Jackson Water Crisis

Bathing, cooking, cleaning, washing your hands, brushing your teeth, flushing the toilet and hydrating — these are all tasks in which water is needed. Residents in Jackson, Mississippi have to often live in a reality where they are unable to perform any of these tasks. 

Anthony Moore has never trusted the tap water and can’t remember the last time he ever drank the water coming out of his faucet in his home in Jackson. 

Growing up, Moore would sometimes turn on the tap water and found it to be discolored or even funny tasting. When the now 29-year-old longtime resident of Jackson would go to school as a child, he even remembered there being a greenish-blue pool of residue at the bottom of the water fountain. These issues have never stopped for him.

“We have a city that has never sought to invest in a neighborhood that is majority Black,” Moore said. “The city has never had an overwhelming interest in providing service to us. We have a failing city because America hasn’t equipped us with enough resources to address these issues.”

Residents like Moore have been facing an ongoing water crisis in Jackson for decades due to a lack of investment in infrastructure, mismanagement and various levels of systemic racism. Many have been reporting dirty water, leaking sewage and low water pressure. This comes after heavy rainfall caused extreme flooding last August and led to boiling water notices and some residents being left without water for months. Just months before, residents also endured a cold snap, similar to the one in 2021, that also caused pipes to freeze and left many without water once again. 

Town administrations have dealt with poor water infrastructure since the 1900s. The town’s first African American mayor, Harvey Johnson, held office for two terms and faced the challenges of poverty, a loss of population and a lack of federal and state resources. Even with his efforts to mitigate these circumstances, Jackson’s water system was still a concern at the end of his term in 2005 and still is four mayors later. Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba has been in office since 2017.

The city of Jackson has a population of about 143,776 people with about 83% Black people and about 17% white people. Residents, experts and community leaders said the crumbling water system that is more than 100 years old is an example of environmental racism, as many believe it wouldn’t be happening with a majority white community. 

“It’s a pretty similar story to a lot of the majority Black towns,” Katie Coates, Jackson resident and member Cooperation Jackson, a nonprofit cooperative network, said. “It really relates to historical divestment.”

Coates said there has been a massive amount of underfunding and almost no funding at all at times. The city of Jackson only got funding three times from the state in the past 25 years of spending, according to city officials. 

Earlier this year, Mayor Lumumba announced $800 million in federal funding for the city’s water system. Mississippi also received over $400 million in 2022 from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill to address water infrastructure. However, these amounts do not meet the estimated price of $2 billion that is needed to fully repair and replace the dated system, according to the mayor. 

The water crisis has mostly been affecting the southwest part of Jackson, while the northeast has been generally resourced. As Jackson is one of the most racially segregated cities in the nation, Coates said the differences are stark and the more affluent white parts of the city tend not to face many issues with their water. 

More than half of the minority population in Jackson is living in neighborhoods outside predominantly White communities, according to a study. As residents drive down streets, it immediately becomes evident where the neighborhoods change and the demographics with it. 

Coates said many schools with minority populations weren’t even able to flush toilets and businesses had to close due to safety concerns with using the water. 

“The impact is disproportionate to poor parts of town and more Black parts of town,” she said. 

One of the main reasons there have been so many issues with the water system is because of how outdated the facilities are. The oldest treatment facility, the J. H. Fewell plant, was constructed in 1914 and the second treatment facility, the O. B. Curtis plant, was constructed in 1992. Many of the pipes in the grounds have also not been replaced. 

“To have 100-year gaps in managing, investing or even considering reinstalling piping and plumbing in whole swaths of the city, it shows a grave negligence for those citizens,” Moore said. 

“To have 100-year gaps in managing, investing or even considering reinstalling piping and plumbing in whole swaths of the city, it shows a grave negligence for those citizens,” Moore said. 

In addition to the ongoing water issues, Moore has also experienced issues with the sewage system, as the smell of sewage has become the norm for him. He has also gotten used to the sound of gunshots and the sound his car makes when he hits a terrible pothole. He feels as if the city has problem after problem and residents face the brunt of it. 

“Everything is a saga in Jackson because there is a high level of incompetence in the city government,” Moore said. “I shouldn’t have to tell my Black leaders that my Black neighborhood has been neglected forever. We deserve some sort of preferential treatment from the government to alleviate some of the problems that we’ve been living under and still continue to live on.”

Even though he still sees Jackson as a place that isn’t hospitable to him, he said it motivates him to speak out against the hardships his community is facing. 

“I’ve always had the motivation to improve my community and better the quality of life of the people around me,” he said. “It was also a sense of Black identity that really motivated me to get out and advocate for Black Americans to improve their communities.”

Moore said the city has invested in richer and whiter neighborhoods in Jackson, which has created a hub of gentrification that worries may continue to spread throughout Jackson.

“They picked up their legacy from white leaders who left in the early 90’s when we got our first Black mayor and they never put that legacy down,” he said. “They just continued to hold it there.” 

When Moore first began to experience issues with the sewage system, he reached out to his neighbors and city council members that represented his area. His council representative was immediately impressed by his courage to speak up and asked if Moore could help bring up issues that residents were experiencing. 

Moore learned a 92-year-old man was using a bucket to clean up the sewage that would end up in his yard for three straight months and during this time, many residents were also digging out trenches in order to flow the sewage away from their homes. He knew there had to be some solutions to help his neighborhood that also has a large elderly population with residents who now have trouble doing manual labor. 

“That is a health hazard that has taken place all across the city on a scale that I don’t think is really understood at all,” Moore said. “I don’t think people understand the health issues that arise from having to use a bucket at the age of 92 years old.” 

Moore would call the city and would receive responses where they said they were working on a similar case and would follow up. However, the problems were never solved. 

“I was disturbed by the lack of serious concern for this type of problem,” he said. “I don’t think this is what it should take to have my neighborhood represented.”

In a four month period, the city of Jackson reported 259 sewer overflows, which released more than 44.6 million gallons of sewage into the environment, according to a report they filed under a consent decree. From Dec. 1 in 2021 through March 21 in 2022, the city also estimated about 33.9 million gallons went into waters classified as “Waters of the U.S,” meaning streams and wetlands that are protected by the Clean Water Act. 

Moore said that while the state has played an active role in neglecting the city of Jackson, the local government hasn’t done enough for its own residents and feels that they should be held responsible. 

Abre’ Conner, director of the NAACP Center of Environmental and Climate Justice Program, also believes Jackson has been experiencing levels of systemic racism and environmental racism for years and history is simply repeating itself. However, she feels the state is mainly at fault. 

“It’s a tale as old as time,” she said. “Jackson was finally starting to really take control of their resources and do what they could to rebuild, but then a majority white state legislature used their power to try to suppress the rights and power of Black community members within their state. And that’s what we’ve continued to see.” 

“It’s a tale as old as time,” she said. “Jackson was finally starting to really take control of their resources and do what they could to rebuild, but then a majority white state legislature used their power to try to suppress the rights and power of Black community members within their state. And that’s what we’ve continued to see.” 

She remembers visiting Jackson late last year and speaking with residents about the issues they were currently facing at the time. Whether it was students consistently switching between remote and in-person learning due to loss of water, doctors contemplating whether they would be able to perform procedures or residents having to travel miles to purchase bottled water – she said the effects have been detrimental and the state has played a large role in the crisis. 

“The state has done a really good job of creating a misinformation campaign for folks on the ground to really understand who actually has the power to get resources to the city in order to fix the water issues,” she said. “What residents didn’t realize was that the state is the first entity that gets water infrastructure funds and that the city is put in a really tough position to be able to rebuild a water infrastructure.”

Following her visit, she testified in front of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security regarding the depth of water and infrastructure issues that have affected Black communities for years, including Jackson. She emphasized the ongoing crisis being rooted in historical disinvestment and Jacksonians continuing to bear the brunt of a lack of disaster preparedness. 

The NAACP has been active in advocating for Jackson residents and their right to clean and constant water. In Sept. of last year, the NAACP filed a discrimination complaint against the state of Mississippi for their mishandling of Jackson’s water crisis. The state responded by saying Jackson has never been discriminated against and they have approved every loan the city has requested. They also applauded the passage of a funding package, which included $600 million for the EPA to address the water crisis in Dec. of last year. 

“These are the kinds of conditions that you would not expect for people in a state capitol to be dealing with,” Connor siad. “This is the type of situation that could’ve been avoided with more resources from the state.” 

Controversial Mississippi flood control project stirs worry amongst residents and activists  

One of the water treatment facilities, the O. B. Curtis plant, is right next to the Ross Barnett Reservoir located on the Pearl River between Madison and Rankin counties. When heavy rainfall caused the reservoir and the river to flood last year in August, many residents were left without safe, reliable water. The Pearl River is Jackson’s primary drinking water source. 

The Pearl River Basin Federal Flood Risk Management Project, also known as the “One Lake Project,” has been proposed to reduce flood risks for riverside and creekside communities in the Jackson area. However, the project is set to have several negative environmental impacts on the southwest part of Jackson. 

Andrew Whitehurst, a board member of the Pearl River Keepers and Healthy Gulf, has been fighting to stop the project for years and believes it will have detrimental effects on the community and on the river itself. 

He said the project has to be environmentally acceptable and it has to be economically justified. 

“It’s probably technically feasible to do because it’s a dredging project and the corps does that, but it is the most environmentally damaging alternative that they can offer,” he said. “It wrecks the most wetlands and displaces the most habitat and it has the most potential to change the river downstream of Jackson.”

There are three alternative ways of going through with the project that complies with the National Environmental Policy Act: nonstructural methods of flood reduction including floodplain buyouts, elevations of homes and floodproofing; extensive improvements to the levee system; and lake dredging. 

Reviewers are mainly set on dredging the lake. However, Whitehurst said this alternative wouldn’t actually add any flood storage capacity to the river.

“It would dig a big section of the river out, fill that section with water as a lake and then anything that comes down the river would ride on top of that water,” he said. “It doesn’t function like a flood control reservoir that has a dam with a lot of freeboards where the water level goes up and down. This would be holding a static water level at 258 feet above sea level and the river would just have to adjust to life with that situation.”

Whitehurst believes Jackson has many issues that make this potential project even worse, as the city has been unable to keep up with the maintenance of its drinking water system, has lost revenue and has seen a decrease in its tax base. 

“Keeping up with infrastructure repair needs has been difficult and Jackson’s water distribution system and sewer pipes are in a very unforgivable and very unforgiving clay formation,” he said. 

Jackson’s water system has been built on yazoo clay – a highly weathered clay that easily shrinks and expands. This type of clay has presented many problems for engineers and has caused many issues with the water system. 

“People are definitely aware of what’s in the water and they also know that they drink it — it’s their water supply,” he said. “There’s a lack of shame that makes them accept the situation.”

He said Jackson’s problem regarding the project is with the Ross Barnett Reservoir, which hasn’t been designed to hold a lot of flood water. When it floods, it must release water without going past the dam’s design capabilities, without overtopping levees in Jackson and without backing water up into urban tributaries. 

“It doesn’t have much room to work with when a large rainstorm hits the upper Pearl drainage watershed,” he said. “So water has to be released through Jackson and the problems that have come from these releases have been due to tributaries back-flooding into neighborhoods.”

The Environmental Impact Study suggests that Jackson may have to find an alternative source of drinking water for at least ⅓ of its drinking water supply during lake construction, leaving residents to find another source of water. 

“Jackson has already seen what it’s like to lose its larger drinking water plant and to have to rely on the smaller plants,” he said. “It didn’t work very well and we were out of water for two months. Knowing that during construction you’ll have drinking water problems again is a big red flag for this project.”

“Jackson has already seen what it’s like to lose its larger drinking water plant and to have to rely on the smaller plants,” he said. “It didn’t work very well and we were out of water for two months. Knowing that during construction you’ll have drinking water problems again is a big red flag for this project.”

Whitehurst said in the past 24 years of working in the Jackson area in his field, he has always seen a lack of investment in the city. 

He is expecting the Corps of Engineers to approve the plan since an announcement was made last year that the entire federal share for the project would go into the Army Corps of Engineers budget. He believes this won’t make it hard for them to approve of a plan that would invest in them. 

The news of the project also comes at a time when the Pearl River has been named the third most endangered river on this year’s list of ‘America’s Most Endangered Rivers.’ American Rivers, an organization fighting for healthy rivers and clean water, says the threat to the river is dredging and dam construction, which is a part of the One Lake Project. They also say clean drinking water, local and downstream communities and fish and wildlife habitats are at risk. 

Many environmental advocates are also skeptical of the project due to plans to develop real estate along the river. The dredged material of the river would be used to build new waterfront property. 

Catoria Martin, Jackson city attorney, believes the One Lake project should not occur. She said the land on the Pearl River is considered to be valuable and there have been talks of plans for years to try and take over that land to redevelop it. 

“I think One Lake is definitely the plan to gentrify and get the Black people out of the city,” she said. 

The dredging would also cause disturbance to eight highly contaminated toxic sites along the river with no plan in place yet to protect the public’s health. 

“The One Lake project is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. No matter how promoters dress it up, this project would damage river health and worsen Jackson’s flooding and drinking water crisis,” Olivia Dorothy, associate director for Mississippi River management at American Rivers said in a press release. “Instead of lining the pockets of private real estate developers, our leaders must deliver real drinking water and flood protection solutions for the people of Jackson.”

American Rivers, among additional environmental groups, have called on the Biden administration to stop the project from happening and instead invest in flood relief for Jackson while also protecting the Pearl River. 

Environmental Protection Agency and attorney general issue complaint against city of Jackson for failing to provide reliable drinking water 

The United States and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) filed a complaint in November of last year against the city of Jackson for failing to provide reliable drinking water. 

The EPA claimed Jackson created an imminent and substantial endangerment to health; failed to staff O.B. Curtis and J.H. Fewell with operators at all times; and failed to implement an alternative water source plan, among other claims. 

At the same time, the United States filed a proposal in federal court that appointed an Interim Third Party Manager to Jackson to stabilize the city of Jackson, Mississippi’s public drinking water system and build confidence in the system’s ability to supply safe drinking water to the system’s customers. 

Following the complaint, the city of Jackson entered a consent decree – an agreement between Jackson and the EPA – in which they must enforce established rules and regulations due to sewage discharge violations they have received annually. 

This is also not the first time the city of Jackson has entered a consent decree. The city also entered one in 2012 with the EPA and the U.S. Department of Justice to bring its sewer into compliance with federal water quality laws. When the city entered into the decree at the time, there was no official plan for how they would fund it, according to Martin. 

Moore said he wasn’t surprised when he learned about the complaint and believed it should’ve been filed more than a half of a decade ago. He said he has realized that the city of Jackson has failed to meet their decrees various times and that organizations have extended the consent decrees.

Martin said the city of Jackson is now focusing on a priority project list of tasks that would improve the water system which is led by the Interim Third Party Manager. One of the main priorities is to stabilize the system so that there would be no more boil water notices, sufficient water pressure and water tanks that are always filled. Another main focus is winterization since the water system suffers whenever Jackson gets extremely cold weather. 

She said the main issue of the city’s upkeep of the water system has been funding. Martin said when Jackson would receive money through the state, commissions with appointees appointed by the governor and the lieutenant governor would make it so that money would often be spent on roads and bridges – not water. 

“I think every municipality that is a majority Democrat municipality in the majority Republican state has the same issues we’re facing,” Martin said. “The problem that we’ve had is we’ve kind of been stuck with trying to figure it out on our own, where some of the municipalities have had a lot more support from the state.”

Martin herself has lived in Jackson all of her life. She said she has seen her neighbors go through various measures to get clean water including using solely bottled water and traveling to any friends they have in the suburbs to fill up jugs of water. 

She said while the boil water notices have decreased, they are still occurring on a much smaller scale and only throughout specific parts of Jackson – in comparison to the city as a whole. Martin added Jackson has not recently experienced issues of a lack of clean water throughout the system and it is more of a water pressure problem. However, residents do not agree. 

She said there are currently plans for the city to dig up roads in Jackson and replace the water and sewer lines one line at a time and then pave new roads. 

“This is not something that we in the past have been able to afford to do,” Martin said. “What we’ve been doing in the past is tracing emergencies. We’re actually going in and doing an investigation to see if it’s an infrastructure issue.” 

Some residents were also reporting sporadic and expensive water bills. 

Martin explained that when Jackson invested in the engineering firm Siemens Incorporated, the water meters and as a result the billing didn’t always work the way it was supposed to. This led to many residents not getting a bill for months, so when they did it was a sum of all of the past bills they were not given. 

“We deserve better,” Martin said. “I say that to the Mayor. I say that to the city council. I say that to my staff. Our citizens deserve better.” 

“We deserve better,” Martin said. “I say that to the Mayor. I say that to the city council. I say that to my staff. Our citizens deserve better.” 

Moore said there needs to be more accountability towards the city following the complaint and multiple attempts at meeting consent decrees. Especially with new funding, he hopes there will be more attentiveness to what residents are saying. 

“I don’t think the city is going to be responsible because at this point the city has gotten into a reflexive state where they understand that any attempt to regulate them is not truly serious,” Moore said. 

Residents continue to worry as advocates push for more support

Calandra Davis, a longtime Jackson resident and regional organizer in Jackson, works as a bottom-up organizer with the Mississippi for a Green New Deal, in which she knocks on doors and speaks with residents to find out more about their concerns, issues and come up with solutions for a sustainable community.

Davis, who now lives in West Jackson, said she would often experience boil water notices, the water being shut off and sometimes brown water coming out of the faucet. 

“My daughter still goes to school in Jackson and whenever something happens with the water, she has to be out of school,” Davis said. “It’s been a pretty regular occurrence.” 

She is working to make Jackson’s city water system a community-owned and operated system and wants to do so through wells. 

“I’m not looking to the system, the government, whether that’s a local municipality, the state or the federal government to bring the solutions to the communities that we need,” she said. “If the community collectively wants something to happen, then it will happen. There’s support around the wells.”

She said she has spoken to various residents who are looking for solutions since they are trying to figure out how to get water for themselves and their families to take a shower, brush their teeth and do other daily tasks. However, she said there is also a sense of hopelessness from residents, as many are burnt out from going to the city and various entities asking for help regarding the water crisis. 

“This has been an ongoing crisis for decades, but none of these government entities are really touching the bottom, which are the most impacted people,” Davis said. “Environmental racism was one of the leading factors in Jackson having horrible infrastructure with the Blackest part of the city having the worst infrastructure.”

When the extreme cold weather hit Jackson last December, Lorena Quiroz-Lewis, executive director of the Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity, knew many residents would be impacted. Even though her own pipes broke down, she and other community leaders checked in with Jacksonians and gave out water and gas stoves to those in need. 

“I don’t drink Jackson water,” she said. “I have to always worry about the expenses of buying bottled water.” 

She is now also worrying about informing Black and brown residents about the One Lake project and what it could do to residents. 

“Folks need to know that they have a human right to water and to live in a dignified community,” Quiroz-Lewis said. “We’re building escalation efforts with people at the forefront, and also thinking of a plan A, B and C.” 

Her main goal is for Jackson residents to be prepared for the worst outcome. 

Moore said he has been connected with other residents that are also advocating for the betterment of Jackson after realizing some politicians and leaders are turning a blind eye and not trying to find solutions. 

“I think citizens absolutely should be calling for a comprehensive plan for the overhaul of the entire water and sewer system, and that goes from the facility to the roadway,” Moore said. 

As many residents are starting to leave the city due to its issues, many have also grown up in the city and feel invested in fixing the quality of life no matter the obstacles they may face. 

“My neighbors that live here now, they have been here and they aren’t going anywhere,” Moore said. “They do feel strongly that they still deserve services. They do feel strongly that they do have a right to voice their concern and discontent.”

Moore said he thinks of the city of Jackson as a giant donut – all of the money is surrounding the city with a big donut hole in the middle with no money, resources or investment. 

While Jackson has recently been receiving some funding, there are still many obstacles in place that limit the city from receiving what they really need. 

Mississippi’s funding structure includes a cap of loans for public water systems at $5 million and a cap of $500,000 for loan forgiveness. Meanwhile, it is publicly known that it would take at least $1 billion to fully address the water crisis. 

“The state is the entity with the most power to actually ensure that resources reach the city of Jackson until there are some major changes at the federal level,” Connor said. “It really is the state that makes a lot of those decisions that have bet upon Jackson residents.” 

“The state is the entity with the most power to actually ensure that resources reach the city of Jackson until there are some major changes at the federal level,” Connor said. “It really is the state that makes a lot of those decisions that have bet upon Jackson residents.” 

Additionally, in order to receive American Rescue Plan funding, any city must obtain approval from a state department of environmental quality. However, the state of Mississippi passed a law requiring only the city of Jackson to obtain an additional set of approvals from the Department of Finance and Administration. 

Moore plans to continue to urge leaders at all levels – local, state and federal – to listen to Jackson residents and implement real change.

“I pray that the state can find some sense of seriousness and concern for the citizens to invest and dedicate themselves to finding a solution to our real quality of life issues,” Moore said. “I plan to hold the leaders of Jackson accountable.”