The plan approved by the Jackson City Council on June 30 to fix the city's water problems will come with a hefty price tag.
While the $170 million needed to bring the city's water system up to federal standards will come from both state and federal grant funds, one city council member thinks the city needs to obtain some of those funds by ceasing the moratorium on water shutoffs for those who don't pay their bills and diverting money from the Siemens settlement.
The deal, once it's signed by Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, will help the city come into compliance with an administrative order issued to the city by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in February 2020 and only revealed to the city council nearly a year later.
Once the agreement is signed by the mayor, the city and the EPA will have a review period of 30 to 60 days where federal officials will make comments on the agreement. Once that period ends, the city will have to a submit a timeline of when it intends to fix all of the discrepancies of both the administrative order issued last February and the 2016 order about the corrosion standard.
Jackson Public Works Director Dr. Charles E. Williams, Jr. said at the June 29 special council meeting that the funds needed for federal compliance will be divided into $70 million needed for the city's two water treatment plants and $100 million to repair the city's distribution system.
About $3 million in state funds from the bond grant have already been allocated to the city for corrosion-related discrepancies, $845,000 from a grant program and $27 million in loans from the Federal Clean Water State Revolving Fund, which is administered in the state by the Department of Environmental Quality.
Ward 1 Councilman Ashby Foote said the city should hire a federal lobbyist to ensure the maximum amount of federal aid can be procured. He also said the Siemens settlement funds, which add up to about $89.8 million, should also be directed at the problem as well.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the city has been on an emergency order by Mayor Lumumba that put a moratorium on shutting off water service to customers who didn't pay their bills.
“I have a problem with the fact that we've got a policy in place right now that has caused a lot of people not to pay their water bills,” Foote said. “I think we need to start turning peoples' water off if they're not paying the bill because this is an existential crisis for the city of Jackson and so I think we need to change the policy about water billing so that we can reduce receivables and get cash flowing in a meaningful way to the water department so we can afford all of these salary increases and other issues that confront the city.”
The mayor's chief of staff, Safiya Omari, said the mayor's office will announce an end to the moratorium on water cutoffs at a later date in conjunction with a new program that she said her office isn't ready to announce yet.
The EPA order came in the wake of a February 2020 inspection by EPA and state Department of Health officials that found serious discrepancies with federal clean drinking water mandates.
Williams said one of the priorities in the plan is to construct covers for the six filter assemblies at the two treatment plants, which are open to the elements. This facilitates decay and results in the expensive membrane elements not lasting to their programmed lifespans.
The cost of replacing each one will be $1 million.
One of the issues that Williams and the department is seeking to address is filling vacancies at the two treatment plants, both with instrument technicians and qualified operators.
He proposed to the council that the pay for qualified operators be bumped up to $48,000 annually, a huge increase from the present $12.72 per hour, which adds up to $26,457 without overtime with a 40-hour work week. Three of those positions are open at the two treatment plants and the jobs are vital since the operators control and monitor the treatment process, take samples and perform adjustments.
The council supports the salary increase.
“The whole council is board with not just a bump, but a competitive bump,” Council President Aaron Banks said. “We encourage that and we're ready to move on that.”
Williams said that salary would allow him to not only retain the existing operators, but recruit new ones as well. The new salary would be considerably above the national average on Glassdoor.com of $42,973 annually. Two positions have been open since April 2019 and the other since August 5, 2020.
The water system has also battled a February ice storm that shut down water service to much of the city, a scenario predicted by a 2019 inspection report by the Mississippi State Department of Health (MSDH). Since March, the city has been having issues with the pumps at the wells that serve the south Jackson area along with the city of Byram.
On April 30, an electrical fire at the O.B. Curtis plant shut down its treatment trains and the city had to issue a boil water notice citywide that wasn't lifted until May 3.
