Aging Infrastructure and the Quest for Clean H2O in Black Communities

By Billy Locke and Blake Tousignant

is essential for human existence. Yet, in Jackson, Mississippi, clean drinking water is hard to find. As a small metropolis on the Pearl River, the city is home to about 150,000 residents, most of them now under constant duress because of poor water quality.

“Essentially, the issue we have is aging water sewer infrastructure due to a low tax base,” said Robert Langford, executive director of Operation Shoestring, a nonprofit providing after-school programs and other services to low-income families in the city. “So we haven’t been able as a city to keep up with repairs, including the replacement of systems.”

Consuming contaminated water can lead to illness. According to Langford, “The stress of having to always be on the lookout is significantly tough. Filtered water is part of our lives and has been forever because of the concern about low levels of lead and copper, which are not good for human consumption.”

Jackson is just one example of the poor water quality that exists in predominantly black communities throughout the nation. A 2019 study by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) revealed a significant correlation between sociodemographic characteristics and violations of the 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) from 2016 to 2019 nationwide, disproportionately affecting people of color.

Analyzing the data by county, researchers found that the rate of drinking water violations increased with the rising percentage of people of color, non-native English speakers, limited transportation, and crowded conditions. In addition, the study revealed a connection between such sociodemographics and the “slow and inadequate enforcement” of the SDWA. According to the study, nearly 40% of the U.S. population (130 million people) obtained water from systems that violated federal regulations from June 1, 2016, to May 31, 2019, the most recent period for which the information was available.

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According to the report titled, “Watered Down Justice,” the violations fell into three main categories: health-based violations that could adversely affect people’s physical well-being; monitoring/reporting violations when systems failed to notify authorities of monitoring results; and public notification violations when systems failed to notify the public of poor water quality.

“Health threats associated with these violations can include cancer, impaired brain development, decreased kidney function, and potentially life-threatening gastrointestinal disease,” the report stated. “The relationship between racial, ethnic, and language vulnerability and persistence of violations was the strongest of all the relationships we studied across all compliance, enforcement, and sociodemographic characteristics.”

Before the Jackson crisis, which began in February 2021, Flint, Michigan, was the city most associated with poor water quality. On April 25, 2014, that city changed its water source from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) to the Flint River. The switch caused water distribution pipes to corrode and leach lead and other contaminants into municipal drinking water. On January 16, 2016, a state of emergency was declared, and Flint reconnected to the original Detroit water system in October. However, the damage was already done. At least 12 people have died from outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease, according to media reports, and dozens more became ill.

“The CDC [Centers for Disease Control] determined that nearly 100,000 residents of Flint had been exposed to lead in the period between April 2014 and October 2015,” according to Michael Ray, editor for Encyclopedia Britannica. “Scientists also conclusively linked the deadly 2014 Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in Genesee County to Flint’s water. The switch from the DWSD to the Flint River had sharply lowered chlorine levels in the municipal water supply, which allowed Legionella pneumophila bacteria to flourish and caused Legionnaires’ infection rates to skyrocket.”

In Jackson, the water crisis began in February 2021 with a winter storm that covered the Ross Barnett Reservoir with snow and sleet. Freezing temperatures led to a water filter malfunction at the O.B. Curtis Water Treatment Plant and the failure of defective equipment used for water screening. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), such screeners are in place to remove objects such as paper, metal, and other objects to prevent damage to pipes. Without successful screenings, harmful and unwanted materials enter Jackson’s water supply. Furthermore, the winter storm caused about 80 water main breaks, which occur when the water expands inside pipes as temperatures freeze. If the pressure becomes too great for the pipes, they rupture and break. As a result, thousands of Jackson residents went weeks without clean water. According to a Guardian report, Jackson remained under a boil water alert for over 225 days.

Jackson’s water woes continued in 2022 with heavy rains in late August, which led to the flooding of the Pearl River and damages to the O.B. Curtis Plant. Low water pressure stopped residents from taking showers and flushing toilets.

“We really couldn’t even drink from the filtered system because there was so much junk in the water,” said Langford. The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency stepped in and distributed nearly 5 million bottles of water.

“At Operation Shoestring, we were able to partner with a lot of organizations; both local businesses and civic national organizations reached out to us. Some would truck in pallets of bottled water, which was wonderful in terms of crisis assistance, but it is not a sustainable or efficient way to access drinkable water,” Langford continued.

On Christmas Day, a “boil water” notice was again issued after a powerful cold spell caused water line breaks in an outdated and compromised facility.

And the city’s water woes are not over. Federal funds have been appropriated by Congress with the approval of President Biden to repair Jackson’s aged water system. Funds issued by the feds consist of over $600 million for infrastructure renovation. The Department of Justice has approved a third-party manager to oversee the federal funds allocated to Jackson’s water treatment system.

In addition, Jackson is set to begin its multi-year water management project to establish reliably clean water for all residents.

Syretta Johnson and Alexandra Melnick, of Operation Shoestring, receive hygiene supplies for the community during water crisis

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Complex Shifts That Leave Cities Vulnerable
For people who live in low-income neighborhoods with aging pipes, houses, and infrastructure, the water problem is exponentially worse. When speaking on the divide between the haves and have-nots of Jackson, Mississippi, Langford said, “When one group of people gets a cold another group of people that’s less well-off gets the flu.” Low-income communities suffer the most because of the unavailability of transportation and access to clean water.

At the core of the nationwide problem is the crumbling infrastructure in communities of color stymied by job losses, white flight, and the global economy in recent decades. In Jackson, where the population is now 83% black, 15% white, and one percent Hispanic, the rise of the civil rights movement ushered in a period of dramatic change. In 1970, the Supreme Court enforced the desegregation of schools throughout the city, which set off a period of “white flight.”

According to Robert Luckett, a historian at Jackson State University, in an interview with “Mississippi Today,” 40% of the student body was gone “overnight “ — with desegregation in the city of Jackson. This caused a reduced tax base and reduced investment in infrastructure. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, 32% of the city’s residents live in poverty today.

In the case of Flint, once a vibrant economic center in the northern Midwest, the 1980s and ’90s brought economic decline with the closure of General Motors manufacturing plants. The population within the city is 55% black, 33% white, five percent Hispanic, and five percent people of mixed race, according to the most recent U.S. Census. And in recent years, the financial situation has only worsened.

After then-Michigan Gov. John Engler declared a state of financial emergency in 2002, city managers selected by Engler ran the city for two years. However, the financial problems persisted, and in 2011 Governor Rick Snyder appointed the first of several unelected emergency managers to run the municipality.

“Those managers, who reported directly to the Michigan state treasury.

Billy Locke, is a mass communication-advertising major at the School of Journalism and Communication at Southern Adventist University. He is a communication student residing in California. a part of a communications co-hort from Southern Adventist University.

Blake Tousignant, is a Graphic Design and Photography student at Southern Adventist University.