436 #ClimateEmergency #LeadPollution #Mississippi
"Mississippi officials saw the Jackson water crisis coming — and did nothing"
by Lylla Younes for Grist [Audio available] [Aug 23 2024]
https://grist.org/accountability/jackson-water-crisis-mississippi-epa-inspector-general-report/
Quotes:
"A new report from the EPA inspector general found the state’s health department saw evidence of elevated lead levels as early as 2015."
"In the summer of 2015, officials in Jackson, Mississippi sent the state a series of water samples taken at different locations throughout the city’s public water system../\.. Sure enough, regulators in the Mississippi State Department of Health, or MSDH, identified elevated lead levels in the water supply. But rather than immediately informing the city about the public health risk, they sat on the data for half a year. Unwittingly, residents continued to drink toxic water.
Officials in the Environmental Protection Agency were unaware of the problem until they inspected the city’s water system in February and March of 2020."
"These “persistent and concerning violations” prompted the EPA to issue an emergency order requiring the city to make improvements. As the events of the following years would show, it was already too late: The following winter, Jackson experienced a system-wide failure during a storm, causing several areas of the city to go without water for weeks.Then, in August 2022, the city’s main water treatment plant failed due to heavy flooding, precipitating a high-profile public health crisis that captured the attention of the nation. To this day, some residents don’t feel that they can depend on the system to deliver safe drinking water."
"For years, none of the stakeholders with some authority over Jackson’s water system has taken full accountability for the water crisis."
"The state government has long blamed city officials <=> City office holders have blamed the state for rejecting their repeated requests for funds <=> The EPA has had a role to play as well."
"Dominic DeLeo, a local clean water advocate and long-time Jackson resident, told Grist that it wasn’t fair to blame city officials for problems they didn’t fully understand../\..Mississippi newspaper The Clarion Ledger reported that Jackson is the fastest shrinking city in the nation.
For years leading up to the water crisis, the city’s Department of Public Works had raised the alarm over persistent budget deficits and staffing shortages that made it impossible to address issues with the water system."
"..director of the city’s Department of Public Works, Bob Miller, said, “The missing piece for Jackson along the way was the lack of money available to do anything with the information they did have. "
"..the state failed to route funds from the federal Drinking Water State Revolving Fund to the city to diagnose and address its water issues. Had the EPA been alerted of the issues in Jackson sooner, the agency could have taken proactive steps"
"The findings of the report offer validation to Jackson residents who have long felt abandoned by the state.
“I wish that [the report] did surprise us, but the trust level of the community with the state is so low,” said Makani Themba, a local activist. “The governor [(R) Jonathan Tate Reeves JdeB] tends to attack us when he has a shot. It’s just been hostile.”
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