JXN Water said Wednesday it’s confirmed no lead in about 43% of the city’s service lines, and that it will continue to investigate the remaining lines as it complies with recently updated guidelines from the Environmental Protection Agency.

A representative for Jacobs, a contractor that manages the city’s drinking water plants for JXN Water, told Mississippi Today their goal is to fully determine whether there’s lead in any of the city’s nearly 75,000 service lines by 2027.

Yvonne Mazza-Lappi, water compliance manager for Jacobs, said JXN Water has so far identified nearly 14,000 galvanized iron service lines, or about 18% of the total amount. For each of those lines, she explained, JXN Water will have to find out if they were ever downstream of a lead service line, as lead particles can attach to the surface of those pipes according to the EPA. If so, JXN Water will have to replace the galvanized line.

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There are another roughly 29,000 service lines, she added, where the material is unknown.

“With this inventory, the EPA requires certain validation,” Mazza-Lappi said. “So we can’t just assume that someone’s service line is non-lead. We have to prove that. We use historical records. If we don’t have enough of those, we do build inspections.”

The EPA in October finalized a revision to its Lead and Copper rule, requiring public water systems around the country to find and replace lead service lines over the next decade.

JXN Water released a mapping tool where residents can look up their address and see the latest information for their service line, both on the customer side and the utility side. JXN Water spokesperson Aisha Carson said the utility will mail notices this week to residents that fall in the “unknown” or “galvanized” categories.

Mazza-Lappi said that so far, JXN Water has found just four lead service lines in the city, and that it replaced those lines earlier this year. She said they also offered those residents filters and will do follow-up sampling in January to make sure their water meets federal standards.

While there are still tens of thousands of lines to examine to make sure there’s no lead present, Mazza-Lappi said that their predictive modeling suggests there’s no widespread presence.

In the notices JXN Water is mailing to customers with galvanized lines or lines with unknown materials, the utility lists a number of ways to reduce the risk of lead contamination, such as letting the tap run before drinking, using a filter, or cleaning faucet screens and aerators.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Monday’s news that Mississippi College will become Mississippi Christian University and discontinue the sport of football caught everyone off guard, including the Clevelands. Fred McAfee, the most famous player in M.C. history, heard the news on the radio and said he felt like he had lost a family member. The Saints, Ole Miss-Florida, and college basketball are also discussed.

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This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Nov. 20, 1866

Ten members of the First Congregational Society of Washington, D.C., met in the home of Deacon Henry Brewer. They decided to create a seminary to train Black clergymen. Within a year, the institution, which later became known as Howard University, embraced a broader mission and became an educational hub for the nearly 4 million freed from slavery. 

In 1867, the institution welcomed its first students, educating Black doctors, teachers and pastors. Charles Hamilton Houston, a vice dean at the Howard University School of Law, brought cases to fight segregation in higher education. He mentored Howard alum, Thurgood Marshall, who successfully argued the Brown v. Board of Education decision that ended segregation in public schools.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.