Mississippi on Tuesday declared a state of emergency after heavy rains and floods battered an already ailing water treatment system in the capital city of Jackson. The damage leaves more than 150,000 residents without access to safe drinking water for a still indefinite period of time.
“It is going to be a massive undertaking,” Republican Gov. Tate Reeves said on Monday. He estimated that it could take three or four months to repair the facility.
But the city’s water system has been facing problems for years. The plant has been struggling with aging pipes, inadequate infrastructure, and as many in the city would point out, a failure to allocate sufficient resources to fix its problems.
The city’s residents have long been dealing with service disruptions and boil-water notices. The most recent of which has been in effect for over a month as state health authorities warned that the water may contain bacteria, viruses, and parasites as the pumps were failing to treat the water.
“It is no secret to any of us—we have a very fragile water-treatment facility,” said Jackson’s Democratic Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba at a press conference on Tuesday.
This week, things took a turn for the worse as several pumps at the city’s largest treatment plant failed from the heavy rains and floodwaters, leaving homes, businesses, and institutions like hospitals and schools, with little to no water pressure.
Jackson officials estimate that it would cost over $200 million to fix the city’s water infrastructure.
The crisis has also highlighted the long-running friction between the Republican-led state government and the Democratic-led city government.
“This problem has been building for a decade, and it’s past time to fix it,” said State Senator David Blount, who’s a Democrat representing the Jackson area. “The basic question is, can Democrats and Republicans, Black folks and white folks, come together and find a solution and fix it?”
On Monday, five state senators, including Blount, wrote to Gov. Reeves urging him to call a special session to fix the water crisis. “We need to act now,” they said in the letter.
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