Jackson's water system marked by a century of struggles
The J.H. Fewell Water Treatment, the city's first water treatment, has been upgraded and remains in operation more than a decade later despite the development of the O.B. Curtis Water Treatment Plant in the 1990s. Clarion Ledger file photo
By Keisha Rowe and Lee O. Sanderlin
Mississippi Clarion Ledger
USA Today Network
Nearly a hundred years ago, Jackson's leaders were just as concerned about its water infrastructure as they are today, but for different reasons.
"Jackson's Great Growth Develops New Problem," reads a Clarion Ledger headline on May 17, 1922.
J.H. Fewell, then superintendent of the city's water plant, said the population was growing and more lines and upgrades at the treatment facility were needed to accommodate. Other city leaders agreed.
The coming neglect of the system and the eventual exodus of Jackson's White and middle-class residents couldn't have been on their minds.
Failure to do regular maintenance by several city administrations has left the system more like a sieve. Boil-water notices are alarmingly regular, with at least 25 issued in the city since February.
In 1988, a study by the Mississippi Public Service Commission found that many of the 1,400 water systems that existed in the state at the time — especially those smaller and privately run — hadn’t been built with longevity in mind.
“A lot of these systems were put in with the cheapest materials available,” Commissioner Lynn Havens told the Clarion Ledger at the time. “After 20 or 30 years, there’s nothing left under the ground.”
Jackson, which has acquired several smaller systems over the years, is by all appearances in similar shape more than 30 years later.
A rate increase on the horizon, but still a long way to go
Meanwhile, the city's residents are left with water technically safe to drink according to standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency, but the damage is evident. Two-thirds of the 1,352 water samples taken by the Mississippi Department of Health since 2015 contain at least trace amounts of lead — 90 of them actionable by EPA standards — thanks to deteriorating connectors on the city's oldest lines. Outlines on how to fix the problems sit in the city's public works offices, they but mean little when water revenue coffers sit practically empty.
Chief City Engineer Charles Williams said in November it would take more than a decade to fix everything wrong with Jackson's water and sewer systems, and that's only if the city acquires the money needed to make it happen.
City officials are mulling a 20% increase in water and sewer rates — the first potential increase since 2013. Even with the increase in rates, Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said earlier this month the city's water utility would operate in the red for months, if not years, until it sees a change.
It could also backfire politically. Before he died in June, former Mayor Dale Danks told the Mississippi Free Press raising rates in the late 1980s was necessary during his administration to address fixes and shortfalls.
“Frankly,” he told the outlet in April, “it’s what beat me when I ran for reelection.”
Once straining from growth, Jackson's population loss leaves system crippled and struggling
For decades, city leaders have contended with a network of water lines prone to breaks, a result of previous administrations deferring maintenance due to costs, inaction or both.
Originally built in 1888, the city of Jackson purchased its initial water system from a private company in 1908. Jackson's population grew at a steady rate in the years that followed, prompting the construction of the J.H. Fewell Water Treatment Facility in 1914 to help improve water quality and distribution.
The plant originally had the capacity to produce up to 4 million gallons per day after for Jackson’s residents. At the time, the city sent water across 500 miles of water lines, just a third of the size of the system today.
As Jackson’s population continued to grow, the water system itself was strained, forcing the city to make rapid expansions or acquire water works from surrounding municipalities. Many of the city’s oldest pipes are small and made from cast iron which is known to be durable, but easily susceptible to corrosion and breaking with age, experts said.
Since the system's inception, not many of the pipes snaking under the city have changed. As early as 1948, Jackson’s mayors and city councilmen have called for infrastructure improvements, especially where water is concerned. Former Mayor Allen C. Thompson made replacing sewer lines a primary focus in his reelection campaign in 1953.
The Environmental Protection Agency warned Jackson's leaders in 1978 that significant improvement were already needed to improve water quality — the precursor to warnings and consent decrees the city faces today. In 1979, the then-Jackson City Commission and Danks, the former mayor, called for investigations and investments after a report from the state Board of Health criticized the years of neglect.
Things came to a head when a major winter storm tore through the state just days before Christmas in 1989. Hundreds of breaks across the city forced water shortages and outages that lasted for days.
"We're still getting water to most parts of the system, but the pressure has fallen off greatly," then Mayor Kane Ditto said at the time. "There may be areas that don't have water now."
A little more than 30 years after that, current Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba uttered eerily similar words after another massive ice storm crippled the system again, this time for a month.
"We do not have a definitive timeline on when the water will be restored to the tanks," Lumumba said during a Feb. 18 news conference. "We are continuing to pump into the tanks. We are continuing to try to recover."
One of the major plans city leadership undertook to begin addressing the issues was the creation of the O.B. Curtis Water Treatment Facility at the Ross Barnett Reservoir in Ridgeland, which now processes most of the city’s water.
Completed in the early 1990s and able to process up to 25 million gallons per day, the plant was originally constructed to eventually replace the J.H. Fewell facility in its entirety when it was proposed in 1987. To date, J.H. Fewell remains in operation despite O.B. Curtis' processing capacity being upgraded to 50 million gallons per day in 1997.
The increased output does little to help when many of the pipes through which water has to travel to to reach customers are in severe disrepair. Surveys commissioned by city leaders over the years show as much as 40% of water processed by the city is lost due to broken and inefficient service lines.
To make matters worse, many of those pipes have lead connectors that have begun to leach into water as it travels through the system.
'One bite at a time'
Funding troubles started early in Jackson.
Millions in water bonds, grants and loans have gone into Jackson's water system since the mid-20th century, but it hasn't been enough. Even in the early 1960s, before Jackson began to see its population decline, broken water mains were common as the pipes below the streets gave out.
A 1987 study conducted on the city's system determined significant increases to water and sewer rates in Jackson were needed to address an unexpected water revenue deficit. According to the findings, without the increase, the city would have faced a shortfall of more than $3 million by 1992 thanks to slowed city growth and increased water usage.
Former Jackson Mayor Harvey Johnson, who served two nonconsecutive terms, said the problems seemed daunting during his tenure. The 1997 master plan commissioned during his first administration was aimed at addressing the problems slowly, but methodically.
“Even if we had $1 billion (today), it would be impossible to spend $1 billion. It would take us 20 years to spend that amount of money,” Johnson said. “It’s important to keep that master plan in mind and fix it one bite at a time.”
An ill-fated water contract with Siemens Inc. would make matters worse. Originally billed as a way to streamline billing and save money for the city over time, faulty meters sent erroneous bills to customers, if a bill was generated at all.
To protect consumers, city leaders over the years have instituted payment moratoriums as the city worked to find a way to fix the system. As a result, the city's water revenue coffers dried up to the point that money from the general fund was pulled to make spot repairs over the years.
The saga only came to an end last year after the city reached an $89 million settlement, but little was left to have an impact on the physical system after attorney fees and the city repaying itself to refill its dry water revenue coffers.
Due to February's citywide outage being declared a disaster, the city has reeceived millions in federal disaster aid. Millions more has come in thanks to the American Rescue Plan Act. Even more is on the from federal infrastructure package passed in November.
It remains to be seen if every dollar will be more than a drop in a bucket that leaks more by the day.
This report was produced in partnership with the Community Foundation for Mississippi’s local news collaborative, which is independently funded in part by Microsoft Corp. The collaborative includes the Clarion Ledger, the Jackson Advocate, Jackson State University, Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, Mississippi Public Broadcasting and Mississippi Today.
Email Keisha Rowe at nrowe@jackson.gannett.com and Lee O. Sanderlin at LSanderlin@gannett.com.