issues in Jackson, several other severe storms over the past two decades have impeded Jackson residents’ access to clean and reliable water. In 2010, a severe winter storm rolled through Jackson weakening the city’s water infrastructure and left residents with untreated water for weeks.[4] During the winter of 2021, severe ice storms again passed through the city causing pipes and water mains to burst.[5]
The city’s two water treatment plants have had numerous problems over the past two decades, which have caused intermittent water supply issues. Moreover, Jackson’s failure to provide safe drinking water has drawn scrutiny from the Mississippi Department of Health and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over the years.
Jackson’s water and sewer treatment systems failed an inspection conducted by the EPA in 2012, which forced the city of Jackson to enter into a Clean Water Act settlement with the EPA and U.S. Department of Justice.[6] Among many other requirements under the settlement, the city of Jackson pledged to improve maintenance of its sewer systems to eliminate unauthorized overflows of untreated raw sewage and unauthorized bypasses of treatment at its water treatment plants.[7] This was Jackson’s first notice from the federal government to improve its water infrastructure for public consumption, but unfortunately this notice did not spark city and state officials to do so.
The EPA’s National Enforcement Investigations Center conducted another compliance investigation at Jackson’s two water treatment plants in February 2020. According to an EPA report that released the summary of the field investigation, lead action level exceedances had occurred in three consecutive monitoring periods in 2015 and 2016 in violation of the EPA’s Lead and Copper Rule.[8] It was observed that the city of Jackson failed to fully implement lead and copper tap water monitoring requirements, such as following sample collection procedures and evaluating the condition of materials to identify potential lead service lines.[9] Furthermore, the city of Jackson failed to provide its residents with notice regarding lead action level exceedances in the water used for public consumption.[10]
The most abhorrent discovery from the investigation revealed disinfection issues were found at both water treatment plants where maximum residual disinfectant levels for chloramines, the primary residual disinfectant to treat wastewater, exceeded 4.0 mg/l (milligrams per liter) while disinfection devices used to detect this compound were found to be offline for significant periods of time at both plants.[11] These violations occurred in January and February of 2020 as the EPA discovered these infractions through monthly operating reports submitted by Jackson city officials under their settlement agreement.[12] In fact, the city of Jackson reported in its monthly operating report for January 2020 that one disinfection device was offline for the entire month at one of the city’s water treatment plants.[13]
Other issues cited in the EPA’s report related to infrastructure, operational, and maintenance issues with the water distribution systems at each Jackson water plant.[14] The J.H. Fewell water treatment plant is essentially a relic of civil engineering design as operations at the plant began in 1914.[15] EPA field inspectors observed that many portions of the plant’s infrastructure were in poor condition and an overall “general state of disrepair.”[16]
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves places the blame for Jackson’s water crisis on the city of Jackson itself. Specifically, Governor Reeves points to the crumbling mismanagement of Jackson’s water plants under the watch of Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba and his administration.[17] Gross mismanagement and lack of concern is certainly apparent with the state of Jackson’s ancient water distribution system reaching the point of daily, intermittent leaks or line breaks.[18] These incidents have required the city to issue boil water notices to residents. The EPA has tallied over 750 boil water notices issued since 2016.[19] However, Governor Reeves has been a detrimental actor to Jackson’s water management and treatment issues.
As a republican, Reeves is an advocate for fiscal conservatism, which is evidenced by his staunch opposition against policy that would increase expenditures earmarked to benefit the state capital.[20] Prior to be elected as governor in 2020, Reeves served as Treasurer of Mississippi for eight years from 2004 to 2012. During his tenure as State Treasurer, the Mississippi Bond Commission refused to consider issuing bonds for Jackson water infrastructure projects authorized by the State Legislature.[21]
Governor Reeves’ record of denial for bond issuance for Jackson water projects has been called into question by media members as the water crisis continues. Reeves claims that the city failed to prepare the necessary paperwork to receive bonds issued by the Legislature.[22] However, Jackson elected officials prepared a proposal for the Mississippi Legislature to consider during the 2010 session in which it requested the state for $13 million in treasury bonds for water system upgrades in downtown.[23] Reeves attempted to derail Jackson’s bid to receive state bonds by initially failing to include the city’s water project in the bonds scheduled to issue in fall 2010.[24] Reeves also allowed a sales tax bill to die in the 2021 Legislative session which would have helped to fund infrastructure repairs in Jackson.[25]
Professor Robert Bullard, a distinguished urban planning and environmental policy professor at Texas Southern University, says that the current condition of civil infrastructure in many urban city cores have significantly deteriorated after long stretches of disinvestment.[26] Wealthy families that have moved outside of Jackson’s urban core has caused the city’s tax base to shrink, thereby reducing city revenue streams along with it.[27] When this occurs, new suburban communities receive resources at ease for new infrastructure projects while urban cores lose their appeal to receive state funding to support infrastructure.[28] It becomes apparent, then, that the Jackson water crisis is a social justice issue. The Jackson water crisis has also evolved into an environmental justice issue as severe climate events further expose the decrepit state of the city’s water distribution and treatment systems at the expense of Black communities in Jackson.
Social justice activists have plead to federal and state representatives of Mississippi to intervene and find a solution to the ongoing Jackson water crisis.[29] Residents of the Mississippi state capital have practically begged for assistance from Reeves, whom many believe has neglected their basic human right to clean water.[30] Reeves’ actions in the early stages of Jackson’s water crisis have also raised concerns that the lack of infrastructure investment suggests a systemic racial issue that poses a disproportionate environmental hazard to Black residents in the state capital.
According to the 2020 U.S. Census, 82.5 percent of the capital’s approximately 150,000 residents are Black.[31] As such, many experts see parallels between the situation in Jackson and the Flint, Michigan, water crisis, where Black communities have continued to be disproportionately exposed to contaminated drinking water for many years. In response to complaints filed by the NAACP and many Jackson residents, the EPA announced it would launch a new investigation into the Mississippi Departments of Health and Environmental Quality to determine whether Black residents faced discrimination due to the lack of funding of water infrastructure and treatment programs within the capital.[32]
Mississippi’s state of emergency order for Jackson’s water crisis was recently extended to November 22nd.[33] Governor Reeves and Mayor Lumumba expressed that water treatment in the city will now be operated by a private company rather than by the state.[34] Residents hope that this change spells hope to have reliable running water at scale to bathe, cook, and drink safely.
Mayor Lumumba believes that restoring Jackson’s water system could cost at least $200 million dollars, but that figure could balloon to $2 billion dollars in consideration of labor and material costs.[35] Under President Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure bill, Mississippi was scheduled to receive around $75 million dollars in federal funding to begin repairs to the state’s water infrastructure during the 2022 fiscal year.[36] These federal funds have been delivered for use for the entire state and not Jackson by itself, so it remains to be seen what portion of federal funds will be allocated to improve Jackson’s water infrastructure.
Conclusion
The increasing incidents of severe climate events caused by climate change in America is worth taking concern to. Many regions of the United States now experience severe heat waves, flooding, and winter storms that were not customarily prone to happen several decades ago. As a natural consequence, the public infrastructure that serves to support our population must be maintained and repaired through adequate investment to protect against future interruptions caused by severe climate events. The lack of attention and investment devoted towards the upkeep of water treatment facilities like those in Jackson, Mississippi, substantially contributed to the city’s ongoing water crisis at the expense of a predominantly Black population. The residents of Jackson deserve access to clean water in their daily lives as a basic human right. State and federal government officials should recognize the severity of this issue and make the proper effort to invest in civil infrastructure across in urban cores nationwide to avoid future public heath crises from becoming unmanageable.
[1] Emily Le Coz, Daniel Connolly, Hadley Hitson, and Evan Mealins, Jackson Water Crisis Flows from Century of Poverty, Neglect, and Racism, Mississippi Today,(Nov. 7, 2022), https://mississippitoday.org/2022/11/07/jackson-water-crisis-poverty-neglect-racism/.
[2] Jason Breslow, The Water Crisis in Jackson Follows Years of Failure to Fix an Aging System, National Public Radio, (Aug. 31, 2022),https://www.npr.org/2022/08/31/1120166328/jackson-mississippi-water-crisis.
[3] Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, City of Jackson — J.H. Fewell Intake: Source Water Assessment, (June 2004), https://www.mdeq.ms.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/FewelIntakeSWA.pdf.
[4] Michael Goldberg, Mississippi Governor, Who Opposed Water System Repairs, Blames Jackson for Crisis, Public Broadcast Station,(Sep. 27, 2022), https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/mississippi-governor-who-opposed-water-system-repairs-blames-jackson-for-crisis.
[5] Mississippi Governor Extends Jackson Water Crisis State of Emergency
[6] United States Environmental Protection Agency, NEIC Civil Investigation Report: City of Jackson Water System, (Mar. 30, 2020),https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/documents/jacksonmississippi-cd_0.pdf.
[7] Id.
[8] Id.
[9] Id.
[10] Id.
[11] Id.
[12] Id.
[13] Id.
[14] Id.
[15] Id.
[16] Id.
[17] Ross Adams, Governor Blames Mayor for Jackson’s Water Crisis, WAPT 16 ABC, (Oct. 20, 2022), https://www.wapt.com/article/mississippi-governor-blames-mayor-for-jackson-water-crisis/41726291.
[18] NEIC Civil Investigation Report: City of Jackson Water System
[19] Id.
[20] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/mississippi-governor-who-opposed-water-system-repairs-blames-jackson-for-crisis
[21] Id.
[22] Id.
[23] Id.
[24] Id.
[25] Id.
[26] Anna Nawaz, How Jackson, Mississippi’s Water Crisis is a Sign of Larger Racial Equalities, Public Broadcast Station, (Sep. 12, 2022), https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-jackson-mississippis-water-crisis-is-a-sign-of-larger-racial-inequities.
[27] Id.
[28] Id.
[29] Center for Disaster Philanthropy, Jackson, Mississippi Water Crisis, (last updated Nov. 18, 2022), https://disasterphilanthropy.org/disasters/jackson-mississippi-water-crisis/.
[30] Id.
[31] United States Census Bureau, Jackson City, Mississippi, (last updated July 1, 2021), https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/jacksoncitymississippi.
[32] Daniel Trotta, U.S. EPA Opens Up Civil Rights Probe into Mississippi Capital’s Water Crisis, Reuters, (Octo. 20, 2022), https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-epa-opens-civil-rights-probe-into-mississippi-capitals-water-crisis-2022-10-20/.
[33] Claire Colbert and Hannah Sarisohn, Mississippi Governor Extends Jackson Water Crisis State of Emergency, (Oct. 31, 2022),https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/29/us/mississippi-water-crisis-extended
[34] Id.
[35] Mississippi Governor Extends Jackson Water Crisis State of Emergency
[36] White House, President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is Delivering in Mississippi, (last updated July 2022), https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Mississippi-BIL-Fact-Sheet.pdf.
