Drowning in Waste: Jackson's sewer consent decree 10 years later - WLBT

Drowning in Waste: Jackson’s sewer consent decree 10 years later

JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - A contractor had just gone to lunch when Amia Edwards and her sister walked outside her home on Alta Woods Boulevard.

Workers have become a fixture in recent years at Edwards’ white two-story barn-style house in South Jackson, which she lovingly dubbed “the Bougie Barn.”

“I have a rapport with the hotel and the restoration crew,” she said. “Like, we’re friends now they’ve seen me so many times.”

Jackson Consent Decree at a glance:

- Entered into in 2013
- More than 200 sanitary sewer overflows currently
- 13 SSOs along West Bank Interceptor
- 27 prohibited bypasses from Savanna Street Wastewater Treatment Plant
- Estimated cost to comply 2013: $400 million
- Estimated cost to comply 2017: $840 million
- Currently stayed; to be renegotiated

Since 2018, raw sewage backups have flooded Edwards’ home at least three times. In one case, she was forced to seek refuge in a hotel for a week. Another time, a sewer backup forced her into a hotel room for 19 days.

Crews were repairing her home from the latest sewer overflow during WLBT’s visit.

“I don’t have a stove. I don’t have a functioning bathroom,” she said. “Like, how do I waterproof a stove? Why should I even have to think about doing that? I’m just wanting to be made whole and I want this situation fixed.”

Edwards’ story is not uncommon in a capital city plagued by sewer problems.

Since 2020, Jackson has reimbursed property owners for hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses related to sewer cleanups. In Edwards’ case, she’s been reimbursed for damages nearly equal to the cost of her home, but has not been reimbursed for her latest damages.

| COJ reimbursements for sewer damage by year | Number of claims | Total payout |
| 2020 | 14 | $53,233.49 |
| 2021 | 23 | $112,620.16 |
| 2022 | 22 | $150,663.68 |
| 2023 through May 23 | 19 | $113,514.58 |

Meanwhile, sanitary sewer overflows dot the city’s landscape, causing untreated wastewater to back up into streets, yards and creeks.

Prohibited bypasses are another problem.

Between March 1, 2020, and February 28, 2022, nearly 4.5 billion gallons of untreated or partially treated sewage was dumped into the Pearl River due to bypasses from the Savanna Street Wastewater Treatment Plant.

In 2013, Jackson entered into a consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice and Environmental Protection Agency to address these problems and bring its sewer system into compliance with the federal Clean Water Act.

More than 10 years later, though, the city remains out of compliance, much of the decree’s mandates remain unmet, and the sewer system continues to deteriorate.

“There were issues at the treatment plant that needed to be addressed. There’s issues within the collection system that need to be addressed. And the consent decree was very specific in things that the city was supposed to do,” said Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality Executive Director Chris Wells. “And the fact is, that over the course of time... they just have not accomplished the things that they were supposed to accomplish.”

In July, U.S. District Court Judge Henry Wingate placed the city’s sewer system under the control of Interim Third-Party Manager Ted Henifin, the same man he put in charge of the city’s water system back in November.

Wingate made the decision months after being taken on a tour of the city by Henifin. The third-party manager showed him several problem areas, including an overflow near a senior citizen’s home where the judge said wastewater “was sprouting out of the ground.”

“I would be alarmed if it’s near anybody’s home, but to see it next to a senior citizen home just tickled a new chord,” he said at a May status conference. “So, we need to just make sure that we try and do the best we can as fast as we can.”

During that meeting, Wingate grilled attorneys on progress made under the consent decree, asking if they believed Jackson’s sewer system was getting worse.

Representatives for U.S. government and the city agreed that it had.

“Not unlike the drinking water situation, there was an underinvestment in the system, lack of routine maintenance activities, and also financial constraints on the city as far as being able to pay for the work that was necessary to comply,” said DOJ Senior Counsel Karl Fingerhood. “Your honor, I would say it’s worse.”

“I don’t think anybody in the city of Jackson would disagree that our... collection system is in trouble,” City Attorney Catoria Martin added. “Arguably, the system is in a worse position today than it was in 2013.”

That worse position has meant significant impacts on the environment and on the quality of life for residents and business owners.

On the environmental side, waterways in and around Jackson have been under general contact advisories for years.

MDEQ issued its initial guidance for the Pearl River back in October 2013. In 2019, advisories were put in place for nine of the river’s tributaries. Guidance was updated the following year to include four more.

Each advisory came after testing revealed the water had higher-than-normal levels of fecal coliform, a bacteria found in untreated sewage.

As a result of the advisories, people are urged to avoid all recreational contract with the bodies of water, including swimming or wading, or eating fish from them.

Abby Braman, executive director of Pearl Riverkeeper, is worried about the long-term impacts untreated wastewater will have on wildlife habitats.

“In the past year, the city of Jackson released the second-most amount of sewage into the environment that it has since the consent decree,” she said, standing outside the Barnett Reservoir spillway. “216 million gallons ... That’s like taking 327 Olympic-sized swimming pools and filling them with untreated sewage, and then dumping it into the river and our neighborhoods.”

Prohibited bypasses occur during periods of increased flow going into the Savanna plant. The plant is unable to treat the excess waste, and it must be bypassed into the river.

Several projects included in the judge’s stipulated order could help reduce bypasses at the Savanna facility, including one to clean out the three peak flow lagoons located there.

The lagoons are designed to hold excess flow, which usually occurs when stormwater or floodwater infiltrates the plant through broken transmission lines. However, the lagoons quickly fill with “solids” and must be cleaned regularly to ensure they maintain their capacity.

As for potential long-term effects of not doing anything? Braman says untreated waste contributes to the growth of algae, which, in turn, can kill a river’s ecosystem.

“When the algae bloom actually dies and it decomposes, it sucks all the oxygen out of the water,” she said. “That waterway... can have fish kills because there’s not enough oxygen left in the water to sustain life.”

She says she’s already seen evidence of a potential dead zone along Eubanks Creek, saying at one point a portion of it turned flourescent green due to the presence of algae.

In Midtown, residents and business owners have concerns of their own, thanks to a major sewer overflow along McTyere Avenue.

The overflow, which is located near the Wilson Street intersection, has been going on for about two years, with wastewater, toilet tissue and other items bubbling up from a partially opened manhole.

Much of the water flows into a nearby storm drain, while toilet tissue and other items are left behind.

A sign warning people of the potential exposure to raw sewage had been in place, but has since been moved to another clogged manhole also on the same street.

“We’ve had problems in this area on and off for a while, but I think about two years ago it turned into a full torrent - nonstop, 365-day-a-year flow of sewage,” said Andy Hilton, who owns property across from the overflow.

“Nobody wants to be around here. People will only be indoors,” he said. “We have a nice patio area. Nobody wants to sit outside on that.”

Hilton says he’s contacted the city multiple times but the most crews have done is put out signs warning people to stay away.

City leaders say the problem there won’t be fixed until a collapsed sewer line along Mill Street can be replaced.

One of the priority projects listed in the Wingate order could provide relief there as well. According to the order, the third-party would be responsible for re-routing some 2,200 linear feet for a sewer line that crosses the railroad yard near Mill Street. Once the new line is constructed, the existing collapsed line will be filled with “flowable fill” and abandoned.

McTyere aside, court records show that Jackson has more than 200 ongoing overflows that it also must deal with.

Overflows are typically caused by clogged lines, broken mains and other sewer failures. Because untreated sewage can’t flow, its forced out of the nearest manholes, and into streets, yards, and bodies of water.

Reducing the occurrences of SSOs and prohibited bypasses were major components of the decree when it was finalized in 2013.

The city entered into the agreement in the final months of Mayor Harvey Johnson’s third term in office.

“My recollection is we were probably in negotiations a year, year and a half before we came to some type of agreement,” he said. “It just didn’t happen overnight.”

Johnson says his goal was to address Clean Water Act violations while, at the same time, not placing too much of a financial burden on ratepayers.

In all, the city was given 17.5 years to complete what he said was an estimated $400 million in work.

“Typically, decrees back in those days were 10 to 15 years,” he said. “So, for us to get 17 years, we think that was a success.”

To help cover decree costs, that same year the city raised its water and sewer rates by 29 and 107 percent respectively. The move was expected to increase annual revenues by more than $20 million, according to a Clarion-Ledger article from that time.

However, Jackson’s finances would soon tumble thanks to the failed Siemens contract.

Jackson brought on the firm late in Johnson’s third term to completely overhaul the water/sewer billing system. Work included replacing all of the city’s residential and commercial water meters, installing new billing software at the water/sewer billing office, and putting in place a new network to allow the meters and billing office to communicate.

The contract was dubbed as “revenue-neutral,” meaning it would pay for itself over time due to savings brought about by the more technologically advanced system.

However, the system never worked, collections fell off and, as a result, Jackson’s water and sewer department has been operating at a deficit for years.

Today, Jackson’s third-party water manager is still dealing with what is likely some of the Siemens fallout, with JXN Water bringing in just 56 percent of billed water/sewer revenues.

[ READ: ‘Fundamental financial issues:’ Report paints bleak picture of Jackson water finances]

While collections have fallen off, officials with the Lumumba administration say the decree actually would cost about $800 million to implement, or twice the estimate of the Johnson administration.

“At no point... since 2013 have we ever had $800 million to fund a consent decree for wastewater,” Martin told Wingate in May. “So, what the city of Jackson has done over the last - you know, since 2013, is [try] our best to comply with the resources that we have had available.”

She told the court part of the problem was the decree required the city to spend a “substantial amount of money and time studying the collection system and submitting reports,” rather than repairing infrastructure.

Court records don’t back up that claim, showing that Jackson spent $136 million on capital improvements related to the decree between 2013 and 2021, including $30.5 million at the Savanna plant.

By comparison, between 2017 and 2023, the city spent a littl more than $5 million on consent decree program management costs, according to invoices obtained by WLBT.

Citing the high cost, as well as the city’s declining water/sewer revenues and shrinking tax base, the Lumumba administration has been working for years to to renegotiate terms of the agreement.

According to court records, Jackson submitted a modified decree to DOJ, EPA and MDEQ in November 2021. However, Martin said the city never received a response to that document. Talks to renegotiate the decree resumed in January, she said.

The stipulated order is expected to be in place for at least four years. During that time, the decree will be stayed and renegotiated, the order states.

Henifin, meanwhile, told reporters outside the federal courthouse that he plans to hit the ground running, with contractors already lined up to clean and inspect the city’s sewer lines.

He said early priorities will include addressing sanitary sewer overflows, as well as investigating “building backups.”

“It’s one thing for sewage to be bubbling up on the street like we saw or in a yard,” Henifin said during a May status conference. “It’s another thing when it bubbles up in your bathtub or your shower, or out of your toilet and it flows into your house.”

For residents like Amia Edwards, Henifin’s appointment could mean no longer having to rush to get her valuables out of harm’s way every time in rains.

“If he’s got the capacity, please come in and fix it, and communicate with us,” she said. “I can’t keep paying a plumber to come in and tell me the same thing.”

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