TALK JXN
JACKSON WATER CRISIS
How the Water Shutdown Unfolded; What, Who Is Needed to Fix It
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son,” one of the hardest-hit parts of the city because of its distance from the treatment plants. Williams compared the experience to the crash of a computer. He acknowledged that restoring the correct function has been slow and showed on a map that reservoirs are all over the city, and were depleted when the water treatment centers suffered the winter blast effects. “As you see the storage tanks that are throughout the city of Jackson, we are trying to gain enough pressure to get these
evated areas, that’s why you need a certain pressure in order to get up to those areas, and also push that water down to south Jackson and into Byram.” State, Federal Help Needed Mayor Lumumba explained that age and lack of weatherization are taking a serious toll on Jackson’s water system, and the solution is substantial state and federal aid. “We’re thankful for the tanks that help provide the non-potable water to people, but we need long-term support to deal with
at all. No, I have not,” Hosemann told the Mississippi Free Press. He confirmed that he had not spoken with Gov. Tate Reeves about his suggestion that the State take over Jackson’s water system. “I haven’t talked to the governor about that, either,” the northeast Jackson resident added. “Neither the governor nor the city have contacted us at all about any of that.” Hosemann also blamed city leaders since the last white mayor, Kane Ditto, for doing too little on infrastructure in the city. “You remember during Kane Ditto’s adU.S. Army National Guard photo by Sgt. Jovi Prevot
March 3 - 30, 2021 • jfp.ms
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arts of Jackson were still without water two weeks after the February winter storm wreaked havoc on the capital city’s two water-treatment plants. As March dawned, city leaders were continuing efforts to provide portable and nonportable water to residents who needed it, with the Mississippi National Guard’s assistance. Mayor Chokwe Lumumba and Public Works Director Charles Williams appeared Feb. 28 at the O.B. Curtis Water Treatment Plant in Ridgeland, acknowledging that they could not predict when everyone will be able to get water in the city. “What we have faced and what we have seen as a result of the winter storm (is that) water-treatment facilities are not meant to shut down to the level that we experienced,” the mayor explained. “Because they weren’t meant to shut down in that way, the process of getting it moving back to where it was prior to the storm is a difficult recovery process, and so it’s not simply as easy of a proposition of turning on a switch.” “So while we can’t give you a precise day and hour in which that water will come on, what we’re confident in is that they are working the system as it should be.” Williams went into specific detail at the press briefing. From a low of 37 pound per square inch of pressure amid the winter storm—more than 50 points too low—the public-works department has struggled to increase the treatment plants’ pressure to the level needed to supply water for the entire city, especially those at higher elevations. They decided to open fire hydrants that dot the city to relieve the air pressure built into the system blocking water flow, and on Feb. 21, the public works director said the psi is at 90psi, but the problem is maintaining that level. “One of the biggest efforts that we were trying to accomplish yesterday (Feb. 27) was we were going along different corridors—Terry Road, Raymond Road and McDowell Road—and opened up fire hydrants,” Williams said. “And the reason for that is a lot of times when you lose system pressure, a lot of air gets in the line.” “And so as we’re trying to push more water out into the system, we wanted to take some of that air off. And the benefit of it was today (Sunday) we started seeing more water circulating now in south Jack-
by Kayode Crown
As March arrived, Mississippi National Guard members were supplying nonpotable water to Jackson residents.
storage tanks filled,” Williams said. “We are also trying to get water from (O.B. Curtis Water Treatment Plant and from) J. H. Fewell (Water Treatment Plant). We are trying to get water from these two particular plants and get it all the way down into the system.” The public-works director said the system needs 90psi consistently to get the water down to the people farthest from the plants in west and south Jackson. Due to the complexity of the system, he said they had yet to succeed in that. “It is built (on) hydraulics, and if you’re at a higher elevated area (like) Fondren or if you were in south Jackson, those higher el-
this issue that has gone without being addressed sufficiently for decades.” He said the city’s annual resources of “a little over $300 million” leave no room for adequately resolving the legacy-city infrastructure needs and protect water treatment plants against extreme weather, which he puts at $2 billion. The next day, as national media coverage over Jackson’s crisis increased, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said that the City had not asked the State for significant help to address the water crisis and did not indicate that he or other state leaders had reached out to offer help to their capital city. “I’ve received no contact from the city
ministration, he did repair work on water and sewer. So what happened since then?” Hosemann said. Former Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr., the city’s first Black mayor who defeated Ditto, responded with facts. “During my administration we spent over $200 million on water and sewer infrastructure improvements over 12 years,” he told the Mississippi Free Press. “In my administration we put up two new water storage tanks … we came from under an EPA-imposed consent decree on our oldest water treatment plant where it was discharging into the Pearl River. We were able to direct that. It cost $10 million to $12 million (just) to do that.”
