Mississippi Today

With billions on the table for water infrastructure, small communities risk being left out to dry

Published

2 years ago

June 23, 2023

Seth Petersen was at his grandmother’s funeral, and his phone wouldn’t stop ringing.

Three hours away in the village of Luck, Wisconsin, where he served as director of public works, there was an emergency. Petersen was getting calls repeatedly, asking for his expertise.

Petersen and two other employees were responsible for drinking water, wastewater, street maintenance, park and cemetery maintenance and picking up stray dogs, he said. The job never stopped.

“Seth, what the (expletive) are you doing?” his brother-in-law said to him as he came back to the family gathering from another call. “Why are you living like this?”

Petersen left that job at the end of last year. Now, he helps train water operators in small communities for the Wisconsin Rural Water Association.

Luck is not an outlier. In small and rural communities across the U.S., water system operators are stretched thin, covering around-the-clock responsibilities to keep water running safely and reliably despite aging and underfunded infrastructure.

The consequences of a water system falling behind have received the national spotlight, infamously in Flint, Michigan, and most recently in Jackson, Mississippi, where majority-Black communities bore the brunt of mismanagement and aging infrastructure.

Thousands of under-resourced systems risk a similar fate, and small water systems — defined by the EPA as serving fewer than 10,000 people, and making up more than 90% of the nation’s community water systems — are in a particularly precarious position.

Their staffing is often sparse and underpaid. Infrastructure, in many places, is crumbling and underfunded, and though there is a fresh infusion of federal money on the table, it’s a challenge to access.

The American Rescue Plan Act, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and other programs represent a historic investment in the country’s water infrastructure, totaling billions of dollars.

But the total available funding, even after it’s all been doled out, still won’t be enough. One report from 2020 estimated that the U.S. would need to invest nearly $3.3 trillion in water and wastewater infrastructure projects between 2019 and 2039 to keep systems updated.

Many communities will also face increases in their water bills to keep up with infrastructure and staffing needs. Yet raising the price of water may prove unworkable in rural and historically-underinvested communities like Appalachia and the Mississippi Delta, some of the most impoverished in the country.

No one in the U.S. should have to worry about having safe drinking water, said Chris Groh, executive director of the Wisconsin Rural Water Association.

“But a town doesn’t take care of itself.”

Small community water systems falling behind

Over the last two decades, water systems in the ten states bordering the Mississippi River violated U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations for drinking water more than 438,000 times.

That figure includes thousands of instances of heightened levels of harmful chemicals in water each year. Nitrates, trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids, which have all been linked to various cancers and other health hazards, were top contaminants in the EPA’s violation data in 2022.

Nitrates are an indicator of agricultural runoff, common in rural areas. And trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids appear as byproducts of the water treatment process, when chlorine reacts with organic contents.

Addressing these issues can require expensive treatment technology. But in the last two decades, small and large utilities alike have reined in the number of violations.

However, an Ag and Water Desk analysis of EPA Safe Drinking Water Act violation data nationwide found small water systems have been slower to reduce their violations than larger systems. And these violations only represented those reported; there could be many more incidences of unreported issues.

In the ten states along the Mississippi River, both small and large water systems saw increases in violations newly reported during 2022. For small water systems, that increase was more significant.

That disparity is, at least in part, an indicator of the disadvantages facing small and rural water systems, according to Jennifer Sloan Ziegler, a Mississippi-based engineer serving as vice president of the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Environmental and Water Resources Institute.

And recent injections of federal infrastructure funding won’t be enough, she said. They’re not sustained funding, she added, and “the sad thing about it is: It still doesn’t catch us up.”

‘I don’t have a day off’

The working conditions that drove Petersen to leave his position in Luck are a trend reflected in small communities across the country.

“I don’t have a day off,” said Nathan Taylor, lead operator of a small water plant in Wax, Kentucky. The days he’s not on-duty, his phone is constantly ringing as issues come up at the plant, he said.

Ziegler pointed out a water operator she knows nearby in the Mississippi Delta, whose responsibilities span four different water districts — “a huge, huge area,” she said.

Water system operators serve as a first line of defense for a community’s public health, and must have working knowledge of chemistry for licensing tests.

Yet operator pay in many small communities is about neck-and-neck with wages at the local McDonald’s. Other trades, like construction, often pay far more.

“You can go swing a hammer for 25 bucks an hour,” said Petersen, in Wisconsin, “…and you can ice fish all winter.”

A workforce survey last year in Kentucky found water utilities in the state pay as low as $10 per hour for an entry level position, with an average closer to $18. But 72% of managers reported losing staff to better pay in another job opportunity or other, often larger utilities.

The water workforce nationally is also aging overwhelmingly. Seventeen million workers are expected to leave the industry in the next decade, Ziegler said, and bringing young people into the profession has proven challenging.

“We’re losing people,” she said, and “we’re not getting them back.”

Federal money on the table, if you can get it

Widespread water workforce shortages make accessing infrastructure funding an even bigger task for small water systems’ overworked staff, despite desperate needs.

And the application process for federal funds often looks very similar in a village of 1,000 or a city of half a million, according to Ziegler.

“It is extremely extensive,” she said. “Not just the application, but the amount of background documentation that you have to provide them. It takes… I would say, months, to get it together.”

Smaller systems are at an inherent disadvantage. Larger utilities, with more ratepayers and bigger budgets, often have experts on staff to go after competitive funding pots.

“Their applications are shiny,” Petersen said. “And they’re written by someone with a Master’s degree.”

During his tenure as director of public works, Petersen worked through the application process to access federal infrastructure funding for Luck’s streets. Even with help from a consultant and phone calls with the state, he described it as overwhelming.

“You don’t even know where to begin,” he said. “Things are this far behind.”

Luck didn’t get that money. And in cash-strapped communities, paying large sums for the help of consultants in applying for funding that isn’t guaranteed is a big gamble.

“Let’s just be honest. If they can’t afford to upgrade and maintain and operate their systems with the money they have,” Ziegler said, “do you think they have money left over to hire somebody, to pay somebody to put together this application…? They don’t.”

Poorer communities facing higher water bills

Without sustained infrastructure funding, communities in turn face a rising water rate. In many rural areas, it’s a bill they can’t afford.

In Martin County, Kentucky, where communities are built along snaking creeks and between the rolling mountains of Appalachia, residents still don’t trust the tap.

Decades of water district mismanagement, including chronic reports of discolored water and burdensome service shutoffs, eventually culminated in a state takeover. In 2020, authorities shifted control to Alliance Water Resources, a private firm, hoping to get the county’s water provisions on the right track.

At the peak of the crisis, the system’s aging water lines were leaking up to 90% of the water they were carrying, according to the estimates of Craig Miller, who now oversees the county’s water operations as division manager for the firm. For Martin County, that meant tens of millions of gallons of water going to waste every month.

In the years since the change in management, Martin County’s water system has made progress. In a recent stakeholder workgroup meeting, Miller reported improvements in water loss, as well as new hires and licensing for staff.

“There’s a good story here,” Miller said in the meeting. “But it is not over.”

Improvements came with a 24% rate increase, effective last year, piling onto already steep prices. More than a fifth of Martin County lives below the poverty line, according to recent census data.

“That’s a huge burden on our poorest people,” said Nina McCoy, an advocate with Martin County Concerned Citizens, in the workgroup meeting. She pointed out that local water rates are far higher than in wealthier Louisville, where median income is 50% higher than that of Martin County.

The region’s mountainous terrain piles onto water infrastructure challenges, said Lindell Ormsbee, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Kentucky who’s paid close attention to the state’s water system struggles. And as in many rural areas, there are miles of water lines for relatively few homes, compared to cities like Louisville.

In Eastern Kentucky, many counties have historically relied on taxing the coal industry to fund water and other infrastructure needs. As the coal industry has declined, that funding has dried up, Ormsbee said, turning the burden over to ratepayers.

Even if systems are able to access one-time federal infrastructure funding, once it’s spent, they’ll return back to current levels of funding. In small communities, Ziegler said, that just won’t be enough.

“They’re serving less affluent areas. They’re serving older populations on fixed incomes,” Ziegler said, citing high rates of poverty in the rural and disadvantaged communities of her state of Mississippi. “Their customers cannot afford to pay more.”

Connor Giffin is an environmental reporter for the Louisville Courier Journal and a corps member with Report for America. Kae Petrin contributed data reporting.

This story, published in partnership with the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, part of Mississippi Today, is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, funded by the Walton Family Foundation.

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 1908

Published

17 hours ago

December 26, 2024

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-12-26 07:00:00

Dec. 26, 1908

Pro boxing pioneer Jack Johnson defeated Tommy Burns, becoming the first Black heavyweight boxing champion.

Johnson grew up in Galveston, Texas, where “white boys were my friends and pals. … No one ever taught me that white men were superior to me.”

After quitting school, he worked at the local docks and then at a race track in Dallas, where he first discovered boxing. He began saving money until he had enough to buy boxing gloves.

He made his professional debut in 1898, knocking out Charley Brooks. Because prizefighting was illegal in Texas, he was occasionally arrested there. He developed his own style, dodging opponents’ blows and then counterpunching. After Johnson defeated Burns, he took on a series of challengers, including Tony Ross, Al Kaufman and Stanley Ketchel.

In 1910, he successfully defended his title in what was called the “Battle of the Century,” dominating the “Great White Hope” James J. Jeffries and winning $65,000 — the equivalent of $1.7 million today.

Black Americans rejoiced, but the racial animosity by whites toward Johnson erupted that night in race riots. That animosity came to a head when he was arrested on racially motivated charges for violating the Mann Act — transporting a woman across state lines for “immoral purposes.”

In fact, the law wasn’t even in effect when Johnson had the relationship with the white woman. Sentenced to a year in prison, Johnson fled the country and fought boxing matches abroad for seven years until 1920 when he served his federal sentence.

He died in 1946, and six decades later, PBS aired Ken Burns’ documentary on the boxer, “Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson,” which fueled a campaign for a posthumous pardon for Johnson. That finally happened in 2018, when then-President Donald Trump granted the pardon.

To honor its native son, Galveston has built Jack Johnson Park, which includes an imposing statue of Johnson, throwing a left hook.

“With enemies all around him — white and even Black — who were terrified his boldness would cause them to become a target, Jack Johnson’s stand certainly created a wall of positive change,” the sculptor told The New York Times. “Not many people could dare to follow that act.”

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

Mississippi Today

Health department’s budget request prioritizes training doctors, increasing health insurance coverage

Published

19 hours ago

December 26, 2024

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – Gwen Dilworth – 2024-12-26 06:00:00

New programs to train early-career doctors and help Mississippians enroll in health insurance are at the top of the state Department of Health’s budget wish list this year.

The agency tasked with overseeing public health in the state is asking for $4.8 million in additional state funding, a 4% increase over last year’s budget appropriation.

The department hopes to use funding increases to start three new medical residency programs across the state. The programs will be located in south central Mississippi, Meridian and the Delta and focus on internal and family medicine, obstetric care and rural training.

The Office of Mississippi Physician Workforce, which the Legislature moved from UMMC to the State Department of Health last year, will oversee the programs.

The office was created by the Legislature in 2012 and has assisted with the creation or supported 19 accredited graduate medical education programs in Mississippi, said health department spokesperson Greg Flynn.

A $1 million dollar appropriation requested by the department will fund a patient navigation program to help people access health services in their communities and apply for health insurance coverage.

People will access these services at community-based health departments, said Flynn.

Patient navigators will help patients apply for coverage through Medicaid or the Health Insurance Marketplace, said Health Department Senior Deputy Kris Adcock at the Joint Legislative Budget Committee meeting on Sept. 26.

“We want to increase the number of people who have access to health care coverage and therefore have access to health care,” she said.

The Health Insurance Marketplace is a federally-operated service that helps people enroll in health insurance programs. Enrollees can access premium tax credits, which lower the cost of health insurance, through the Marketplace.

The department received its largest appropriation from the state’s general fund in nearly a decade last year, illustrating a slow but steady rebound from drastic budget cuts in 2017 that forced the agency to shutter county health clinics and lay off staff.

State Health Officer Dr. Daniel Edney said he is “begging for some help with inflationary pressure” on the department’s operations budget at the State Board of Health meeting Oct. 9, but additional funding for operations was not included in the budget request.

“They’re (lawmakers) making it pretty clear to me that they’re not really interested in putting more money in (operations) to run the agency, and I understand that,” he said.

State agencies present budget requests to the Joint Legislative Budget Committee in September. The committee makes recommendations in December, and most appropriations bills are passed by lawmakers in the latter months of the legislative session, which ends in April.

The Department of Health’s budget request will likely change in the new year depending on the Legislature’s preferences, Edney said Oct. 9.

The state Health Department’s responsibilities are vast. It oversees health center planning and licensure, provides clinical services to underserved populations, regulates environmental health standards and operates infectious and chronic disease prevention programs.

Over half of the agency’s $600 million budget is funded with federal dollars. State funding accounts for just 15% of its total budget.

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

Mississippi Today

On this day in 1956

Published

2 days ago

December 25, 2024

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-12-25 07:00:00

Dec. 25, 1956

Civil rights activist Fred Shuttllesworth Credit: Wikipedia

Fred Shuttlesworth somehow survived the KKK bombing that took out his home next to the Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama.

An arriving policeman advised him to leave town fast. In the “Eyes on the Prize” documentary, Shuttlesworth quoted himself as replying, “Officer, you’re not me. You go back and tell your Klan brethren if God could keep me through this, then I’m here for the duration.’”

Shuttlesworth and Bethel saw what happened as proof that they would be protected as they pursued their fight against racial injustice. The next day, he boarded a bus with other civil rights activists to challenge segregation laws that persisted, despite a U.S. Supreme Court decision that ordered the city of Montgomery, Alabama, to desegregate its bus service.

Months after this, an angry mob of Klansmen met Shuttlesworth after he tried to enroll his daughters into the all-white school in Birmingham. They beat him with fists, chains and brass knuckles. His wife, Ruby, was stabbed in the hip, trying to get her daughters back in the car. His daughter, Ruby Fredericka, had her ankle broken. When the examining physician was amazed the pastor failed to suffer worse injuries, Shuttlesworth said, “Well, doctor, the Lord knew I lived in a hard town, so he gave me a hard head.”

Despite continued violence against him and Bethel, he persisted. He helped Martin Luther King Jr. found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and was instrumental in the 1963 Birmingham Campaign that led to the desegregation of downtown Birmingham.

A statue of Shuttlesworth can be seen outside the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, and Birmingham’s airport bears his name. The Bethel church, which was bombed three times, is now a historic landmark.

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