Feds, city agree to appoint outside manager for Jackson, Miss., sewers - The Washington Post

Feds, city agree to appoint outside manager for Jackson, Miss., sewers - The Washington Post

The federal government on Wednesday announced a deal that would bring an outside expert into Jackson, Miss., to fix the city’s sewer system, which has repeatedly failed in recent years by dumping waste into homes, streets and the Pearl River.

The proposal tasks Henifin with rehabilitating the city’s sewers by following a list of priority projects. It also allows city, state and federal officials to renegotiate the terms of a 2013 settlement that intended to bring Jackson’s systems into compliance with environmental laws. Jackson has “failed to achieve significant progress” on the settlement, the order said, citing funding problems among other issues.

Henifin said the order would be “good for Jackson,” but funding remains the major barrier to improving the city’s sewer systems. “I’m looking forward to the challenge,” he told The Washington Post.

Jackson’s sewer system has failed repeatedly in recent years, according to the order. Between March 2020 and February 2022, the city reported 460 sewer overflows that released more than 100 million gallons of untreated wastewater, the order said. More than 4 billion gallons of “untreated or under-treated wastewater” have spilled from a city treatment plant into the nearby Pearl River.

The stipulated order marks the latest effort to rescue Jackson’s embattled water and sewage systems after decades of disrepair. Residents have repeatedly gone without clean water in recent years, notably a weeks-long spell in 2021. Notices advising residents to boil their water have been particularly common in the city’s less affluent neighborhoods, an analysis found. A complaint filed by the NAACP in 2022 asked the Environmental Protection Agency to investigate whether the state violated civil rights law by denying the majority-Black city federal funds meant to ensure safe drinking water, charges state officials denied.

“Under today’s agreement, expedited measures will be taken to address the City of Jackson’s deteriorating sewer infrastructure and inadequate operation and maintenance, which have caused residents and businesses to endure sewage discharges that threaten public health and the environment,” Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim said in the Justice Department’s release announcing the agreement.

The office of Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba (D) declined to comment on the stipulated order, noting that it has yet to take final effect. The office of Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) office did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Henifin will probably have to address more than 200 locations in Jackson’s sewers that the order says require immediate emergency repair. He may be able to use $125 million authorized for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to “to design and construct improvements” to the sewer system, the proposal said.

The order is now subject to a public comment period through Aug. 31, after which Henifin would take over the sewers. Jackson’s city council first approved the stipulated order in June.