A Bill passed out of the State Senate Economic and Workforce Development committee Tuesday that will create a utility authority to operate Jackson's water and sewer services.
Senator David Parker authored the bill. Parker represents the Southaven area just south of Memphis. I’m not sure how Parker came to be the author, but it’s a good bill and a move in the right direction.
The Mississippi Capitol Region Water Authority’s nine-member board would take over control of water, sewer and storm water runoff treatment from the City of Jackson.
The Jackson mayor appoints four members, but must consult with the mayors of Ridgeland and Byram on two of those appointments. The governor appoints three members and the lieutenant governor appoints two members. The state senate must approve all nominations.
The new water board would commence when our federal court-appointed water czar concludes his term of service. The board meetings would be open. The board members don’t get a salary, but they get a per diem. The authority will be able to issue bonds.
All in all, it sounds like a good plan for moving forward, after our current federal water czar steps down. Never (never say never!) in U. S. history has a city had a water czar.
The $600-million-dollar question is how the new authority would administer the $600 million in federal dollars that has been allocated to Jackson water infrastructure. This is pure manna from heaven.
I find it ironic that Mayor Lumumba, in failing so totally, has caused the city to realize this huge federal windfall. You can’t argue with success!
Now we have a top-notch water czar and $600 million to spend, all courtesy of the federal government. Mississippi may not be the richest place in the world, but we are part of the richest country in all of human history.
My church, Covenant Presbyterian, has been praying for Mayor Lumumba, the Jackson City Council and resolution of our water crisis. Praise the Lord! Answered prayers.
Jackson water czar Ted Henifin has met resistance to his proposal to abandon meters and assess water bills based on property valuations. That proposal has gone over like a lead balloon.
I see merit in his idea but public opinion is too solidly against it. A Northside Sun poll shows 74 percent opposed to the idea. I have had numerous good friends give me a tongue lashing about my support for it.
An alternative would be a flat payment per house for everybody like we do for garbage. We don’t measure how much garbage you produce for billing purposes. There is no shortage of water in Jackson. Ninety-nine percent of any waste comes from our leaky pipes, not too many flushes.
But I digress. It ain’t gonna happen. It’s too hard to overcome this one overwhelming fact: Every other city, county and water district is able to install properly operating meters and bill accordingly, so why can’t Jackson?
The answer is incompetence and corruption. If our water czar believes this is too hard to fix, then he needs to hire a private company to handle the meters and the billing on a contract basis.
Henifin has said he’s not going to do anything against public sentiment, but we will see. Given a supportive judge, he can pretty much do whatever he wants, including dumping the meters.
Henifin is eager to create a model of our entire water system. Almost every major water system has such a model, but not Jackson. The models are extremely important in reducing boil water alerts. By opening and shutting various valves in different places, you can effectively raise water pressure in response to leaks, preventing boil water alerts. This needs to be done ASAP.
Next is deploying the $600 million in federal money by installing new pipes. Federal money has been known to disappear so the quicker Henifin gets started the better. This is one reason I don’t want him distracted by the prodigious task of reforming the meter and billing mess.
Jackson should consume about 15 to 20 million gallons of water per day. Yet we are having to produce 50 million gallons to maintain pressure. That means about two-thirds of our water is leaking out of bad pipes. Fix the pipes and the demands on our water plants are greatly reduced.
Another hard decision needs to be made. We need to axe the membrane filter part of the Fewell water plant. Installed in 2005, the membrane plant was bleeding-edge technology. It requires perfect maintenance, exactly what the City of Jackson is bad at.
Membrane plants need a relatively clear water source — something the Barnett Reservoir is not. It’s time to cut our losses and mothball that part of the plant. We can either add another conventional line at Fewell or we can rehabilitate the O. B. Curtis plant.
It will be interesting to see if the reign of the federal czar is successful. Every form of government has its flaws. No doubt we will discover the flaws in this one. If Henifin pushes ahead with his property valuation billing system, he may be tarred and feathered.
So what happened to the City of Jackson? Why did that form of local governance fail to properly administer our water system?
In this case, the government was too responsive to the immediate needs of its lower income citizens who, being pressed for cash, didn’t want to pay their water bills. Leniency on cut-offs laid the ground for a bigger disaster — no water. Certainly, the erosion of the city’s tax base and the curse of Yazoo clay played a major role.
The state legislature’s laws on minority contracts laid the groundwork for the mess, allowing for corrupt installation contracts which destroyed the integrity of the water metering system. Once the billing system failed, customers had an excuse not to pay their bills, many of which were bogus.
Add to that a mayor more interested in the media angle of confrontation politics than sucking up to the Republican state leadership. Tony Yarber is looking a lot better in hindsight. At least he could get along with people.
Imagine what Jackson could achieve if we had a mayor who could play well with the Republican state leadership. Get them on board, and the sky’s the limit for Jackson. As it turns out, they are coming on board whether being asked to or not. We now have state police in Jackson, a federal water czar and prisons under court order. One way or another, Jackson will be run.
