Mississippi Today
Lawmaker seeks fines for Jackson over river pollution, despite ongoing federal enforcement
Lawmaker seeks fines for Jackson over river pollution, despite ongoing federal enforcement
Rep. Becky Currie, R-Brookhaven, is hoping to bring more accountability over Jackson’s ongoing pollution of the Pearl River through the city’s failing wastewater system, despite a federal agency already enforcing the issue through a consent decree.
House Bill 1094, which passed through its House committee last Tuesday, would fine the capital city up to $1 million for each “improper disposal” of wastewater or sewage into the river.
Currie said a consent decree being enforced by the Environmental Protection Agency and Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality since 2012 is not doing enough to protect the Pearl River from Jackson’s pollution. The fines that could result from HB 1094, she explained, would go to help clean up the river in the areas of the state downstream from Jackson.
“When you dump raw sewage in (the Pearl River) for other counties to worry about, it’s disgusting,” said Currie, who’s district includes towns, such as Monticello, bordering the river downstream of Jackson. “When you go down the Pearl River, you can see toilet paper hanging off little branches.”
Currie said that the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality told her that the agency hasn’t yet fined Jackson for such discharges, but an MDEQ spokesperson clarified that it hasn’t issued a fine since the 2012 federal consent decree.
The agency has collected nearly half a million dollars in fines over the city’s wastewater issues, which includes a $240,000 penalty assessed in 2010 for violations at Jackson’s Savanna Street plant, and a $175,000 fine issued as a result of the 2012 order.
The consent agreement gave Jackson about 18 years to make a list of fixes with its wastewater system, but required most of those fixes to be done within 11 years, or by November this year. Citing a lack of funding and staffing, the city hasn’t completed many of the required fixes, and is now attempting to renegotiate the settlement with the EPA.
Currie didn’t speak to how this bill would impact the EPA’s dealing of the issue, saying only that whatever enforcement is happening is not enough.
“(The EPA) is obviously not on top of it if (the pollution) continues to happen,” she said. “How many years has this gone on? So everybody downstream should just pay the price for Jackson not tending to their business?”
Currie called the Pearl River important for the “way of life” of communities downstream of Jackson, with Mississippians using the river to swim, canoe and catch fish. She said that polluting the river is harmful in a number of ways, affecting oysters on the Coast as well as businesses that use the water such as Georgia Pacific, although the latter of which is itself a top polluter in Mississippi. Over the last five years, Georgia Pacific pulp mill on the Leaf River has been among the facilities with the most toxic releases in the state with 15.7 million pounds.
When asked about HB 1094, Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said he questioned the legality of “a number of things being suggested,” and that there is an “order to these things” being led by the EPA. The mayor added that lawmakers this session are looking to punish Jackson in a number of ways.
“We are clearly the object of the state House’s affection,” Lumumba said Monday during a press conference. “I think that they’re just more ways contemplated to be increasingly punitive of the city of Jackson. Let’s call a spade a spade.”
In its latest annual report last spring, Jackson reported 13 prohibited bypasses, or times when the city allowed untreated or partially treated wastewater into the river, usually because of too much water entering the plant at one time. Those bypasses totaled 2.1 billion gallons between March 2021 and February 2022, a 30% decrease from the previous year.
The city also reported over 500 sanitary sewer overflows from its collection system in that time, or more than one every day. Those overflows are when untreated sewage leaks out of the system, and the city said most of its overflows that year happened because of either grease blockages or collapsed pipes.
Since 2019, MDEQ has cautioned residents against activities such as swimming, wading or fishing in the segment of the Pearl River neighboring Jackson. The agency later updated the advisory to include streams, such as Hanging Moss Creek and Eubanks Creek, that flow through the city.
The federal consent decree says the city is subject to fines for additional Clean Water Act violations, including a $10,000 penalty for each prohibited bypass and a $2,000 penalty for each sanitary sewer overflow.
“Historically, EPA has taken the lead on enforcements under all federal consent decrees, and in any event, MDEQ, because we are co-plaintiffs with EPA, cannot take unilateral action to collect the stipulated penalties,” MDEQ spokesperson Jan Schaefer told Mississippi Today. “In the meantime, MDEQ, along with EPA, has been ‘assessing’ stipulated penalties and those stipulated penalties continue to accrue.”
Neither agency could say how much Jackson has accrued in penalties since the 2012 order before this story published.
Jackson, Meridian, Hattiesburg and Greenville are all under a federal consent decree because of wastewater violations. While those cities are starting to see support through historic new federal infrastructure funds, leaders of those cities told Mississippi Today last year that more money is needed to make all the necessary repairs.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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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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