EPA LAUNCHES PROBE INTO MISS. WATER WOES
Civil investigation could be referred to Justice Department
The federal government is investigating whether Mississippi state agencies discriminated against the state’s majority-Black capital city by refusing to fund improvements for its failing water system, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday.
The announcement came days after leaders of two congressional committees said they were starting a joint investigation into a crisis that left most homes and businesses in Jackson without running water for several days in late August and early September.
The EPA gave The Associated Press the first confirmation that it is conducting a civil, not criminal, investigation of the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality and the Mississippi State Department of Health. The federal agency could withhold money from the state if it finds wrongdoing — potentially millions of dollars. If the state agencies don’t cooperate with the investigation, the EPA could refer the case to the Department of Justice.
Heavy rainfall in late August exacerbated problems at Jackson’s main water treatment facility. Republican Gov. Tate Reeves declared an emergency Aug. 29, and the state health department and the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency have been overseeing operations and repairs at the facility since then.
About 80 percent of Jackson’s 150,000 residents are Black, and about a quarter of the population lives in poverty. By the time Reeves issued the emergency order, Jackson residents had already been told for a month to boil their water to kill possible contaminants. Volunteers and the National Guard had distributed millions of bottles of drinking water. Although the boil-water notice was lifted in midSeptember, many residents remain skeptical about water safety.
NAACP President Derrick Johnson, who lives in Jackson with his family, called the EPA investigation a step in the right direction after years of the state withholding federal funds to improve the city’s water system.
“We believe we gave compelling evidence that the state of Mississippi intentionally starved the city of Jackson of the resources to maintain its water infrastructure,” Johnson told The AP on Thursday. “We want the EPA and this administration to put forth a course of action to prevent the state of Mississippi from ever doing this again.”
Johnson was named among several residents in the NAACP’s civil rights complaint against Mississippi. He said the state’s inaction and record of divestment in Jackson amounts to “systemic neglect.”
“We believe that all citizens of this country should be entitled to clean, fresh drinking water,” Johnson said. “Unfortunately, we live in a state that is still dealing in racial politics. And as a result of that, you have state leaders who seek to penalize African American residents of the city of Jackson in a very discriminatory way.”
The AP reported in September that years before Reeves became governor, he touted his own track record of fiscal conservatism by citing his opposition to spending state money for Jackson’s crumbling water and sewer infrastructure. The EPA is not investigating Reeves.
Reeves said Thursday that the state took control of Jackson’s water system because of “absolute and total incompetence” of the city’s Democratic mayor and administration. The governor’s latest remarks are an escalation of a dispute between him and Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba over whether the state or the city will decide on a private firm to operate Jackson’s water system.
A city spokeswoman said Lumumba would not respond to the governor’s statements.