Thursday, July 8, 2021

The Divorce from the Sewer, Literally.

 A day of reckoning is fast approaching for Jackson's sewer system and its customers.  The West Rankin Utility Authority is about to fire up its new wastewater treatment plant.  When that happens, Jackson will lose several million dollars of sewer service revenue per year.  WAPT reported: 


 

Complete utter incompetence.  The wastewater treatment plant is not exactly a secret to the Mayor and Public Works Director.  They've known this day was coming during the Mayor's entire first term yet they say they don't know what to do? What the hell have they been doing all of this time?  Welcome to reality, Jackson. It's about to bite you in the face. 

 

43 comments:

Anonymous said...

City of Jackson water rate hikes coming in 3...2...1...

Anonymous said...

It’s just a perception of incompetence

Anonymous said...

How can Jackson implement a rate hike?
They don't send water bills.

Anonymous said...

No where in this discussion does the City discuss profit. The revenue is exactly that, gross sales. What does it cost to treat and process that wastewater? It's a business but they don't treat it like one. If they did we wouldn't be in the mess we're in. As least Ashby Foote who normally is very ineffective wants receivables collected before they start about rate hikes. Will we ever see an income and expense statement? Yeah right, like they even know what that is.

Anonymous said...

What does the big ole "Dr. Engineer " Public Works dude say about this.?? Just a making that high 4, just a making that high 4.....

Anonymous said...

I was paying $80 bucks a month for Jackson's water. Moved to Ridgeland last year and I'm paying half of what I was paying. I don't even want to think about what it will be after Rankin water plant goes online. It's probably going to be 120 a month.

Anonymous said...

Boo f'ing hoo on the boo boo.

Anonymous said...

Lord Farquaad is already deflecting the $35M in A/R, and talking rate hikes. Collecting on delinquent bills is unfair and difficult; increasing rates for paying customers is much easier, and has everyone capable paying their "fair share". Idiocy.

Anonymous said...

Oh any news on Byram's upcoming divorce?

Kingfish said...

Right now Byram is just thinking out loud. Looooooong way to go if they go on that one.

Anonymous said...

Doer's do. Others sit around and say ho hum, woe is me. Figure it out on your own Jackson, Rankin County has left you in the dust.

Hookah said...

next up - JAN

Anonymous said...

President Biden’s infrastructure plan will address these deficiencies and Jackson’s water / sewer problems will be remediated over the next 3-7 years. Then y’all can move on the complain about black people in charge of public transit or utility wires or air flow patterns…..whatever your precious fox opinion hosts tell you to complain about….

Fix the Pipes and Fill the Potholes said...

Very surreal: Nobody at the City knows anything?... Dr. Public Works can't even answer how much annual revenue comes from Rankin County for water treatment? That is a hard number. Likewise, no one can calculate the volume of water distributed versus the revenue collected to determine the shortfall?

Anonymous said...

This ought to be a real shit show.

Anonymous said...

I’m afraid this will mean a rate hike for Madison and Ridgeland since they send their sewer to Jackson for (supposed) treatment.

Anonymous said...

Raising rates will be easy and justifiable. He has all the political cover he needs. I can hear him now: "Inasmuch as the jurisdictions to the east of our Capital City have made the conscious and deliberate resolution to disarticulate their effluent-carrying infrastructure from said Capital city's apparatus, we now find it incumbent upon us to upraise the remuneration due to the city, by our constituency, for the purpose of providing the same heretofore subsidized effluent service." Translated: Folks in Rankin got tired of worrying about whether we'd maintain our sewer treatment facility to the degree that would allow them to continue sending their sewage to us, so they built their own. Clearly, that was a racist move on their part, so now y'all got to pay more for sewer. What I'm actually doing is PROTECTING y'all from them!

Easy. It'll pass by Jackson's population without a peep.

Anonymous said...

Well, it ought to decrease the influent flow into Savannah street, which should decrease the amount of the untreated effluent in the river.

Anonymous said...

The Rankin County sewage treatment facility will be a big improvement to the environment. It'll mean that much less untreated sewage being dumped into the Pearl River by Jackson. The city's own sewage treatment plants often overflow, (often due to malfunctions), forcing Jackson to "redirect" raw boo boo into the river.

PittPanther said...

Building a waste water treatment plant isn't free. How will Rankin county residents bills be impacted in order to pay for the new plant?

Anonymous said...

Maybe I misheard this, but I think the Jackson Public Works director said the city will lose $3.5 million, but the West Rankin attorney said they only pay $1 million per year.

Social philosophers specialize in thinking about what they perceive as the ills of society, and then tying to convince everyone else they are right. They useless, or worse, at governance.

Krusatyr said...

Labumba is hundreds of millions short for infrastructure upkeep: the streets, water, sewer and law enforcement are all rotting in disrepair and a half dozen libraries are blighted yet this wastrel mayor insists on spending $2M for the old Batte Furniture building plus (Millions?) more for it's renovation to become yet another library to reduce to rot and ruin.

Jackson should rent strip mall space for a library where responsible adult landlords do the maintenance.

The Zoo, Convention Center and other City properties in the red should be auctioned off to a tax paying entity while a self-crippled Jackson claws back out of its crumbling decadence. If it can.

Anonymous said...

I haven't read where anyone opines as to the total impact to Jackson?

Yes, they will receive less revenue, but they also will be treating a lower volume of waste.

I'm pretty sure that math is too high for those "in chaggg" to do, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Short version: They will be getting paid less to do less work.

Anonymous said...

Tater should get the paperwork started on the "takeover" of Jackson now. Cause guess what !? Your water bill is about to go up pleeebs !! Your school taxes.....garbage and sewer !! Hey, how about another 1 % sales tax ?! A cold draft domestic should level out at around 5 bucks with those 12 dollar cheesy fries !

Anonymous said...

Reading about the amount of money involved in the sewer works has made me have to reevaluate one of my sayings. I have been wrong all this time. Shit is worth something.

Anonymous said...

Building a waste water treatment plant isn't free. How will Rankin county residents bills be impacted in order to pay for the new plant?

Will an increase in Rankin County impact you PP? If not, why do you care?

Anonymous said...

Rankin County residents who get their water from City of Flowood have been getting billed for both the West Rankin Sewer system and the Jackson sewer system for awhile now. Once the West Rankin Sewer system is fully operational, I'm assuming they will do away with the Jackson sewer part of the bill and double the West Rankin Sewer portion, which means there shouldn't be much of an increase in the water bills for City of Flowood customers.

Just a guess though.

Better Than Ever said...

@11:04 Jackson's worse than most, but the whole country's in the same shape. Infrastructure was installed back during Eisenhower's time, give or take. The bills are coming due...

Anonymous said...

PittPanther, residents of Rankin County have been paying a separate fee every month as part of their water/sewer bill that is called "West Rankin Utility". And that separate fee (at least in Brandon) is equal to a resident's sewage fee. This has been going on for years, so one would have to assume that a large part of the cost of construction has already been collected and paid. Now I'm not saying that water/sewer bills won't be going up once the new plant is operational, but we've been paying towards that new plant for many years.

Snake Plissken said...

When is the last time The Savannah Street Wastewater Treatment Plant treated anything? You can see the plume of raw sewage polluting the Pearl River on Google Maps.

C'Mon Man!

Anonymous said...

If I recall correctly this came not too long after the consent decree.

Rankin County users have been paying a rate for years that also included funds that should've been escrowed for maintenance. Instead Jackson took those funds and spent them elsewhere. Once the EPA came in, Jackson went to Rankin asking them to foot part of the consent decree bill on top of the rate already being paid. Jackson touted this as a "regional problem". Rankin asked to have representation on how the city operated the plant and was denied. At that point Rankin decided to build their own.

Smart Move. Even MDEQ agreed.

Krusatyr said...

@1:00pm
"Infrastructure was installed (in) Eisenhower's time... so bills are coming due..."

For much of Jackson's blighted infrastructure, third world ignorance, neglect and mismanaged finances are to blame, not inevitable aging requiring ongoing responsible maintenance.

How dare this punk mayor save a stupid zoo and buy a $2M building for another library to ruin when we can't drink the water, drive on the cratered streets nor hire City Service engineers or fund adequate police and the only signs of businesses are their tail lights leaving town?

Anonymous said...

Jackson IS the "regional problem".

Anonymous said...

The Eisenhower bit is a gross generalization that is only partially true and primarily as it relates to the interstate highway system. But leave it up to Herman to see himself as the know-it-all expert.

Anonymous said...

"President Biden’s infrastructure plan will address these deficiencies and Jackson’s water / sewer problems will be remediated over the next 3-7 years." Are you literally on drugs. Jackson won't be near getting ready in 3-7 years. Have to talk this out, get consultants on board, etc, etc. You need to do comedy full time and get off the self inflicted racist wagon.

Anonymous said...

A few things:

1. The first comment in this thread is that a city of Jackson water rate hike is coming. That shouldn’t happen due to this. The rate hike should be the sewer rate (not the water rate).

2. Ridgeland sends their sewer to Jackson. Madison sends some to Jackson and some to the Madison County Sewer Authority. Gene McGee and Mary Hawkins-Butler better be prepared to pay up big.

3. Dr. Williams is a decent man. He know more than most in Jackson. But he’s not competent.

4. Jackson will get some government funding. But it’s not going to fund it all. A rate hike is necessary, even if it’s just a simple inflation rate hike.

Anonymous said...

@7:46 PM

1. Correct
2. Correct
3. First 2 sentences correct. Last sentence Incorrect. Dr. Williams is very competent. The mayor stiffles his (Dr. Williams) competence so he (the mayor) won't be embarrassed by showing his ignorance.
4. First 2 sentences correct. Last sentence incorrect. What is necessary is for the COJ and the mayor to start making people pay their bills.

Better Than Ever said...

@2:17 Maintenance is what you do to pumps, valves, pressure regulators, sensors, and so on. Eventually the pipes themselves (water/sewer) actually wear completely out. Then it's wholesale replacement time.

And there's a HECK of a lot more buried in the ground now than when then were initially installed: gas, fiber, telco, cable tv, etc. You are talking about a gargantuan task.

Note: And those are the _types_ of utilities. Often there will be multiple vendors for each, so lots of stuff to find and avoid during the work phase.

Current, and recent, administrations are due plenty of blame, but this stuff should have had untouchable money set aside many decades ago. Many.

Anonymous said...

The horse has escaped the barn and now everyone is an expert on how the door should have been shut, after the fact.

Anonymous said...

@8:17 maybe there are posters who would have never let the horse escape the barn. Maybe there are posters who understand utilities and do it for a living. Maybe there are posters who are smart enough to recognize incompetence when they see it. And quite frankly, one doesn't have to be a utilities expert to understand how a water/sewer system functions financially. (charge a rate that will cover expenses, bill that rate to the customer, collect that rate from the customer, pay for your expenses with those receipts).

Anonymous said...

10:31 the money has been 'set aside' by each and every past administration. The water/sewer fund had a reserve account, basically where it put the profits from the system. That reserve account was almost a hundred million dollars and because it continued to grow year over year it took care of things like replacing underground pipes and repairing failures.

But this administration has pissed it away - using it to cover everyday expenses that were not being covered by the monthly collections.

Why??? Because his Lord High declared that people using water, flushing into the sewer, and having their garbage collected didn't have to pay for it --- unless they wanted to do so.

Not collecting $25 million a year for several years (out of what should have been $60 million or so) will do that.

It's not that the system is old. Or that it has been ignored for years. The problem is that a moratorium on water disconnections can and will financially bankrupt any utility system. And Chockwe has proven that with his case study over these past four years.

Anonymous said...

And, just to add one more tidbit to 10:39 AM. It's a friggin' monopoly.

Anonymous said...

Lotsa chatter last week on Brandon group pages and today on Rez group pages about rate increases.


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