Advocate for clean water.
Happy Wednesday and welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily! Today we're focusing our attention on the water crisis in Jackson, MS, which hasn't received adequate coverage for the scope of the issue. But water crises throughout the U.S. are certainly not new. But the lack of infrastructure to support clean water is often concentrated in Black and brown communities, and, when combined with a global pandemic, only exacerbates the health and safety issues it causes. Kashea breaks down what's happening in Jackson and offers action items we can replicate in any community in crisis.
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Nicole
TAKE ACTION
Donate to organizations supporting those without water, including Shower Power and the Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity MS (Venmo @IAJEofMS). ,
Stay up-to-date with current news and live city council meetings concerning the water outages on the City of Jackson, Mississippi Facebook page.
Help local Jackson residents push for long-term local and federal support by reporting the damages they have undergone. A cumulative threshold of $4.5 million in reported damages must be reached for the city to declare a federal emergency (Mississippi Today).
Consider: are their neighborhoods in your town with critical infrastructure needs? How can you advocate for them in your local government, and in support of organizers advocating for change?
GET EDUCATED
By Andrew Lee (he/him)
Water is a necessary natural resource needed to live a sustainable life. Humans are made up of about sixty percent of water and, in addition to it being essential for the body, it is the most important substance for cleaning, bathing, washing, and many other things. When it comes to cities that are mostly comprised of Black and Brown citizens, proper maintenance and availability to the basic necessities—such as water, in this case—are sometimes overlooked or deemed as unimportant or not as urgent as those living in predominantly white neighborhoods. Blatant disregard for these Black and Brown populations shows up more often than not but mostly during some sort of environmental crisis or natural disaster.
In 2014, Flint, Michigan was hit with a water crisis that left more than a hundred thousand people with unclean, lead-infused water. The problem wasn’t fixed until five years later in 2019. And today, people of color who reside in the South are being affected by a water crisis that has left tens of thousands of Black and Brown people without clean water for weeks due to the winter storm that swept across nearly every state in mid-February. Among those hit the hardest were Texas and Jackson, Mississippi. Residents from both states still are feeling the effects while Jackson residents are left to fend for themselves as most of them still are left without water. What these disasters have in common is that government officials do not act with a sense of urgency when it comes to these groups of people.
It’s been nearly three weeks since the residents of Jackson, Mississippi have had access to clean, running water. The city of Jackson issued a boil water notice on February 18 in response to the water main breaks on the City of Jackson’s Well Water System which caused an inability to maintain system pressure resulting in some areas experiencing low to no water pressure (The City of Jackson, Mississippi). Residents still are having to scrounge for this essential natural resource. In addition to having to boil it, they are now being asked to limit their use of it. According to one of the city’s representatives, it is unclear how many people are without water as the system which services approximately forty-three thousand people is old (CBS News).
“The challenges of aging infrastructure are not new to Jackson, but this is different. This was an act of God that sent old systems into havoc resulting in severe water outages and trauma for our residents,” says Mayor Chokwe Lumumba. “Our systems were never meant to endure days of ice storms and sub-zero temperatures coupled by road conditions that prevented the delivery of critical supplies” (The Daily Beast).
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves agrees and says that fifty years of deferred maintenance is not something that can be fixed within hours. Mayor Lumumba is asking for people to have patience as it is clear that there is no definitive timeline as to when the water will be restored in the tanks (The Daily Beast). There are several sites in place for distribution of non-potable or flushing water, and Reeves activated the National Guard to help with water distribution efforts in the area. But many locals, including professional chef Enrika Williams and her family, are having to spend excessive amounts of money on bottled water to cook and clean with. Jackson’s total population is approximately 160,000 people with a 26.9 percent poverty rate. That means that most of the people don’t have the resources to go out and buy additional water for their homes.
“Part of the problem is that it’s everywhere. Usually when we have an outage it’s in one neighborhood . . . ,” says Laurie Bertram Roberts, manager of the Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund. “But when it’s the whole damn city, where are the Black people supposed to go? It’s not like this is everywhere; it’s where the mostly Black population in Jackson lives. (The Daily Beast).
Not only has routine maintenance for these tanks and water lines been neglected, but it seems that communication between Governor Reeves and Mayor Lumumba about the issue also has fallen by the wayside as Lumumba is being accused of reaching out to Reeves too slowly, and Reeves’ camp retorting saying that he had no missed calls from the Mayor.
As of Monday, Jackson Public Works Director Charles Williams says that the city’s water system is still in the process of stabilizing itself. It is unclear how many people are still without water but Williams stresses that crews are working as hard as they can to get water flowing to those areas as there still is no definitive timeline on when services will be fully restored (Clarion Ledger).
For fifty years, maintenance for Jackson’s water system has been put off. Even after the city approved a one percent tax increase six years ago, the goal of updating all of its aging infrastructures has yet to be retained. Lumumba says that the annual fifteen million dollars the city generates are only a fraction of the two billion dollars the city will need to fix the problem. This is an issue that city officials have neglected to put at the top of their to-do lists and as a result, people are suffering—specifically, the Black population. More than a few residents have noted that the crisis has hit South and West Jackson while Northeast Jackson, the one predominantly white corner of this eighty percent Black capital city, is left relatively unscathed (The Daily Beast).
KEY TAKEAWAYS
When it comes to cities that are mostly comprised of Black and Brown citizens, proper maintenance and availability to the basic necessities are sometimes overlooked or deemed as unimportant compared to those living in predominantly white neighborhoods.
It’s been nearly three weeks since the residents of Jackson, Mississippi has had access to clean, running water.
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves says that fifty years of deferred maintenance is not something that can be fixed within hours.
There still is no definitive timeline on when services will be fully restored.
RELATED ISSUES
2/17/2021 | Support those most vulnerable in the winter storms.
9/29/2020 | Learn about climate migration.
7/5/2020 | Support the Navajo Nation through COVID-19.
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