State Sen. John Horhn plans to meet with business leaders in the city of Jackson affected by the drinking water woes and learn how they would like the city to remedy the situation.
He then plans to present the information he gathers to Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba and city council members.
An option for solving the problem once and for all, he said, is for the city to engage a third-party operator for the O.B. Curtis and the J.H. Fewell water treatment plants. “Decades ago, the city had a third-party operator,” he said. “Back in the ‘60s, that agreement was dissolved.”
A third-party operator would have finances to invest in the aging treatment centers, operational expertise and be able to solve problems with water bills and ensure the city can make improvements to the drinking water system that the consent decree with Environmental Protection Agency requires, Horhn said.
Horhn, a Jackson resident, was motivated to become involved after the latest round of boil water notices was issued.
The Mississippi State Department of Health issued a boil water notice for Jackson’s 43,000 surface water connections on July 29 because of turbidity found in samples at the Curtis Water Treatment Plant and the city followed up by issuing its own notice on July 30. Turbidity deals with the cloudiness of the water, which is a sign that disease-causing pathogens are probably not being killed during the treatment process.
Before the July 29 boil water notice, the city was under a boil water notice on June 24 and at the time officlas couldn’t say how long it would last. Officials said they reached out to outside contractors to help update the Curtis Water Treatment Plant and signed off on a mutual aid agreement with the Rural Water Association that will provide additional resources such as maintenance crews.
The frustration level among both business leaders such as restauranteurs and residents is high, Horhn said.
“I hear people saying they are up to here about it, out of patience this time,” he said, noting that the situation doesn’t seem to be getting better but worse.
Ashby Foote, who serves as president of the Jackson City Council and represents Ward 1, said a major problem is that the city’s two water treatment plants are not adequately staffed.
“Each treatment plant is supposed to have 12 employees, but we only have 12 employees total for both plants,” he said.
The mayor is ultimately responsible for the operation of the water treatment plants, Foote said.
“The ball’s in his court,” he said, noting that the council doesn’t have the authority to hire people to staff the water treatment plants.
Jackson has had numerous water struggles in recent years, with the major one in February 2021, which left some customers without water for weeks. After that, an electrical fire broke out at the Curtis plant, again cutting water production.
