Residents are under a boil-water notice after a failure at a local treatment plant.
(Bloomberg) — The governor of Mississippi called in the National Guard to help residents of the state capital after a plant failure left at least 180,000 people in the area without access to safe water.
Governor Tate Reeves declared a state of emergency Tuesday following weekend flooding that affected the O.B. Curtis water treatment plant. That facility and another in the area also are contending with a shortage of workers for operations and maintenance, according to an emergency order from the state Department of Health.
Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba declared a water-system emergency on Monday, following a boil-water notice that has persisted since July. City officials are setting up distribution sites for drinkable water.
The state is “marshaling tremendous resources” to support residents, Reeves said in a statement Tuesday, but added that it will “take time for that to come to fruition.”
The water crisis comes as the Jackson metropolitan area — home to almost 600,000 people, according to US Census Bureau — swelters under 90-degree temperatures. Reeves in his statement identified both the city of Jackson and its home of Hinds County as key areas in need of help. About 82% of the residents of Jackson city proper are Black, as are 73% of Hinds County residents.
President Joe Biden has been briefed on the unfolding crisis, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement on Twitter. Both the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Environmental Protection Agency are involved in triage as well.
The crisis comes after what news outlet Mississippi Today categorized as years of issues, including damage sustained to the system by the February 2021 winter storm that also decimated Texas’s power grid. That March, when an estimated 70% of Jackson was under a boil water notice, Lumumba told the New York Times that fixing the city’s water system could cost $2 billion.
(Corrects 3rd paragraph to amend the timing of the boil water notice.)
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