Climate change has become the more pressing issue of the 21st century. Global warming, hurricane and tornado activity, fires, and flooding around the world dominate the headlines. Concerns about the environment have both global and personal implications. Nothing illustrates this situation than the recent Water Crisis in Jackson, Mississippi. In many ways, this event is, like the climate change challenges it represents, a perfect storm. It is the product of weather events such as the flooding of the Pearl River, neglect of the water system over decades, and bureaucratic infighting between the State of Mississippi and the City of Jackson.
Jackson, Mississippi has the largest water treatment facility in the state of Mississippi. It has more than 71,000 connections and serves the nearby Hinds, Rankin, and Madison counties. The city is 70% Black and led by a Chokwe Lumumba, a Progressive Democratic Mayor. Mississippi’s Governor is Tad Reeves, a Republican. The difference between the Democratic and Republican agendas is as wide as the Mississippi River. This situation has led to infighting between Republicans and Democrats on the best path forward.
Problems with the City of Jackson’s water system date back to 2010. A winter storm disrupted the system and caused several water line breaks and a city-wife outage. Businesses and hospitals increased reliance on private sources of water supply. Two years later, in 2012, the city of Jackson failed a Safe Drinking Water Test administered by the Environmental Protection Agency. This led to a settlement latter in the year to improve maintenance of the water system. In 2021, a climatic event, a winter storm shut down the O.B Waters Treatment Plan. This left the city of Jackson without water for a month. Despite an agreement between the city and the EPA to repair the treatment plan, Jackson’s water infrastructure continued to deteriorate. Water pressure was low to many homes and sewage flowed in the streets.
Efforts to correct this situation through a series of stop gap measures largely failed. Much of this failure can be a attributed to inadequate funding at the state level and the inability of city officials to manage the situation with inadequate support and resources. The EPA announced a grant of $74.9 million from the Infrastructure Investment Act. Jackson’s Mayor Chokwe Lumumba estimated the cost would exceed $2 billion. The city asked the state for$ 47 million but was granted only $3 million. Lack of funding to correct basic problems with the water system compounded problems. High break rates in Jackson’s water lines— 55 breaks per 100 miles were just one of the many problems plaguing the system. The EPA issued a report in 2022 detailing a series of problems with the management of the sewer system including high employee turnover, understaffing, inability to issue water bills properly, and water meters that malfunctioned. The lack of staff led to the inability to properly maintain the water system. This included among other things failure to record water pressure, failed to regularly flush the lines, lack of maintenance of valves and hydrants and the inability of staff to cycle water through storage tanks to maintain chlorine levels.
This severely damaged and inadequate water system was ripe for the catastrophe that is currently known as the Jackson water Crisis. Heavy rains caused the city to receive 12 inches of precipitation in a short period. The rain caused the Pearl River to rise and crest at 38 feet, which is 10 feet over the flood stage. This led to the flooding of the Curtis plant. As the plant tittered on the brink of failure, the state of Mississippi assumed operation of the facility on August 29th. Problems with pumps meant that no clean water was available to the residents of Jackson. Governor Reeves declared an emergency and deployed 600 members of the National Guard. They distributed bottled water to the residents.
Alerted by Governor Reeves request, President Biden declared Mississippi a disaster zone which released federal funds to address the situation. The crisis caused a major disruption in Jackson forcing stores to close and schools to engage in virtual learning. In the interim , the state used a well dig at the Mississippi Fairgrounds and rented pumps to stabilize the water supply. On September 4th, the city announced the water supply was stabilized and it was much cleaner. The state has proposed long term solutions to the water system including privatization and the establishment of a commission to provide oversight.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP) and other national observers are less convinced of the state’s sincerity in solving the problem. The organization has filed a Title VI complaint against the State of Mississippi citing a long and sustained pattern of racial discrimination and blatant mishandling of the recent water crisis. The complaint alleges among other things systematic discrimination by the State of Mississippi against the citizens of Jackson, a long standing pattern of withholding federal funds from the city of Jackson to fix and maintain the water system and willful neglect by the State of Mississippi in mitigating the health effects of a failed water system.
No doubt, the national attention garnered by this crisis against the backdrop of raising concern about climatic change, environmental justice and climate equity make this situation part of the modern playbook for ways to correct environmental inequity. The challenge here is to heighten the level of concern when problems impact communities of color. Not to assume that these problems are less significant or can be allowed to festered precisely because they impact communities of color. We must be as strident and proactive in addressing these inequities as we are to bring relief and assistance in major disasters. Regardless of race or class, an environmental injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere.