Jackson, Mississippi Water Tanks Are ‘Full,’ According To Governor
Jackson, Miss., which has been dealing with a lack of clean water for nearly two weeks, has restored its water source, according to Gov. Tate Reeves, although it is largely still unsafe to drink.
"Today, the tanks are full. Water pressure is solid,” Reeves said during a Monday (Sept. 5) news conference, according to CNN. "There may be more bad days in the future, we have, however, reached a place where people in Jackson can trust that water will come out of the faucet. People in Jackson can trust the toilets can be flushed."
A Monday press release from the City of Jackson said that the tanks maintained their storage levels overnight and that residents’ water pressure should be back to normal. “Higher water pressure at the plant results in improved water pressure for customers on the system,” the release read. “The outlook continues to be positive. However, additional challenges as repairs and adjustments are made leave potential for fluctuations in progress.”
Although Jackson, a city of 431,000 people – 82.5 percent of whom are Black – has reportedly struggled with basic access to water for more than a generation, recent flooding of the Pearl River resulted in more than 150,000 people without safe drinking water. Last week, Jim Craig, senior deputy, and director of health protection at the Mississippi Department of Health, warned residents to shower with their mouths closed.
According to the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, officials say the water still should not be ingested without boiling in order to avoid dangerous pathogens that may remain. Reeves and Lumumba both say the boil water notice may end within days.
Although President Biden signed a historic Infrastructure Bill designed to help areas like Jackson, Republican state lawmakers, like many red states with predominantly Black cities, decide where Mississippi’s funds go, and Black areas are often neglected.
“Anyone who thinks Mississippi will change the very consistent practice of not investing in Black people, they’re delusional,” Andre M. Perry, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told The Washington Post, in an Aug. 31 interview “ If you’re the president of the United States and you have an equity agenda, you have to be worried that this money going to statehouses will not actually get to places like Jackson.”
On Sunday (Sept. 4), Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba told ABC News that the city “will be in an emergency even after water is restored to every home, and even as the boil water notice is lifted, because that is the fragile state of our water treatment facility.”
One out of every 3.5 Jackson residents lives below the poverty line. For decades, city officials claimed they didn’t have the funds to repair the water system, especially after white residents fled the city after their public schools were forced to integrate in 1970, well over a decade after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered desegregation.
Meanwhile, Jackson residents are to remain under orders to boil their tap water for the time being, volunteers from surrounding areas are making efforts to bring in water for residents. Birmingham, Ala., which lies three and a half hours away, is working with Christian Service Mission to help with the supply. Other groups in Birmingham are also lending their assistance.
“Our brothers and sisters in Jackson need us and we plan to show them that Birmingham cares,” said Birmingham Mayor Randall L. Woodfin.
