Mississippi Gov. Declares State of Emergency Over Jackson Water Crisis

JACKSON, Miss. — Mississippi’s capital, the largest city in the state, does not have enough water pressure left to meet the critical needs of its 180,000 residents after the city’s long-failing, main water treatment facility finally gave up the ghost on Monday.

In response, Gov. Tate Reeves called on the National Guard to distribute water to crisis-stricken citizens who had already been under a boil water notice since late July due to an unspecified water-quality issue.

In the meantime, emergency crews working to get the water treatment plant back online are struggling with extreme flooding of the Pearl River, which runs to the northeast of the city. 

The river crested Monday at 35.4 feet, just shy of the major flood stage, complicating repairs and the amount of water that can flow through the affected treatment processes.

What it all means, Reeves said, is “we do not have reliable running water at scale.”

“It means the city cannot produce enough water to fight fires, to reliably flush toilets and to meet other critical needs,” he said.

He added that the entire city would be without “reliable running water at scale” for the foreseeable future.

Because of Monday’s failure, officials announced all Jackson public schools would shift to virtual learning Tuesday.

The O.B. Curtis Water Treatment Plant in Jackson has been struggling for years. 

In November, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan included Jackson on what he called his “journey for justice” tour to see firsthand how environmental concerns are affecting marginalized communities.

While he was there, the capital was placed under a citywide boil water notice due to what officials said was a “bad batch of chemicals” used to clean the water.

That incident came on the heels of a nine-week water outage and, earlier in the year, a monthlong closure after a winter storm froze exposed equipment at the plant.

Before Regan left, city officials told him it would likely cost $1 billion to fix everything that ailed the treatment plant at that time — money Jackson simply didn’t have.

In July, the main pumps at the treatment plant began to fail and they were replaced by smaller backup pumps.

At the same time, the city facility became woefully understaffed, leaving, in Reeves’ words, “far too few heroic frontline workers … to hold the system together.”

Taken together, avoiding a major catastrophe like the one unfolding now, “was a near impossibility,” he said.

Reeves, a Republican, has placed some of the blame for the emergency squarely on the shoulders of Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, a Democrat.

According to the governor, Lumumba and other city officials failed to provide the state with any kind of timeline for when the plant would be in any kind of reliable operating condition.

In a lengthy statement posted to Twitter, Reeves said, “This is a very different situation from a boil water notice — which is also a serious situation which the residents of Jackson have become tragically numb to.”

Reeves said the state has “organized water for fire safety” and is also “organizing the resources to provide water for sanitation and life safety,” but he added, “replacing our largest city’s infrastructure of running water with human distribution is a massively complicated logistical task. … It will not be easy.”

“We have also offered the mayor what we believe to be incredibly generous conditions for improving the water situation in Jackson. There is no silver bullet fix, but it is a better shot at success,” the governor continued.

“The state has created an incident command structure and is surging our resources to the city’s water treatment facility and beginning emergency maintenance, repairs and improvements. We will do everything in our power to restore water pressure and get water flowing back to the people of Jackson,” he said.

“We will cash flow the operation and the city will be responsible for half of the cost of the emergency improvements that we make. I want to make something very clear to those operators we have been and will be reaching out to: You will be paid for your work. The state is owning that guarantee. The mayor has accepted those terms in principle,” Reeves said.

Until the situation is resolved, Reeves urged the city’s resident’s to “please, stay safe. Do not drink the water.” 

“In too many cases, it is raw water from the reservoir being pushed through the pipes. Be smart. Protect yourself. Protect your family,” he said.

In an email to The Well News, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said, “I’ve been advised that the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency will request an emergency declaration from the Federal Emergency Management Agency imminently.

“I’ve been in contact with both FEMA and the White House about this request and strongly recommend the president approve the declaration as soon as possible,” Thompson continued. “I hope the federal government will be able to provide resources adequate and comprehensive enough to address the health and safety crisis facing the city of Jackson and surrounding communities.

“This situation requires immediate attention and cooperation from federal, state and local governments. My office will work as requested to facilitate additional resources from the federal government as well as disaster relief and humanitarian organizations,” he said.

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and @DanMcCue