Mississippi Today
A water system so broken that one pipe leaks 5 million gallons a day
A water system so broken that one pipe leaks 5 million gallons a day
Note: This story was first published in The New York Times on March 22, 2023. It was reported by Sarah Fowler, who is focusing on the Jackson water crisis as part of The New York Times’ Local Investigations Fellowship.
On an abandoned golf course, overgrown with shrubs and saw grass, you can hear the rushing water from 100 yards away.
Near Hole 4, past the little bridge and crumbling cart paths, what looks to be a waterfall comes into view, pouring down through the brush and into the creek below. Except the torrent of water gushing up through the mud isn’t from a spring-fed stream or a bubbling brook.
It is spewing from a broken city water line.
As residents had to boil their tap water and businesses closed because their faucets were dry, the break at the old Colonial Country Club squandered an estimated five million gallons of drinking water a day in a city that had none to spare.
It is enough water to serve the daily needs of 50,000 people, or a third of the city residents who rely on the beleaguered water utility.
No one knows for sure when the leak reached its current size. But newly appointedwater officials say the city discovered the broken mainline pipe in 2016 and left it to gush, even as the water gouged out a swimming pool-size crater in the earth and city residents were forced to endure one drinking water crisis after another.
Jackson’s water system has been flirting with collapse for decades thanks to a combination of mismanagement, crumbling infrastructure and a series of ill-fated decisions that cost the utility money that it did not have. In 2022, the Justice Department reached an agreement with the city requiring it to bring in an outside manager to run the water department.
Residents of the city have been forced to endure chronic boil water notices that traverse the city like rolling blackouts. Many have learned to hoard bottled water against the next round of boil notices. Intermittent bouts of low water pressure can make faucets unusable for thousands of people at a time.
“The size of the leak is probably not uncommon,” said Jordan Hillman, chief operating officer of JXN Water, the management company formed last year to lead Jackson’s effort to stabilize its water service.“The time it took to respond to it is very uncommon. Most places would see this as an immediate threat because that’s a ticking time bomb. As it eats the ground out away from it, you’re eventually going to have a catastrophic failure.”
It is unclear why the city and water department did not repair the leak sooner. Melissa Faith Payne, a city spokesperson, did not immediately respond to questions on Wednesday regarding the broken line. Tony Yarber, the former mayor of Jackson, and Kishia Powell, the former public works director — both in leadership positions in 2016 — could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.
The size of the Colonial Country Club leak and the fact that it went unaddressed for so long hints at the monumental task that city and state leaders face as they work to find a lasting solution. Under the direction of a newly appointed water czar, Ted Henifin, a two-person team has scoured the city searching for leaks or closed water valves, which also can affect water pressure.Often, they have turned the valves back on themselves. Leaks generally require more time and resources to address. One of the leaks is spewing water 30 feet in the air like a geyser and losing the city as much as one million gallons a day, Ms. Hillman said.
The broken pipe under the golf course is one of two main lines that move water from the OB Curtis Water Plant to smaller transmission lines that eventually connect to thousands of customers across the city. The 48-inch pipe is critical to south Jackson, a part of the city that has suffered the most from outages and boil water notices.
Luke Guarisco, who owns the land where the golf course once operated, said he reported the leak several years ago when he noticed a broken pipe pushing water into the creek along the back of his property line. Guarisco said he lived out of state and wasn’t aware of the giant hole that has since been created by the leak.
One of the water plants that serves Jackson was built in 1914, the other in the late 1980s. Water lines under the city can be more than 100 years old, and no one knows when or where a piece of pipe or equipment will fail. A combination of Jackson’s aging infrastructure and recent freezes may have exacerbated the current leaks.
The system faced near-total shutdown in March 2021 when residents went weeks without water. In August 2022, another crisis unfolded at OB Curtis, and Mississippi declared a state of emergency for the capital city as water was, once again, deemed unsafe to drink.
Mr. Ted Henifin, a retired manager for a wastewater company out of Virginia that serves 1.8 million people, who has spent 40 years in public service, was working with a national nonprofit on a “small, part-time basis” to address water equity in Jackson. In July, he was working from home in Virginia, one day a week. By November, he was living part time in Mississippi, appointed by the Justice Department to manage the federal takeover of the water system. He officially moved to the state in January.
In the months since, he has talked with state and local leaders about how to create a sustainable water system. But he is seeking solutions in a state where Black city leaders and white state leaders often spar over what is and is not in the best interest of Jackson.
Outside the country club on Tuesday afternoon, construction crews were preparing to begin repairs, which are expected to take a couple of weeks. Residents should see reduced water pressure for only a few hours and water should remain safe to drink, Ms. Hillman said.
Curious neighbors could see stacks of new pipe and hear the sound of trees being cut.
Oscar Mckenzie saw crews working on the leak and assumed they were there to fix another water issue. A water main broke several years ago, he said, and flooded the streets.
Like so many Jackson residents, Mr. Mckenzie doesn’t drink the water that comes out of the tap. He worries what it might do to his four children. When they shower, the water makes their backs itch, he said.
Several houses down, Emmetta Jones passes by the new barricades on her regular walk escorting her son to his school bus stop. Her water pressure is steady, she said, but brown water occasionally comes out of her tap.
Like her neighbor, she doesn’t drink the water. She hasn’t in years.
Sarah Fowler is reporting on the water crisis in Jackson, Miss., in the state where she was born and raised, as part of The Times’sLocal Investigations Fellowship.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1997
Dec. 22, 1997
The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the conviction of white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith for the 1963 murder of Medgar Evers.
In the court’s 4–2 decision, Justice Mike Mills praised efforts “to squeeze justice out of the harm caused by a furtive explosion which erupted from dark bushes on a June night in Jackson, Mississippi.”
He wrote that Beckwith’s constitutional right to a speedy trial had not been denied. His “complicity with the Sovereignty Commission’s involvement in the prior trials contributed to the delay.”
The decision did more than ensure that Beckwith would stay behind bars. The conviction helped clear the way for other prosecutions of unpunished killings from the Civil Rights Era.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Medicaid expansion tracker approaches $1 billion loss for Mississippi
About the time people ring in the new year next week, the digital tracker on Mississippi Today’s homepage tabulating the amount of money the state is losing by not expanding Medicaid will hit $1 billion.
The state has lost $1 billion not since the start of the quickly departing 2024 but since the beginning of the state’s fiscal year on July 1.
Some who oppose Medicaid expansion say the digital tracker is flawed.
During an October news conference, when state Auditor Shad White unveiled details of his $2 million study seeking ways to cut state government spending, he said he did not look at Medicaid expansion as a method to save money or grow state revenue.
“I think that (Mississippi Today) calculator is wrong,” White said. “… I don’t think that takes into account how many people are going to be moved off the federal health care exchange where their health care is paid for fully by the federal government and moved onto Medicaid.”
White is not the only Mississippi politician who has expressed concern that if Medicaid expansion were enacted, thousands of people would lose their insurance on the exchange and be forced to enroll in Medicaid for health care coverage.
Mississippi Today’s projections used for the tracker are based on studies conducted by the Institutions of Higher Learning University Research Center. Granted, there are a lot of variables in the study that are inexact. It is impossible to say, for example, how many people will get sick and need health care, thus increasing the cost of Medicaid expansion. But is reasonable that the projections of the University Research Center are in the ballpark of being accurate and close to other studies conducted by health care experts.
White and others are correct that Mississippi Today’s calculator does not take into account money flowing into the state for people covered on the health care exchange. But that money does not go to the state; it goes to insurance companies that, granted, use that money to reimburse Mississippians for providing health care. But at least a portion of the money goes to out-of-state insurance companies as profits.
Both Medicaid expansion and the health care exchange are part of the Affordable Care Act. Under Medicaid expansion people earning up to $20,120 annually can sign up for Medicaid and the federal government will pay the bulk of the cost. Mississippi is one of 10 states that have not opted into Medicaid expansion.
People making more than $14,580 annually can garner private insurance through the health insurance exchanges, and people below certain income levels can receive help from the federal government in paying for that coverage.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, legislation championed and signed into law by President Joe Biden significantly increased the federal subsidies provided to people receiving insurance on the exchange. Those increased subsidies led to many Mississippians — desperate for health care — turning to the exchange for help.
White, state Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney, Gov. Tate Reeves and others have expressed concern that those people would lose their private health insurance and be forced to sign up for Medicaid if lawmakers vote to expand Medicaid.
They are correct.
But they do not mention that the enhanced benefits authored by the Biden administration are scheduled to expire in December 2025 unless they are reenacted by Congress. The incoming Donald Trump administration has given no indication it will continue the enhanced subsidies.
As a matter of fact, the Trump administration, led by billionaire Elon Musk, is looking for ways to cut federal spending.
Some have speculated that Medicaid expansion also could be on Musk’s chopping block.
That is possible. But remember congressional action is required to continue the enhanced subsidies. On the flip side, congressional action would most likely be required to end or cut Medicaid expansion.
Would the multiple U.S. senators and House members in the red states that have expanded Medicaid vote to end a program that is providing health care to thousands of their constituents?
If Congress does not continue Biden’s enhanced subsidies, the rates for Mississippians on the exchange will increase on average about $500 per year, according to a study by KFF, a national health advocacy nonprofit. If that occurs, it is likely that many of the 280,000 Mississippians on the exchange will drop their coverage.
The result will be that Mississippi’s rate of uninsured — already one of the highest in the nation – will rise further, putting additional pressure on hospitals and other providers who will be treating patients who have no ability to pay.
In the meantime, the Mississippi Today counter that tracks the amount of money Mississippi is losing by not expanding Medicaid keeps ticking up.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1911
Dec. 21, 1911
Josh Gibson, the Negro League’s “Home Run King,” was born in Buena Vista, Georgia.
When the family’s farm suffered, they moved to Pittsburgh, and Gibson tried baseball at age 16. He eventually played for a semi-pro team in Pittsburgh and became known for his towering home runs.
He was watching the Homestead Grays play on July 25, 1930, when the catcher injured his hand. Team members called for Gibson, sitting in the stands, to join them. He was such a talented catcher that base runners were more reluctant to steal. He hit the baseball so hard and so far (580 feet once at Yankee Stadium) that he became the second-highest paid player in the Negro Leagues behind Satchel Paige, with both of them entering the National Baseball Hame of Fame.
The Hall estimated that Gibson hit nearly 800 homers in his 17-year career and had a lifetime batting average of .359. Gibson was portrayed in the 1996 TV movie, “Soul of the Game,” by Mykelti Williamson. Blair Underwood played Jackie Robinson, Delroy Lindo portrayed Satchel Paige, and Harvey Williams played “Cat” Mays, the father of the legendary Willie Mays.
Gibson has now been honored with a statue outside the Washington Nationals’ ballpark.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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