On Tuesday, August 30, the President of the United States of America, Joe Biden, declared a state of emergency for the city of Jackson in Mississippi due to the poor resistance of the water networks, put under pressure in recent days by heavy rains. The 160,000 residents of the southern state capital have been in disruption since Monday night when, according to the state’s governor, Republican Tate Reeves, the main wastewater treatment plant shut down. Citizens for many hours have not been able, and still cannot, flush toilet water, drink potable water and even essential community services such as firefighters are short of water to use if needed.
On Wednesday, the mayor of the city, Chockwe Lumumba, organized an event for the distribution of bottled water. It was supposed to last three hours, but after just two hours, the 700 cases of water ran out and many people returned home empty-handed.
The water crisis involving Jackson is not new. As early as February 2020, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had conducted an investigation into the city’s water transmission networks, finding fourteen critical issues that the administration should have solved. Some of these related to the levels of lead and copper present in the pipes, the failure to communicate those same levels to their consumers, an inadequate number of workers in the two water treatment plants and problems of maintenance and operation of one of the two plants.
The remarks made to improve the situation had not been accepted by the administration, which in fact had received two warnings for non-compliance by the EPA in May 2020 and April 2021. On 1 July 2021, the heads of the EPA and the cities had sat down at a table to draw up a roadmap for making improvements. Once again, however, expectations were not met, and on July 27, 2022, the Mississippi State Department of Health drafted a document asking citizens to boil water for at least a minute before drinking it. Some samples showed that the water had turbidity levels three times higher than normal.
This crisis is overwhelming both the city and state administrations. From some documents of the Covid-19 Subcommittee set up by Congress, Jackson received $ 23.6 million in government aid. 14 million was allocated to the transmission of drinking water to the community, but of the funds made available only $ 1.8 million was spent.
According to the governor of the state, it is not possible to understand when the problem will be completely resolved, with possible system interruptions in the next few days. To cope with this dramatic situation, starting today, 600 members of the National Guard will help distribute bottled water at designated sites within the city.