With Jackson's water and sewer struggling, the metro's suburbs are jumping ship
Bruce Stephens, executive director of West Rankin Utility Authority, points out gravity pipe locations on a map inside of his office at the West Rankin Utility Authority in Richland on Dec. 8, 2021. Eric Shelton/Clarion Ledger
By Lee O. Sanderlin
Mississippi Clarion Ledger
USA Today Network
Sometime around 2:30 a.m. on Sept. 5, the mayor of Byram got a phone call.
It was Public Works Director Bill Miley, calling to tell him a water main had burst. Again. Some people would be without water, and those that had water would need to boil it before drinking, an all too common event.
“It takes about 60% of my time, the water issues I have with Jackson,” Mayor Richard White said. “I just don’t like putting up with all that stuff.”
Byram Mayor Richard White wants to develop his city's own water system separate from Jackson. Official portrait
Just south of Jackson, Byram, population 12,666, is its own town with its own sewer lines, but it relies on the capital city for its water.
When things break, which is often, a game of telephone often starts. First, water customers call White. Then White calls Miley. Miley then calls Jackson City Engineer Charles Williams.
“Everyone seems to call us because these customers around here expect immediate results, an immediate response,” Miley said.
Byram officials say it can take Jackson weeks to fix what’s broken.
“It’s like they just don’t care,” White said. “I know they’ve got a lot of stuff going on up there, but this water just isn’t anything to play with.”
After going a month without water in February — south Jackson and Byram were the last places to get service restored following the catastrophic winter storm — and again losing service in mid-November, the city is ready to ditch Jackson’s water system.
Byram’s Board of Aldermen voted Dec. 9 to have Pickering Engineering come and appraise the water pipes in the city. Owned by Jackson, White said he plans to make an offer to Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba to buy the pipes once the appraisal is finished in 2022.
Some of the pipes are largely worthless, a result of their old age and repeated patching when they burst. White said he intimated as much to Lumumba when they met earlier this fall.
“I told him there’s some pipes in the city we wouldn’t give him a penny for,” White said.
Originally from Jackson, White said he still loves the city, he just “wants them to do better.” In the meanwhile, he plans to help Byram do as well as it can.
Assuming the town can purchase the water lines, Miley said it would take an additional $12 million to dig new water wells and install water tanks for the city.
The whole process is expected to take about four years.
“If Byram wants its independence from Jackson," he said, "that’s what it’s going to take.”
The West Rankin Utility Authority, pictured here in Richland on Dec. 8, opened on Oct. 1. West Rankin County accounted for 25% of all wastewater that flowed through Jackson’s sewer treatment facilities before the opening of West Rankin’s new facility. Eric Shelton/Clarion Ledger
Rankin sewer plant opens
On Oct. 1, the West Rankin Utility Authority opened for business.
For decades, western Rankin County had sent its sewage, tens of millions of gallons each day, to Jackson for treatment. During all that time, West Rankin Utility Authority Lawyer Keith Turner said no one in Rankin County had a say in how Jackson’s system operated. Rankin's sewage is about 25% of what flowed into Jackson's Savanna Street Wastewater Treatment Facility for treatment — generating between $3 million to $4 million in annual revenue for Jackson in the process.
When the U.S. Department of Justice levied a consent decree against Jackson’s sewer system in 2012, Rankin County leaders were worried they would have to foot a quarter of the bill for the legally mandated repairs.
“We wanted a seat at the table,” Turner said.
When that was denied, Rankin County communities opted to fund and build its own wastewater treatment plant — a $95 million facility that churns thick, noxious sludge through it nonstop.
Considering the more than $600 million it is expected to cost Jackson to fix the Savanna Street plant, Turner said the cost of building a plant will actually save Rankin residents money compared to the cost they would face for their share of Jackson’s repairs.
Turner said Lumumba seemed willing to offer Rankin County more oversight, but by the time he took office in 2017, it was too late to turn back.
Bruce Stephens, executive director of the West Rankin Utility Authority, is in charge of making sure all the sewage gets treated correctly before being pumped into the Pearl River, something Jackson struggles with.
Operational since Oct. 1, Stephens tries to explain all the science behind wastewater treatment — the aerobic and anaerobic bacteria needed to treat the sludge, the process for keeping it all moving and getting it disinfected, and the measures taken to prevent the smell from being too overwhelming.
But really, it's simpler than that.
“This is what I do,” he said. “I pump poop twenty-four-seven.”
The plant is more than a way to treat sewage. Serving Brandon, Flowood, Pearl, parts of the Ross Barnett Reservoir, Whitfield, Richland and the Jackson International Airport, it represents an opportunity for increased population and commercial growth in Rankin County, Turner said.
Before the west Rankin plant opened, Jackson’s Savanna Street plant was operating near capacity, Turner said. Because of that, the prospect for commercial and residential development was limited. If there is no capacity to accommodate more wastewater from new development, construction permits are unlikely to be approved, he said.
As constructed, the West Rankin Utility Authority is equipped to handle 20 million gallons of raw sewage a day, more than double what it currently treats, Stephens said.
“This is important to the growth of Rankin County,” Turner said.
Jackson's lack of proactive maintenance pushes suburbs away
As Rankin County gets its sewer system up and running and Byram looks to establish its own water utility, an already cash-strapped Jackson system will have to find more ways to fund the repairs needed to its system.
Fixing the water and sewer systems is expected to cost over $2 billion, Williams, the chief engineer, has said. While losing a few million dollars from Rankin County’s wastewater treatment, and the potential of losing millions in water revenue from Byram customers won’t be the determining factor, it will have an impact.
Megan Mullin, an associate professor of environmental politics at Duke University, said smaller systems typically consolidate into larger, regional ones, not the other way around.
With the opposite happening in metro Jackson, it shows a distinct lack of trust between predominantly affluent, White suburban communities and the majority Black, less affluent Jackson.
“Anytime you start talking about regionalization, you have all the entities that would be involved feel some risk,” Mullin said. “It can be really hard to overcome those barriers.”
The suburban communities don’t want to help pay for Jackson’s issues without having a say in how things are run, and the city is hesitant to give up control of one of its largest revenue generators, as flawed as it is.
Clinton and Bolton, two towns in Hinds County, have their own water systems. Rankin County is serviced by a group of water supply districts.
Some Jackson suburbs were incorporated for the sole purpose of bringing on an independent water system. When Madison residents opted to incorporate their small town in 1944, they did it just to establish a water system, according to Clarion Ledger archives.
Breaking off from the larger Jackson system may create new challenges for these smaller towns over time.
By nature of being smaller, communities like Madison have fewer customers and therefore less revenue than a larger system. When big repairs are needed, funding can become a roadblock, so it’s important to take a proactive view, Madison Public Works Director Dexter Shelby said.
“When you’re proactive and you know what you have in the ground and how long it’s been there, you can try and stay ahead of things,” Shelby said.
Even with a small revenue base, White, Byram’s mayor, said he’s ready to give his residents a more reliable system. Under Byram control, he said the city will be proactive, like Madison. Not reactive, like Jackson.
“They’ve kicked the can down the road so far they can’t find the can no more,” White said.
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 Lee O. Sanderlin at LSanderlin@gannett.com.