In February 2021, over 40,000 residents of the city of Jackson, Miss. lost access to clean running water for at least a month, following a historic winter storm that damaged an out-of-date and under-resourced infrastructure system. The mayor, Chokwe Antar Lumumba, said the city would need $2 billion to repair and upgrade the water-sewer system—an amount impossible to afford alone for a city with a $300 million annual budget and a high share of low-income residents.
The next month, backed by the city council, Mayor Lumumba requested $47 million in state and federal funding from Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves to fix the city’s water treatment facilities. But Jackson received just $4.6 million out of the $356 million being doled out during that round of statewide capital projects—a mere 1.3% for a capital city comprising 5.2% of the state’s population and anchoring a metro area that contributes 24% of the state’s economic output.
Even as the state’s business community attempted to facilitate support for solutions, by the end of 2022, poor and unsafe water service was still the norm in Jackson. Relations between the state and city stalled, and the federal government intervened with a series of actions, including approving $600 million to directly address the water crisis.
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