The Mississippi Municipality & County Water Infrastructure Grant Program is a source of funding that both the city of Jackson and Hinds County can apply to and use for improvements to its drinking water, wastewater and stormwater infrastructure.
Improvements to the city’s water treatment plants are top of the mind for Jackson residents because the city has had a boil water advisory in place going on five weeks.
The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality is expected to open the application portal for the first round of funding on Sept. 1.
Members of the Hinds County delegation have been meeting with city leaders every Friday since the legislative session ended to ensure the city has the information it needs to apply to sources of funding for water improvements, said Chris Bell, who represents District 65 in the Mississippi House of Representatives.
Credell Calhoun, who represents District 3 and serves as president of the Hinds County Board of Supervisors, said it’s a given that the county will complete an application for the Mississippi Municipality & County Water Infrastructure Grant Program. “Hinds County will apply for any funds dealing with water,” he said.
The grant program, established by Senate Bill 2822, will provide $750 million that municipalities, counties, rural water associations and utility authorities throughout the state can apply for and use to match funds received from the American Rescue Plan Act so they can make investments in water, wastewater and stormwater infrastructure.
“We’re going to try to get some money from that. It’s our intent to get some of that money,” said Ashby Foote, who represents Ward 1 and serves as president of the Jackson City Council.
The legislation establishing the grant program requires the city of Jackson to account with the Department of Finance and Administration to make sure funds received are used as intended. Jackson is the only municipality with such oversight for the funding it receives.
“The legislative leadership insisted on a special commission to provide oversight for the city of Jackson,” said David Blount, who represents District 29 (Hinds) in the state Senate.
The Department of Environmental Quality established rules and regulations for the program. The state Department of Health has advised the Department of Environmental Quality on regulations related to the federal Safe Drinking Water Act.
A ranking system for grant applications is in place that will give greater weight to projects that have approved engineering/design, plans and permits and that the department has deemed the project is ready to begin construction within six months.
Blount plans to keep an eye on how the funding is distributed.
“We’ll need to watch to see if the money is being fairly distributed based on need, and are other cities in the state that are smaller and newer getting the same amount of money as the city of Jackson,” he said. “I’m concerned about that.”
In its first round of funding from the American Rescue Plan Act, the city of Jackson spent $12 million of the $21 million it received on water/sewer infrastructure improvements, about $5 million on first responder pay and $500,000 to continue the operation of the Jackson Convention Center, leaving $3.5 million.
The city received an additional $21 million in ARPA funds in July.
That leaves an estimated $24.5 million in ARPA funds the city of Jackson could use for the grant program’s match and end up with a total of $49 million.
Blount said any amount of money the city of Jackson receives will help improve its water system but it easily could have been more.
“The bottom line is the Legislature had literally billions of dollars and a historic opportunity to fix the Jackson water system and the money that will be made available is simply not enough,” he said.
The Jackson legislative delegation pushed as hard as it could to get as much money as it could for the city to improve its water system, Blount said.
“I wanted every dollar to go to water and sewer,” he said. “It’s a necessity. In the Senate district I represent there were thousands and thousands of people who had no running water for a month last year.”
Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba has said replacing the city’s pipes could cost more than a billion dollars.
Charles Williams, former head of public works for the city of Jackson, estimated that the cost of replacing the underground infrastructure alone could cost a trillion dollars, once the expense of tearing up and then replacing streets is included.
Blount expects the Jackson delegation will seek additional funds for water/sewer repair during the 2023 session.
