A broken pipe in Jackson has left residents without clean water

On an abandoned golf course, overgrown with shrubs and sawn grass, you can hear water rushing 100 yards away.

Near hole 4, past the small bridge and ruined cart paths, what appears to be a waterfall appears, pouring through the brush and into the creek below. Except that the torrent of water gushing out of the mud is not from a spring-fed stream or a bubbling stream.

It springs from a broken municipal water main.

As residents had to boil tap water and businesses closed because their faucets ran dry, the break at the former Colonial Country Club wasted an estimated five million gallons of drinking water a day in a city who had none to spare.

That’s enough water to meet the daily needs of 50,000 people, or a third of the city’s residents who depend on the beleaguered water service.

No one knows for sure when the leak reached its current size. But newly named Water officials say the city discovered the broken main pipe in 2016 and let it gush out, even as water carved a pool-sized crater into the earth and residents of the city ​​were forced to endure one drinking water crisis after another.

Jackson’s water system has been flirting with collapse for decades thanks to a combination of mismanagement, crumbling infrastructure and a series of unfortunate decisions that cost the utility money it needed. had not. In 2022, the Department of Justice reached an agreement with the city requiring it to bring in an outside manager to run the water service.

City residents have been forced to endure chronic boil water advisories that sweep through the city like power outages. Many have learned to hoard bottled water against the next round of boil advisories. Intermittent episodes of low water pressure can render faucets unusable for thousands of people at once.

“The size of the leak is probably not uncommon,” said Jordan Hillman, chief operating officer of JXN Water, the management company formed last year to lead Jackson’s efforts to stabilize his water utility. . “The time it took to answer them is very rare. Most places would see this as an immediate threat because it’s a ticking time bomb. As it eats away at the ground, you will eventually have a catastrophic breakdown.

It’s unclear why the city and water department didn’t fix the leak sooner. City spokeswoman Melissa Faith Payne did not immediately respond to questions Wednesday about the broken line. Tony Yarber, the former mayor of Jackson, and Kishia Powell, the former director of public works – both in senior positions in 2016 – could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.

The scale of the Colonial Country Club leak and the fact that it has gone unanswered for so long hints at the monumental task facing city and state leaders as they strive to find a lasting solution. Led by newly appointed water czar, Ted Henifin, a two-person team scoured the city for leaks or closed water valves, which can also affect water pressure. . Often, they turned the floodgates on themselves. Leaks usually require more time and resources to address. One of the leaks spews water 30 feet into the air like a geyser and is causing the city to lose up to a million gallons a day, Ms Hillman said.

The broken pipe under the golf course is one of two main lines that carry water from the OB Curtis water plant to smaller transmission lines that ultimately connect to thousands of customers across the city . The 48-inch pipe is essential for South Jackson, a part of town that has suffered the most from outages and boil water advisories.

Luke Guarisco, owner of the land where the golf course once operated, said he reported the leak several years ago when he noticed a broken pipe pushing water into the creek along his property line. Guarisco said he lived out of state and was unaware of the giant hole that has since been created by the leak.

Leaks are common in water systems. However, in Jackson, the city’s leak problems are so widespread, its systems so outdated, its chronic staffing problems so overwhelming, that many leaks, seemingly of any magnitude, have gone undetected or unaddressed.

One of the waterworks serving Jackson was built in 1914, the other in the late 1980s. The water pipes under the city may be over 100 years old, and no one knows when or where a piece of pipe or equipment will fail. A combination of Jackson’s aging infrastructure and recent freezes may have exacerbated current leaks.

The system faced a near-total shutdown in March 2021 when residents went weeks without water. In August 2022, another crisis unfolded at OB Curtis and Mississippi declared a state of emergency for the capital as the water was, once again, deemed unsafe to drink.

Mr. Henifin, a retired director of a Virginia wastewater treatment company that serves 1.8 million people, who spent 40 years in public service, was working with a national nonprofit on a ” small part-time base” to address water equity in Jackson. In July, he was working from his home in Virginia, one day a week. In November, he was living part-time in Mississippi, appointed by the Justice Department to handle the federal takeover of the water system. He officially moved to the state in January.

In the months that followed, he spoke with state and local leaders about how to create a sustainable water supply system. But he seeks solutions in a state where black city leaders and white state leaders often argue over what is and isn’t in Jackson’s best interests.

Outside the country club on Tuesday afternoon, construction crews were preparing to begin repairs, which are expected to take a few weeks. Residents should see reduced water pressure for just a few hours and the water should remain drinkable, Ms Hillman said.

Curious neighbors could see stacks of new pipes and hear the sound of downed trees.

Oscar Mckenzie saw crews working on the leak and assumed they were there to fix another water problem. A water main burst several years ago, he said, and flooded the streets.

Like so many Jacksonians, Mr. Mckenzie doesn’t drink the water that comes out of the tap. He worries what it might do to his four children. When they shower, the water makes their backs itch, he says.

Several houses down, Emmetta Jones walks past the new barricades on her usual walk escorting her son to his school bus stop. Her water pressure is stable, she says, but occasionally brown water comes out of her faucet.

Like her neighbour, she does not drink the water. She hasn’t done it for years.

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