By NELL LUTER FLOYD
Jackson City Council Member Ashby Foote wants to know why Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba did not immediately share with council members a letter from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency about one of the city’s water treatment plants being in noncompliance.
Foote, who represents Ward 1, expressed frustration because he had to learn about the noncompliance from news reports.
“I’d like to know within 24 hours when a letter like that comes from the EPA,” he said.
In late January, the EPA cited the city because it failed to repair an electrical panel damaged by fire at the O.B. Curtis Water Treatment Center in April 2021.
The letter states: “A fire at the electrical panel at the O.B. Curtis Water Treatment Plant (WTP) on April 30, 2021 caused all five of the high-service pumps at the O.B. Curtin WTP to be unavailable for service. During a November 8, 2021 inspection of the PWS by MSDH (Mississippi State Department of Health), the pumps remained out of service, with no target date by the city to put the pumps back into service. The loss of the pumps has caused multiple elevated tanks to be low or empty and has caused certain areas of the distribution system to have sustained low pressure.
“Low-pressure and loss of pressure in a drinking water distribution system may cause a net movement of water from outside the pipe to the inside through cracks, breaks, or joins in the distribution system that are common in all water systems. Backsiphonage occurs when pressure is lost in pipes, creating a negative pressure and a partial vacuum, which pulls water from a contaminated source outside the pipe into the treated, portable water inside the pipe. This creates a suitable environment for bacteriological contamination and other disease-causing organisms, including E. coli, to enter the water distribution system downstream of the WTPs, which then is delivered to users.
“MSDH issued the city a significant deficiency on December 14, 2021, identifying this as a significant deficiency and requiring the city to provide MSDH with a written response identifying correction actins and timeframes by January 14, 2022. MSDH’s report requires that the city’s corrective actions by completed within 120 days of the recipient of the report, or no later than April 14, 2022.”
The EPA letter, signed by Carol Kemker, director of the EPA’s Enforcement and Compliance Assurances Division, was addressed to Lumumba and City Engineer Charles Williams and Lester Herrington, director of the Mississippi State Department of Health’s Office of Environmental Health, were copied.
Lumumba said the repair was delayed because of supply chain problems in getting the part due to the COVID-19 global pandemic.
Council President Virgi Lindsay said she asked Foote, who chairs the council’s Ad Hoc Water-Sewer Committee, to call a meeting to further brief the council. That meeting is scheduled on Monday, Feb. 14.
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