Jackson City Council Closer to Enabling Federal Oversight for Water Solutions

Jim Craig, with the Mississippi State Department of Health, left, leads Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, right, Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), center, and Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, rear, as they walk past sedimentation basins at the City of Jackson's O.B. Curtis Water Treatment Facility in Ridgeland, Miss., on Sept. 2, 2022. (Rogelio V. Solis/AP Photo, Pool)

Officials from Jackson City in Mississippi, a region that recently faced a water crisis, have voted to allow a one-year legal agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that allows the federal entity to get involved in the city’s efforts to ensure water security in the region.

Jackson City has faced water problems for decades. However, things got a bit more heated in late August when heavy rains affected a local plant, depriving the city’s 150,000 residents of running water.

“It’s a cooperative agreement that will give the city an opportunity in a short amount of time to try to make sure we have clean, safe, reliable drinking water for the constituents,” City Council member Angelique C. Lee Ward said to reporters after the council vote. “We have all hopes and intention that in 12 months, we'll be at a functioning place and we won’t have to be taken over in any other capacity.”

Back in July, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves had implemented a boil water advisory after tests showed that water quality was cloudy and could make people ill. The advisory was only lifted in September when Reeves announced the restoration of clean water.

Funding, Operators

City Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba blames Jackson’s water situation on “decades of disinvestment in the city’s infrastructure,” according to an Oct. 24 press release.

“The solution must address the immediate issues, but also provide long-term investments that will help us reimagine Jackson’s water infrastructure.”

The Mayor’s office is attempting to secure more than $100 million in federal funding to repair, upgrade, and modernize the water facilities.

Jackson is also facing staffing issues. At present, the city only has two licensed Class A operators who have the technical expertise to ensure clean water is produced at the plants. They work more than 80 hours per week.

The council members have voted to hire contract workers from a company in Los Angeles to staff O.B. Curtis and J.H. Fewell water treatment plants and related infrastructure.

In an interview with AP, Ted Henifin, a consultant working with the city council, said that the temporary workers, who will be on standby, will be deployed during emergency periods.

“The big piece of this is it also allows [operators] not to have to work 70 to 80 hours a week,” Henifin said. “They’re actually going to get some of their life back, which I think they would all like at this point in time.