![]() Maisie Brown calls Jackson’s troubles “the product of environmental racism.” Hendricks and Toney blame systemic racism for government disinvestment in communities of color. She said many majority-minority communities lack consistent access to clean water.Ī member of the Mississippi National Guard loads a vehicle as they distribute water to residents near downtown Jackson, Miss., Thursday, Sept. ![]() Now she works on environmental justice issues nationwide for the Environmental Defense Fund. Heather McTeer Toney worked to clean up discolored tap water as mayor of Greenville, Mississippi, before serving as the Environmental Protection Agency’s southeast regional administrator from 2014 to 2017. Other areas where large poor or nonwhite populations lack reliably safe drinking water include major cities like Baltimore and Honolulu as well as smaller municipalities like Las Vegas, New Mexico and Benton Harbor, Michigan. Majority-Black Flint, Michigan, has struggled to remove lead from its water since 2014. Jackson’s population is more than 80% Black and the poverty level is 24.5%, according to the U.S. Other cities across the United States could face similar challenges with aging water systems that are ill-equipped to handle more intense and frequent flooding caused by climate change, experts in water infrastructure and environmental justice told The Associated Press.Īnd when it comes to water scarcity and contamination, they say working-class communities of color are most vulnerable. “The legacy of racial zoning, segregation, legalized redlining have ultimately led to the isolation, separation and sequestration of racial minorities into communities (with) diminished tax bases, which has had consequences for the built environment, including infrastructure,” said Marccus Hendricks, an associate professor of urban studies and planning at the University of Maryland. State and federal spending never made up the difference. Middle class Black people then moved out to escape urban decay and rising crime. Many white families left for the suburbs, leaving less revenue to maintain the infrastructure. Jackson’s population has declined since 1980, a decade after the city’s schools began integrating. ![]() The tanker is one of two placed strategically in the city to provide residents non-potable water. Santonia Matthews, a custodian at Forest Hill High School in Jackson, Miss., hauls away a trash can filled with water from a tanker in the school’s parking lot, Wednesday, Aug. Water pressure abruptly dropped, emptying faucets for days. Jackson had already been under a state health department boil-water notice for a month when torrential rain fell in August, flooding the Pearl River and overwhelming the treatment system. ![]() Other residents told The Associated Press on Friday that their water remains too discolored to count on, so now they’ll have to rely on water distribution by community-run charities or buy water again themselves, adding insult to injury. Wooten said Friday that the liquid flowing into her kitchen sink still smells like sewage, but not as bad as before, and she’s glad she won’t have to run to distribution sites before their bottled water supplies run out each day. “I’ve tried to give one of my dogs the water, but when she smells it she won’t even touch it. ![]() It’s horrible,” Wooten said earlier this month. “The water that’s coming out of my kitchen sink smells like fresh sewage … as soon as you turn it on, it hits you right in the face. While the state plans to stop handing out free bottled water at sites around the city Saturday night, the city said water pressure still hasn’t been fully restored, and state health officials said lead in some pipes remains so worrisome that pregnant women and young children should still use bottled water. But the crisis in the city of Jackson isn’t over, even if its boil-water advisory was lifted on Thursday. ![]()
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