Jackson Water Crisis: Emergency Declaration Follows Years of Turbulence

Mississippi's capital city of Jackson is currently facing issues with its water system, prompting officials to issue an emergency declaration. This is not the first time the city has faced such issues.

Last week, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves announced a state of emergency ahead of expected flooding due to rising water levels in the Pearl River. On Monday, Reeves announced that he was in the process of drafting the state of emergency declaration. Earlier on Monday, Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba announced a water system emergency, citing problems with the city's O.B. Curtis Water Plant, that has left dozens of residents with little or no running water.

"Water pressure issues at the O.B. Curtis Water Plant are resulting in low or no water pressure for many Jackson customers. The water shortage is likely to last the next couple of days," the mayor's office said in a statement.

During a news conference on Monday, Reeves told residents that until the issues at the water plant are fixed, residents will not have "reliable running water at scale."

Over the past several years, residents of Jackson have faced a number of similar issues relating to the city's water system.

In 2021, a winter storm led to a similar water crisis in Jackson, as cold temperatures froze some of the city's water pipes and placed stress on water reserve systems.

"It's a very expensive system to repair. It is expensive to change out 100-year-old pipes that will cost literally more than a billion dollars to replace our entire system," Lumumba said last year.

While responding to the water crisis last year, Reeves pointed to some infrastructure issues that the city has been facing for dozens of years. "Many of these challenges in (Jackson's) water system were born over literally 30, 40, 50 years of negligence and ignoring the challenges of the pipes and the system....That 50 years of deferred maintenance is not something that we're going to fix in the next six to eight hours," Reeves was quoted by WAPT-TV.

WLBT-TV reported that in 2020, court records revealed that Jackson had dumped billions of gallons of partially treated wastewater into the Pearl River. The report came after the city signed an agreement in 2013 with the Environmental Protection Agency to fix sewage issues.

In 2019, officials in the city warned residents that they may have their water shut off if they do not pay water bills. "We're in a situation where our liquidity is strained to the extent that we really must accelerate this turn off process....So we're going to be sending out approximately 200 notifications per day to delinquent customers," Public Works Director Bob Miller said in 2019, according to WLBT.

In addition to the issues from previous years, Jackson has been under a boil water notice for the past month, as the city discovered "high turbidity levels" in the water.

"Turbidity has no health effects. However, turbidity can interfere with disinfection and provide a medium for microbial growth. Turbidity may indicate the presence of disease-causing organisms. These organisms include bacteria, viruses, and parasites, which can cause symptoms such as nausea, cramps, diarrhea, and associated headaches," the Mississippi Department of Health said in a statement.

While speaking about the most recent water issue, Reeves said that officials are working to distribute bottled water to residents.

Newsweek reached out to the offices of Reeves and Lumumba for comment.