Jackson’s sewer problems continue, with city officials announcing recently that they have identified 118 breaks across the city.
In light of the news, the Lumumba administration plans to issue a state of emergency and was working on drawing up the declaration last week.
The declaration would make it easier and quicker for the city to bring on contractors to repair the breaks.
However, the officials have yet to determine how to pay for the work, which is expected to cost around $22.4 million.
Public Works Director Robert Miller discussed the problem at a recent city council meeting.
“More than 50 (breaks) are tied to the failure of the sewer line due to a collapse. Others are tied to problems with debris, fats, oils and grease, or tree roots in the sewer lines,” he said.
Fats, oils and greases, or FOGs, can build up in a sewer line, much like they would clog an artery, preventing waste from traveling through it. With nowhere to go, that waste backs up through manholes, getting into the environment.
In other cases, lines collapse and tree roots get in the lines, causing the same problem.
When sewage backs out into the environment, sanitary sewer overflows, or SSOs, result. The city is fined daily for every overflow that enters a federal waterway, such as the Pearl River or one of its tributaries.
Of the 118 breaks, 29 are on the Northside. Included on the list are breaks at 1316 St. Mary St., Crane Boulevard, 814 Avondale Ave., 4345 Ridgewood Rd., Ridgewood between Northside Drive and Meadowbrook Road, 3826 Redbud Rd., and at Arlington and Peachtree streets.
Repair costs for the Northside lines alone would run more than $7.5 million, according to city records.
To help address the problem, the city is considering freezing some budgeted positions in Public Works, which would free up about $500,000 for the work.
Other options include seeking an emergency loan from the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) and is checking to see how much is available in the water/sewer enterprise fund.
That account is funded through water and sewer billing collections. Collections, though, have been down in recent years a result of complications related to the Siemens contract.
Miller said the city likely would not approach the one-percent commission for the funds, following the October meeting.
The commission oversees how the city spends funds generated by a one-percent infrastructure sales tax.
At the October meeting, oversight members approved $3.2 million in sewer expenditures, only after an impassioned plea from Miller, who said not having the funds would put the city in danger of having its sewer system taken over by the federal government.
Jackson is currently under a federal sewer consent decree. Under the decree, the city must make $945 million in repairs/upgrades to its sewer system to bring it into compliance with the federal Clean Water Act.
The city entered into the decree in 2012 and agreed to make some $400 million in repairs to its sewer system to bring it into compliance with federal law.
Since then, decree costs have more than doubled, costs that will eventually be passed on to residents in the form of higher water and sewer bills.
Because of that fact, the city is hoping to renegotiate decree terms with the EPA.
