The fiddling continues as Jackson's water system continues to implode. A fire at the O.B. Curtis Water Treatment plant knocked out all five of the high-service pumps in April, 2021. However, Jackson still has not fixed the pumps even though it is plagued by water pressure problems that leave substantial parts of the city without water for days and weeks at a time. JJ obtained a copy of the letter through a public records request.
Jackson issued the following press release on April 30, 2021:
Early this morning an electrical fire occurred at OB Curtis WTP. The fire was managed by the assistance of Ridgeland Fire Department and Jackson Fire Department. The fire shutdown two high service pumps and shut down the entire plant. We have an electrical contractor onsite to help assist with rewiring the high service pumps to get them back online. Once the high service pumps are back online, full power should be restored to the plant. We anticipate the plant being back online by noon today, but it could take longer if other issues are found during the recovery.
Fast forward nine months later. The city still has not replaced the electrical panels whose destruction disabled the pumps. The EPA stated in a January 25 letter to the city:
A fire at the electrical panel at the O.B. Curtis Water Treatment Plant (WTP) on April 30, 2021 caused all five of the high-service pumps at the O.B. Curtis WTP to be unavailable for service. During a November 8, 2021 inspection of the PWS by MSDH, the pumps remained out of service, with no target date by the City to put the pumps back into service. The loss of the pumps has caused multiple elevated tanks to be low or empty and has caused certain areas of the distribution system to have sustained low pressure.
Low-pressure and loss of pressure in a drinking water distribution system may cause a net movement of water from outside the pipe to the inside through cracks, breaks, or joints in the distribution system that are common in all water systems. Backsiphonage occurs when pressure is lost in pipes, creating a negative pressure and a partial vacuum, which pulls water from a contaminated source outside the pipe into the treated, potable water inside the pipe. This creates a suitable environment for bacteriological contamination and other disease-causing organisms, including E. coli, to enter the water distribution system downstream of the WTPs, which then is delivered to users.
MSDH issued the City a significant deficiency report on December 14, 2021, identifying this as a significant deficiency, and requiring the City to provide MSDH with a written response identifying corrective actions and timeframes by January 14, 2022. MSDH’s report requires that the City’s corrective actions be complete within 120 days of receipt of the report, or no later than April 14, 2022. (See Enclosure A).
As of the date of this Notice, the City has not repaired or replaced the electrical panel to restore the pumps to service, nor has the City provided MSDH and/or the EPA with a corrective action plan to correct the significant deficiency by the deadline of April 14, 2022.
The EPA ordered the city to arrange a meeting to "show cause" why the EPA should not take legal action against the city.
Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba did not like this one notice one bit and proclaimed the same excuse he uses for other crisis's such as crime: covid. He said at his press conference Monday that Jackson is unable to obtain the needed parts due to supply-chain issues. The Mayor said (10:15) the city is "pushing back" against the EPA. The Mayor said the panel can not be repaired "until we have the parts to repair the panel and those parts are held up in the distribution chain. He said his administration talks to the EPA at least every two weeks and keeps the agency "up to date at every step"
The Mayor said the water system is not suffering because of "incompetence" but instead compared it to an old car (6:15 in FB video), saying the parts were worn down and not sufficient. The Mayor also said a larger water line is being built to serve South Jackson.
38 comments:
Who else isn’t surprised that these shuck’n’jive charlatans are incompetent?
Meanwhile, municipal water systems in other cities across the state seem to be getting the parts they need to maintain their systems.
I work in commercial construction management. In early December we had two large underground electrical feeds arc and blow out the transformer at one end and the switchgear at the other end. These were not off-the-shelf parts but we were able to procure the necessary replacement equipment inside a week. The hardest thing to find was copper conductor. All repairs were completed before Christmas. It was not cheap but it was a "critical" operation that could not afford down-time. Kind of like a municipal water treatment plant. Some enterprising trial lawyer needs to file a class-action suit on behalf of the citizens against the City of Jackson and its leaders (in Federal Court) for negligence...
Looks like the mayor isn't going to do a damn thing unless there is a payoff for him. Also looks like everyone else is afraid to say anything. Even the EPA is afraid to do anything.
The EPA is not the enemy here. Is the city still insisting that its water remains safe to drink?
Somebody remind the Dope Boys that most bongs require water.
I've lived here for 66 years. The first 40 or so were OK.
So, what's new here?
This is all a setup.
Baby Chok wants a good water system but he doesn't have the money or the expertise to make it happen. So, he's waiting for "Whitey" to take it over with his plan being to put up a big fight and make it look like the poor blacks are losing their water system, when in reality he doesn't care.
He's playing all of yall for either a ton of money he can steal or, have someone else deal with the headache.
He wins either way. The city loses either way.
Hey Lumumba,
I live a block away from you in Northeast Jackson please tell me how this is the states fault. I mean tell me please. By state you mean code word for whites right? Your the lazy a$$ and dr Charles Williams head of water in Jackson that are responsible. Your too busy giving Mbar a building permit without proper notice.
He leaked in the "equity in the water system" early on in his comments. Obviously that is the only thing that matters to him, although not sure what equity is to a person that claims the white people moved to NE Jackson to be close to the treatment plant. A plant that wasn't built for a decade or two after this area was developed and occupied by those conniving white folks.
My question: The box that he is waiting for parts on was damaged in April, 2021. (There wasn't a supply chain problem back then, but he doesn't expect anybody to really fact check his bullshit.)
He claims that the replacement parts 'have been ordered'. Maybe a public records request to see exactly when these parts were ordered would be in order. And while at it, set up a betting pool with an over/under. My money is after November 2021. (Mayor Yakalot wants to talk about the bureaucracy of ordering such a part - he has not had a problem circumventing public purchasing policies with anything else, operating under a COVID emergency order for almost two years, and attempting to create an emergency for the garbage contract when he couldn't get his homeboys on the train. -- Another talking point he figured nobody will challenge him on this excuse either.)
If soe ambitious internet legend were to do a Public Records Request for records like bid documents, invoices, budget requests, etc what would a person find? Has anyone even made the moves to allocate funds for the repairs?
Another question: is any of the damage covered by insurance? Have they made the time to file a claim etc timely? Did the adjusters perhaps deny a caim for some reason? (Bailing wire used inside the panel and other redneck engineering perhaps a contributing cause?)
Or are they too busy planning a bigger better pipe dream to fix what they have.
6:58 is leading for 1st place.
By all means let’s keep paying millions of dollars to attorneys to keep control of a board at the airport. You know, because we make so much money off of it.
They should have a Top 50 Dumb Ass award. Antard would come in at #1 and #13. What a tool bag.
631's comment is about as perfect and succinct a one about Jackson as one will ever read.
If only.
Something that stuck out during the press conference. Notice how none of the reporters asked him when the parts were ordered. They just took him at his word and said ok.
Aint no doubt, Chowke is a stand up guy with full transparency.
Better git-r-dun for Jackson then KF!
Pretty sure the man in charge of the water system recently gave a television interview stating the parts were ordered somewhere around January 12, 2022. Either WLBT or WJTV. Maybe I’m misremembering, but I think that is what he said. Meaning the parts are late because the city sat on its duff for 3/4 of a year before ordering them.
Yes there are supply chain issues, but..BIG BUT, you can almost certainly get the needed parts in those 9 months. Total BS. And for the media and constituents to believe his BS is unfathomable.
I bet if you called Stuart Irby today the parts would be here in a couple of weeks.
Like anyone ever thought after that fancy interview it would happen. Fixing the main reason why you have low pressure vs going out and digging up streets to show "progress". Yep, sounds just like something this admin would do. They are all touched.
I’m glad I don’t live in a city that needs water donations. Sad
That plant was built 30+ years ago, so if getting original parts is an issue, you install new control and distribution panels. You don't kick the can down the road for 10 months. This is incompetence on full display.
The parts are in the mail, right?
Co Coler donating water to Jackson......"give a mouse a cookie......"
As if KF isn't aware that local media are as bad as MSNBC when it comes to getting the real story. They love the free clothes.....the hair dids......paid for lunches.....life is a sham.
Kingfish, it was asked at about 19 minutes in and was answered by Charles Williams shortly after. When he was asked why they waited so late to order it, he said he wasn't going to get into that and then the mayor answered angrily after that.
It was ordered on January 13.
Coke is handing out water bottles to Jacksonians like they are 3rd world Somalians squatting in squalor, and the people of Jackson are just fine with that. First Pres and First Baptist parents can save thousands on mission trips and still get that photo of their child handing out water to people wandering around in rubble where a city used to be.
During last year's water crisis our church Southside Assembly along with New Horizon Church got a 18 wheeler load of water from a group we work with called Convoy of Hope while the city continued it's incompetence. Took them 2 weeks to call the Governor for help.
Kingfish: Notice how none of the reporters asked him when the parts were ordered. They just took him at his word and said ok.
Some of them are inexperienced. Some of them don't give a damn. Some of them are only here waiting their own leapfrog to a new gig in an decidedly better place. Some of them work for outfits that don't look into the facts because they don't want to lose access to the Emperor.
AND a small coterie of them are outright apologists, ideologues themselves, convinced that they 'deep dive' and, therefore, are journo-experts in nearly everything. They're (delusionally) sure Jackson's ongoing infrastructure problems are the product of a conspiracy cooked up by whites (as they ostensibly were leaving town) to continue the age-old subjugation of blacks in Jackson.
To wit, who recalls only three short months ago the water outage caused by a "bad batch" of coagulants?
Judin over at Ladd's Beggars Press rushed to the fore with nearly a thousand words to let everyone know that the problem was ... you guessed it ... someone else's fault and not in any way that of the Lumumba administration.
But did Beggars' Judin, or anyone else, seek the name of the manufacturer and/or supplier to contact them for comment? Did Judin or anyone else follow-up with Williams to find out all the 'deep dive' details about the "bad batch" of coagulants?
You know the answer. No, they didn't, they don't, they won't.
Because this is all about race. Race 24/7/365 and NOTHING, not even a totally incompetent greenhorn black mayor with ZERO experience running anything in his life, is going to get in the way of the one and only narrative. RACE.
Y'all keep electing a racist narcissistic mayor and expect different results, right?
The folks of Jackson wanted this man and his policies, so let them live them. I use Jackson from I-55 County Line to I-55 south only.
Judin is nothing more than an apologist for the administration on this issue. It's a shame because he can be a pretty good reporter. I've enjoyed reading his covid-coverage, for example, even when I've disagreed with some of it.
Stay calm. All is well. We've had Domino's filling potholes, and now Coca Cola supplying water. Next, we'll have McGruff the crime dog patrolling the streets.
11:32, answer is ...."There are no real reporters" in the city of Jackson!!
Excellent points at 10:06 a.m., in my opinion. I would that there may also a fair amount of just plain ole laziness.
Right now, race is what sells. Advertisers have unprecedented insight into our current interests, and then they feed it back to us. I, for one, look forward to getting back to the basics: sex sells.
1:44 you are so right about sex sells, because right now, the city of Jackson is getting fu'k on a daily basis with no "protection"!
In the two plants I worked in, we kept some of the key components that could shut the place down if they failed,
We also kept a list of parts providers who could turn around "parts request" on short notice and have even taken a truck across two states to pick up an all important motor that was needed between scheduled transportation pickup times.
Post a Comment