JACKSON, Miss. — In recent years, Jackson, Mississippi, has grappled with crisis after crisis with its water infrastructure. Historic flooding in late summer and freezing temperatures in December damaged the city’s water distribution system, leaving many residents without running water or under boil-water notices for weeks at a time.
TED HENIFIN: Yeah, it's a tough one to explain. So the Department of Justice and EPA came to town and negotiated a deal with the city and the state Department of Health to create basically a third party to manage the system. And so that was presented to the court at the end of November. And the judge entered that order, effectively appointing me as this interim third-party manager. So I'm an officer of the court working here for the good of the citizens of Jackson.
You can live on bottled water for a while, to take care of your drinking and teeth brushing. But no water at all, having no water to flush the toilet, wash the dishes, wash your clothes. That's a real tragedy. Any time you have anybody without water in a water system like this, it's terrible. So, whether it's one or 1,000 or 2,000, it doesn't matter. We're really striving to eliminate that and put that in Jackson's history as we move forward.
But the other parts of the plan include really creating a sustainable source of local revenue. We really need to build the rate structure that folks can afford their water and pay their bills, because at the end of the day, this federal dollar, which is wonderful to have, this money coming for infrastructure, that's one-time money.