Jackson, Mississippi, issues boil-water advisory on Christmas Day
Written by ABC Audio. All rights reserved. on December 27, 2022
(JACKSON, Miss.) — The city of Jackson, Mississippi — long plagued with water problems — issued a boil-water advisory on Christmas Day until further notice.
According to Jackson officials, the city’s water system lost pressure because of unidentifiable breaks in its distribution system, resulting in some parts of Jackson experiencing little to no water pressure.
The city’s main water treatment facility, the O.B. Curtis Water Plant, and the J.H. Fewell Water Treatment Plant are working to increase production to reestablish pressure, officials said in a boil water alert.
“Our crews are all busy today working to restore pressure,” Jackson’s communications director Melissa Payne told ABC News on Monday in an emailed statement.
“We continue to struggle to return pressure to the water system,” officials said in a press release Monday. “We are producing significant amounts of water and pushing that into the system, but the pressure is not increasing — despite those efforts at the plants.”
The city’s most recent boil-water advisory impacts all surface water connections and excludes customers using its well systems.
Historic flooding in Mississippi in August damaged a major pump at the O.B. Curtis Water Plant, which left around 150,000 of the city’s mostly Black residents without drinkable water.
The water crisis highlighted residents’ years-long plight with the city’s ongoing water issues and raised questions about how Jackson came to be in this situation and what the long-term plans were to fix the issue.
In November, the U.S. Department of Justice reached an agreement and filed a new complaint with Jackson over the city’s alleged mismanagement of its water system.
Through its agreement with the City of Jackson, the DOJ will establish a third-party monitor to ensure that water in the city is safe to drink.
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