For the record, in a case involving Mississippi’s capital city of Jackson, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled earlier this month that there exists no constitutional right to clean water.
The ruling came in Sterling v. City of Jackson, in which the plaintiffs alleged that Jackson city officials knowingly exposed residents to lead-contaminated drinking water and misrepresented the water’s safety for consumption. Safe and available water has been
an issue in Jackson for several years due to a plethora of problems, including aging and deteriorating infrastructure, the instability of Yazoo Clay soil, uncollected water fees and operational issues at the city’s water treatment plants.
The court held that the Constitution does not provide express protections against municipal water contamination or require municipal officials to provide truthful information during a public health crisis, arguing that “the Constitution does not provide redress
for every government wrongdoing.”
Jarring as it was for Jackson residents, the appellate court ruling seems to track with both history and the law. Federal statutes regulating water pollution have existed since the adoption of the rather anemic Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1948. The
first major law Congress passed to protect water safety was weak because it left enforcement to the states.
But during the Nixon Administration, Congress took another stab at the issue by adopting the Clean Water Act of 1972. (Followed by the Safe Drinking Water Act, the nation’s primary law regulating drinking water.) Those statutes created the first federal framework
for regulating water pollution. The act also created and funded a nationwide wastewater treatment infrastructure.
More to the point, Congress amended the CWA in 1977, 1981, and 1987 to strengthen both the financing and the enforcement of water pollution regulation. Although Congress has provided statutory protections for well over half a century and the Supreme Court has
heard many cases over alleged violations of those statutes, the Supreme Court has not recognized any explicit environmental rights provision in the Constitution.
Because of that, several states have adopted constitutional provisions and statutes that go far beyond federal environmental protections. As a result, some state courts have been tougher on polluters than federal courts.
For the plaintiffs in this case, it’s significant to note that like the U.S. Constitution, the Mississippi Constitution also doesn’t have an explicit constitutional provision undergirding a claim of a state constitutional right to clean water. Massachusetts,
New York and Pennsylvania are states where their state constitutions provide clean water rights.
The Mississippi Legislature passed the Mississippi Safe Drinking Water Act of 1997, which contains this language: “An adequate supply of safe, pure drinking water is essential to the public health and welfare.”
Mississippi law, at least statutes adopted by the Mississippi Legislature, seems to suggest that the path to claim clean, safe water (at the state level) is through statutory entitlement, regulatory enforcement, and going to state court over state statutes
and regulations.
But constitutional law, whether at the federal or state level, doesn’t seem to carry much weight in that pursuit. Solutions to Jackson’s broader infrastructure problems still hinge on the cogent assessment of three-term former Jackson Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr.
Johnson, the city’s first Black chief executive, led Jackson to spend or obligate almost $200 million on water and sewer projects between 1997 and 2013 in an effort to forestall the current Jackson water crisis.
Years ago, Johnson wrote about his perceptions of why there’s an infrastructure crisis in the city: “The historic disparity in the provision of municipal services to local residents; A decreasing population and dwindling tax base; An increasing rate of poverty
among the water system user base; and Adverse intergovernmental policies that placed the burden of financing improvements on local government and ratepayers.”
State officials point to the current Jackson city government's lax efforts to collect water bills and note that other Mississippi cities support and maintain their water systems through local fee systems and bonds
For now, Jackson’s leaders have little choice but to absorb the 5th Circuit’s ruling and move forward.
Sid Salter is a syndicated columnist. Contact him at sidsalter@sidsalter.com.
15 comments:
Just like there is no Constitutional right to smooth streets.
Jxn Water is not lax on collecting water
bills. He doesn't talk about the city being
the ones that caused the water crisis.
Proclaiming that Harvey Johnson was cogent demonstrates that Sid Salter is not.
Sanity still exists despite much evidence to the contrary.
669 words. Sid went a little over this week. Maximum Verbiage again!!!
So, use AI to learn what the dangerous toxic chemical exposure in drinking water can do to you, your children or grandchildren or other living things. Artificial intelligence is better than no intelligence. PS Jackson's water now meets the highest standards. IF some of you ever bothered to filter your water, you'd be able to SEE the difference!
8:51am
Jackson has the worst collection rates (71% to 82% over 2025-2026)) for water fee payments in MS (92.5%, Jxn excluded) and throughout the country (97%).
Sydney is rationalizing Jackson's feckless failures of recent Municipal management asserting they have no Constitutional obligation to provide potable water.
Nor is there a US Constitutional duty to keep sewer outta creeks and rivers and provide free stuff to those who prefer to pay for internet but not water. Not the American Way, Sydney.
Clean drinking water is not a constitutional right. It is just a mark of a civilized society. Jackson is not that any more.
9:27, 9:37am
"Jackson's water now meets the highest standards"?
One cannot see many toxins in water. I've filtered Jackson water for 20 +/- years. Mine still occasionally comes out the tap brown or yellow from Jackson pipes, not mine. So I refuse to drink Jackson water. I wash with it, I filter it to boil and cook with. But I buy glorious gallons of Spring Water for drinking. Often sold out, why would that be?
You should absolutely use a reverse osmosis filter under your sink for drinking water anywhere you live. Jackson, Madison, Atlanta, New York, doesn’t matter. They are about $1,000 but worth every cent for your health and you get the best water possible. Do it for yourself and your family.
I remember many years ago Jackson promoting, by ballot initiative, the 1% sales tax. I remember vividly the messaging that urged Jackson to vote for the tax. The water pipes running through much of the city were far past their effective use, and failures and breaks (especially in cold weather) were becoming too frequent and expensive. Water interruptions affected not only residents but businesses and restaurants. And upon repair, boil water notices were inconvenient and happening far too often.
The message to voters: Pass the 1% tax, and Jackson would have the means to begin replacing that pipe.
The measure passed, the tax was collected, and someone somewhere has the money, or had the money.
Well here we are many, many years later and that old pipe is still in the ground.
And what do the people of Jackson do with their frustration? They take it to court. Instead of doing that they were supposed to do, like all other cities, they sit on their behinds and do nothing. Then ask the court to give them what they need because they feel it is their right.
The court basically is telling Jackson "we cannot come and govern your city for you. And the Constitution does not require the court to do your job. You need to do what other cities do and address your problems."
Citizens should file a lawsuit against the City of Jackson to account for the absolute crock of shit that was peddled leading up to the vote authorizing the red ink gulping convention center.
My iSpring brand was $625.
We have a private water company. They provide an annual report of their lab results, as required by federal law. We have constant small overages for chlorine byproducts, but I prefer it to whatever comes out of the taps in Jackson.
1058, yeah, you remember those arguments just like the folks who ''remember' that the legalizing liquor would pay for schools, and that legalizing casinos would pay for schools - neither of which were ever made as part of the process. But nevermind, that's what people wanted to remember about those sin taxes.
The 1% wasn't argued over replacing waterlines, in fact it passed after the $93 million bond fiasco given Jackson by Harvey Johnson seven months prior to the 1% local election.
And at the time, while developing the plans for spending the extra tax money to come, the proposal was to not spend the money on water or sewer because the Enterprise Fund of the utility had almost $90 million in reserve funds - the need was to spend the money on streets and bridges because the city had not spent any general fund taxes on streets or bridges for eight years.
Yet you complain and still don't know. Over $40 million of the 1% tax revenue has been spent on water and sewer improvements, replacing lines for both. None has been spent since the takeover by JxnWater and the $800 million of federal dollars given to the state by Wicker and team in DC.
But, thanks for playing; its always fun to read from folks that think they know but prove they don't by what they let their fingers say.
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