Mississippi's capital city is struggling with its water system
JACKSON, Miss. — — Mississippi's capital city is struggling with the, prompting emergency declarations from President Joe Biden and Gov. Tate Reeves.
When water pressure drops, there’s a possibility that untreated groundwater can enter the water system through cracked pipes, so customers are told to boil water to kill potentially harmful bacteria. Like many American cities, Jackson struggles with aging infrastructure with water lines that crack or collapse. Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, a Democrat in a Republican-led state, said the city's water problems come from decades of deferred maintenance.at Jackson's main water treatment plant during a cold snap in early 2020, leaving thousands of customers with dangerously low water pressure or no water at all. The National Guard helped distribute drinking water.
The water system serves about 150,000 residents in Jackson and about 11,500 residents of a suburb, Byram, plus businesses and government offices. About 80% of customers had little or no water Wednesday morning at the worst part of the current outage, and all customers had low pressure, a Jackson city spokeswoman said.Jackson has two water treatment plants. The newer and larger one is the O.B. Curtis plant near the reservoir. This plant has been the main source of the most recent problems.
In 2016, the state Health Department found an inadequate application of water treatment chemicals because of a failing corrosion control system at the Curtis plant. The EPA required the city to correct this problem. In 2017, the city began installation of corrosion control treatment.said the majority of tested samples showed lead levels"below the action level set by the EPA.
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