Governor Tate Reeves briefed the media on Jackson's water crisis on Labor Day. Compare the Mississippi Today report to the Governor's remarks. Notice anything?
Mississippi Today
Exactly one week since tens of thousands lost running water in Mississippi’s capital city, officials on Monday announced they believe every Jackson resident has water once again.
“We have returned water pressure to the city,” Gov. Tate Reeves said in a press conference on Monday. “The tanks are full or filling. There are currently zero water tanks at low levels.”
City officials echoed that update in a citywide notice on Monday: “All of Jackson should now have pressure and most are now experiencing normal pressure.”
A state-issued boil water notice remains in effect, however, meaning that the water, while flowing, should still not be consumed.
“Health officials tell me that the pump is pumping cleaner water than we’ve seen in a long, long time,” Reeves said, adding that there is still much testing to come before it can be deemed safe to drink.
One week ago, state officials took over operations at the city’s largest water distribution plant, which had failed after years of neglect and the Pearl River flooded in late August. When the plant failed, Jackson’s 160,000-plus residents experienced little or no water pressure, spurring a federal emergency declaration and major relief efforts.
While Monday’s news of normal system operation may bring some relief to Jacksonians, officials continue to warn that additional water system problems could occur at any time. Many of the aged water main lines in the city cannot withstand high pressure, and some pipes that are integral to the system are more than 100 years old.
Reeves said officials from the state will remain in place “for some time.”
“We know there could be more challenges … There may be more bad days in the future,” Reeves said. “This system broke over several years, and it would be inaccurate to claim it was solved in less than a week.”
Reeves continued: “We have, however, reached a place that people in Jackson can trust water will come out of the faucet, toilets will be flushed, and fires will be fought.”
As officials continue to work toward keeping the water system on line, state leaders are discussing long-term options to ensure the system will be repaired or replaced. Those deliberations almost certainly would require state legislative action.
Reeves on Monday said he did not anticipate calling a special legislative session in the foreseeable future, but he said he was willing to hear and consider plans.
Governor Reeves September 5 Statement
One week ago today, I told you that the state was going to take historic and unprecedented steps to intervene in Jackson’s water system because it had reached a crisis level. Not only were there issues with the quality of the water, there were issues with the quantity of the water. The city could not produce enough running water for Jacksonians.
Chastain is the pump closest to the OB Curtis plant, often called a bell weather for the system. The health department told me this morning that it is full for the first time in months.
We are resuming investigative testing. After the bad water has been flushed through the system we should hopefully find that Jacksonians have access to clean water. Health officials tell me this morning that the plant is pumping out cleaner water than we’ve seen for a very long time. We will keep you updated on that.
And the teams that we’ve acquired for the city will continue to work diligently to make repairs, do maintenance, and all of the other things that have been necessary for years. I am proud of the work that they have done. For those who worry that their absence would mean a return to severely low water pressure—I want you to know that they will be active for some time to come.
We know that it is always possible that there will be more severe challenges. This system broke over several years, and it would be inaccurate to claim it is totally solved over a week.
We know how to respond, and we can do so effectively. We have the personnel in place today to prevent as many issues as possible, while understanding that a week of repairs does not eliminate every risk. There may be more bad days in the future.
We have, however, reached a place where people in Jackson can trust that water will come out of the faucet, toilets can be flushed, fires can be fought.
In anticipation of a return to school for students tomorrow, we are pulling back water distribution from school locations and we are moving those resources to our other water distribution mega-sites. Those sites have slowed down in demand a bit, but we have still put out about five million bottles of water over the last several days.
As we turn towards long-term solutions in the near future, I want to clarify a few things that have become even more clear over the last few days. There are problems in Jackson that are decades-old, on the order of a billion dollars to fix. The crisis we intervened to solve is not one of those problems.
OB Curtis was built about 30 years ago. It cost around $20 million to build it from scratch. If I remember correctly, the membrane side of the plant was built around 2007. The water system actually operated at a profit until the wheels fell off only ten years ago. Jackson government is taking in more revenue overall these days than ever before.
So what happened? How did we get here?
Basic work to maintain those facilities was not done because the few heroic staff in that plant had been abandoned. This crisis cost effort and tens of thousands of dollars at a time to prevent, not billions of dollars.
Whatever investment comes next, basic competency to run a water system has to come with it. We cannot continue on the way that we’ve been going.
The state has invested and will continue to invest a tremendous amount of resources to quickly fix what has been broken over the past few years. We’ve administered about $150 million in state and federal funds to the city over the last several years. We’ll spend tens of millions more on this mission. I vetoed state funding for golf courses and parking lots in Jackson this year because I knew that we would need to provide big investments like this at some point soon.
Unfortunately, we’ve never received a real plan from Jackson on how to improve their water system so that the state could consider funding it. I know Congressman Thompson said the federal government is in a similar situation.
I hope that this week demonstrates the clear need for one. The solutions to this problem are not radical, they’re common-sense.
Prioritize basic services: water, sewer, trash… Hire the necessary people. Let them do their jobs. Don’t make excuses, just go forth and deliver water.
I am very grateful for the team engaged in this mission over the last week, because they have done exactly that.
We have more work to do to prevent future crises, but I am very proud of the front-line teams that have not slept throughout their efforts to return water to Jackson.
Today, the tanks are full, water pressure is solid, and we can thank the people who have done quiet, competent work at that plant for making that possible.
19 comments:
Well...I notice a lot of quotes if that's what you're talking about, Kingfish. And another thing I notice is, unlike so many of your columns and lead-in posts, it's easy to see who said what by the placement of quotation marks and the placement of comments to use the flow of the conversation - As opposed to scratching my head and trying to figure out what goes where and who said what and who shot John.
I'm sure you inferred otherwise while comparing the two, but I see nothing to get excited over.
Maybe when the Mayor gets back from whatever paid for trip he is currently on, he can add his 2 cents worth. I guess it is good he is gone, because apparently improvements get done more quickly without him.
NE Jackson resident here… I can tell you I’m not a big fan of Tate by any means but LuDUMBa better be glad he stepped in otherwise we would still have no water
NAACP is bitchin but they didn’t nor would they know what to do other than demonize the whites in the city that are the huge portion of city tax base
You can’t fix stupid
Everything Reeves said that follows "So what happened? How did we get here?" seems to be omitted from the first post.
Keep telling the full story KF. It will probably have to come from a federal judge before it cam overcome all the BS that been put out there. But you do important work. Keep the faith.
Most likely, the MT writer had 14 inches written and their editor told them to cut it to 9 inches. Happens all the time in the news business.
The writer was the editor and the publication is online only. No space requirements.
11:23 is on the right track. MT includes every accusation the Mayor makes against the state but when the Governor responds in kind, well, MT can't be bothered to include his remarks .
Gov Reeves mentioned incompetency on the part of Jackson as responsible, whereas MS Today merely blamed "neglect" and "Pearl River Flooded" without assigning responsibility to Jackson itself.
For many years I have never drunk Choke-water, bet Reeves doesn't. Bet Lil Choke never does and when he says he drinks it out of the tap, it's a lie of omission: his drinking water comes out of a gravity tap from 5 gallon well water dispenser bottle delivered to his house by truck.
The National Enquirer is more credible than the DNC funded MS Today and everyone knows it.
For the LOVE OF GOD, will y'all stop the male pi**ing contest and stick to reporting on the quality of water.
As far as I'm concerned the only admirable humans are the FEMA,MEMA and EPA folks.
You guys can pretend all you like that our water system and flooding problems can't be laid at the feet of decades of political gamesmanship or that ONLY dark skinned Mayors of Jackson have rewarded "buddies" with contract work.
And you can ignore the efforts more than a few professional associations have made to try to change contract laws in MS in your "investigations" as well.
Even some Mississippi companies avoid contract bidding in MS.
From what I can see on MT’s website there are a bunch of lefties that are reporting. Enough said
Mississippi Today stopped allowing comments on their articles in 2020 when people kept pointing out stuff like this. They couldn't deal with any debate.
The color of the Mayor's skin has nothing to do with. Dale did what he could. He was the one who started the ball rolling on the construction of the O.B. Curtis plant. It took ten years to build the membrane side from start to finish. Why don't you ask why? Because Ditto, Melton, and Johnson, oh yes, the Council too, took their sweet time on it. It's quite fun reading.
The mismanagement and neglect of the water treatment plants didn't happen under Danks or Ditto. Period.
@12:46pm
Democrat Mayors destroyed Jackson water system AND the current bidding laws suck. Engineers should thoroughly describe the Work by drawings and specs, advertise for bids, then lowest bid, for work as described, wins. Engineers inspect for progress payments. No RFPs.
MT left out Reeves' listing of the money that the state has committed.
No mention of the gap between the Mayor's "It's going to take billions" and the low cost of fixing the Curtis problem.
And where is any mention of the Mayor's abject failure to have developed the "Plan" that even Bennie counts as a failure on the city administration's part.
The essence of what we've witnessed is the uncloaking of a city that is about as poorly run, top to bottom, as any city in the country. The Mayor has been drowning since day one. We still need a receivership.
Warning possible psychotic liberal at 12:46PM. Be prepared for all manner of ridiculous assertions, wild speculations, illogical conclusions, unhinged rants, and raves.
It should also be pointed out the meaningless questions that lead to straw man arguments with baseless accusations of racism with many, many, whataboutisms.
We now return you to your regular scheduled blog.
12:46, We can either perform a thorough autopsy on this debacle, or we fix the water system without addressing the root causes.
When those at fault go to great lengths to misdirect blame, then it becomes even more important to fully investigate and expose the truth, because it indicates that the same cycle is about to be repeated.
we gonna reload them ink pens and come WRITE back
Jackson is like a Down Hill Roller Coaster, Mayor Johnson (the Great Planner) could never make a meeting on time, never actually offered Leadership ideas to solve problems-just wanted to Study everything. The current Mayor is so self serving he doesn't even believe his own BS. His only thoughts are to blame everyone else-couldn't be his fault while not supporting his (their) employees, contributing to every Social Program ever thought of while watching & letting Jackson die slow, slow death.. It's time Luwamba moves on to some other worthy Project & let Mr. Stokes take charge-
"Prioritize basic services" should be chiseled in stone above the entrance to every city council boardroom, board of supervisors meeting place and legislative floor in this state. The AVERGAGE age of a bridge in this country is 46 years old. There's unsafe drinking water in cities throughout this country. Our public schools aren't keeping us in the lead, globally. Over 10% of the country does not have enough to eat and there are indications this number has doubled since COVID.
Find me a purple-haired transvestite engineer who's qualified to run the water treatment plant and watch how fast I'd appoint they/them to the position. We have to stop being distracted by irrelevant b.s. while our elected officials are making poor decisions that are LITERALLY KILLING US.
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