Jackson, Mississippi received a hard hit from a water outage due to the damage to its largest water plant. Due to the failure of the government not updating their old infrastructure, the water plant lost the ability to produce clean water. Concerns over contaminated water urged people in the area to boil their water. Officials scrambled to distribute water bottles to the majority Black city and they do not know how long it will take to fix. As of September 6, they restored the city’s water pressure, but yet to deem the water safe and clean to use.

“ People end up suffering due to those decisions, we can find groups of different races within that lower socio-economic group. As a result, we get this environmental systemic racism, there are many instances of examples that show this and it does happen. It happens all the time, even in the US,” AP Environmental science teacher Julie Hopp said.

The crisis started on August 29 when rain poured into the Pearl river for multiple days, causing it to rise up and flood the O.B Curtis Water Plant. This resulted in issues with the water treatment plant even though the city struggled with clean water for a month before then. In 2020, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)  warned the public that the city’s water posed danger to the residents. Orders to boil water, as well as disruptions of running water usually happen in Mississippi. In February 2021, a winter storm occurred across the city, leaving the residents on a boil water notice for about a month. Back in 2021, two bills aimed to raise funds to fix infrastructures died in the legislature.

“We as citizens don’t know what happens in the background, is it possible that they did start investigating and just didn’t publicize that? We always don’t know what happens in the government,” Hopp said

People addressed numerous infrastructure needs in Jackson; one including the government fixing the potholes in the roads. Due to the terrible conditions, people moved away from Jackson to other towns. The town also suffers from broken sewage lines, causing sewage problems. Advocates claim this as systemic and environmental racism as the cause of the issues that Jackson faces. According to the U.S census Bureau, 82.5% of the population of Jackson identifies as Black or African American. Since the town makes up majority Black or African Americans, people believe that the government purposely overlooks the town and its problems.

“There are groups of people that have lower socio-economic standing, when it comes to infrastructure and decisions that the government makes, they sometimes don’t consider those people when they’re making those decisions. People end up suffering due to those decisions, we can find groups of different races within that lower socio-economic group. As a result, we get this environmental systemic racism, there are many instances of examples that show this and it does happen. It happens all the time, even in the US,” Hopp said.

Though not fully restored to all of the residents, officials announced the restoration of Jackson, Mississippi, water pressure. This incident can finally shed light on what the town faces and deals with. Residents in Jackson hope the government will take responsibility and fix the environmental issues in the town.