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• 1 2022-12-05T19:49:21-08:00 The Jackson Water Crisis: A Case of Environmental Racism? 8 plain 2022-12-12T08:32:44-08:00 Decades of population decline and disinvestment have made it so the the city is unable to rely on its residents to provide the revenue need for the repairs. The white flight of the 70s and 80s was followed by a wealth flight of middle-class Black families in the early 2000s, which together contributed to a loss of about 40,000 residents since the 1980s as well as a shrinking of the city’s tax base.Today, Jackson is about 82% Black with about 25% of residents living in poverty. As a result, the city is unable to rely on taxing residents to cover the cost of repairs. The city has also lost a lot of potential revenue due to widespread billing issues dating back to 2012. In that year, the city signed a contract with the company Siemens to install new water meters and develop a new billing system. However, many of the meters offered faulty readings that resulted in residents being billed too much while other residents stopped receiving bills. Billing issues persist years later, and it is estimated that the city has lost millions in potential revenue as a result. The lack of funding has also contributed to a staffing shortage at the city’s water plants. The city does not have enough operators with knowledge about the system to run routine maintenance checks which could help prevent issues before they happen.
  
  Additionally, the city has also struggled for years to receive support from the state and federal government. Instead, city officials have often been met with distrust, micromanagement, or disregard. When the state approved a 1% sales tax to fund Jackson water system improvements back in 2009, state official created a nine-person council to oversee the distribution of the fund instead of giving the money directly to the city. Just last year when the city received funding from the American Rescue Plan Act, the state legislature required the city to undergo additional oversite on its spending of the funds.
  
  Other times, the state legislature has blocked attempts to give the city funds. In 2021, two bills aimed at providing money to repair the water system died in the legislature and in 2020 Governor Reeves vetoed a bill that that aimed to assist residents with overdue water bills.State legislators point to years of city mismanagement of the water system as the reason for why they are hesitant to give money directly to the city, while city officials believe that the distrust has more to do with Jackson having majority Black city leadership.
  
  The history of the Jackson city water system allows us to see why some make the case that what is happening in Jackson could be understood as a case of environmental racism. Specifically, the historical process of white flight, suburbanization, and disinvestment have left Jackson without the funds necessary to fix the water system. Jackson’s status as a predominantly Black city with a significant number of poor and working-class residents likely contributes to the disregard and distrust the city has faced from the predominantly white state leadership over the years. All these elements in combination have left the city’s water system in disrepair for decades which has left city residents with unreliable access to clean water.