Hundreds of residents turn out seeking answers at Jackson water crisis town hall Monday

Hundreds of frustrated south Jackson residents facing a second week with little running water attended a packed town hall meeting Monday night hosted by Ward 6 councilman Aaron Banks.

The meeting, held at Glory Empowerment Center on Maddox Road, featured remarks by Jackson’s federally appointed third party water system administrator Ted Henifin, and offered citizens the chance to make comments and ask questions of the new department head.

Resident Brad Davis said people of the area feel like their neighborhoods are being overlooked.

“When you have to go through the same thing every year it gets old.” Davis said. He challenged city leaders to “stop overlooking south Jackson.”

Other residents questioned why the city would publicly lift the boil water notice in zip code 39211 while their areas still had no water at all. Henifin acknowledged making that call personally based on the lack of pressure loss in areas closest the Pearl River.

Confusion over the city’s emergency water distribution plan and the lack of a non-potable water truck convenient to south Jackson was another common complaint, as were unrepaired water leaks and the flooding they cause.

More: Ward 6 Councilman hosts Town HallJackson Water Crisis, Day 8: Councilman Banks to hold Town Hall at 6 p.m. to update people

Lee Taylor, who owns property on U.S. 80, said he has been reporting a leak there for “10 to 15 years” to little avail.

Pastor Greg Divinity said the recurrent water crisis is putting “a great economic strain on every resident here.”

And Robert Amos, Ward 3 alderman of Byram, (which relies on Jackson’s water system), said the outage has been “crippling our business community and crippling our residents.” He said the time is now for answers.

Henifin, who took control of the beleaguered system under a court order signed Nov. 29 by U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate appeared largely sympathetic to the citizen complaints and characterized his decision to come to Jackson as a “calling” to improve the lives of people here.

“I should be home retired but feel like I can make a difference,” Henifin said. “I’m going to fix this,” he said but cautioned that everything required would not likely happen immediately or even within the course of a year.

He characterized Jackson’s water problems as “extremely complicated” and portrayed the nationally publicized water problems facing Flint, Michigan, as “simple” compared to the challenges in Jackson.

Among the problems noted by Henifin was a non-functioning water quality monitoring system at intake valves feeding the O. B. Curtis plant. The system is supposed to measure things like the ph level and turbidity of incoming water from the reservoir but because it doesn’t work the water cannot be tested and chemically treated until it reaches the plant, he said.

An old and porous distribution system which wastes as much or more treated water than it actually delivers to customers is another huge concern. By some estimates Jackson loses upwards of 30 million gallons a day, requiring the city to treat at least twice the amount of water that other cities of similar size do, he said.

To the best of his knowledge Henifin said this is the first time the federal government has assumed control of a local water system, and he freely admitted his time on the job as been too short to fully understand all of the complexities. “I’m making this up as I go along,” Henifin said.

But he promised to use the $600 million appropriated by Congress to address Jackson’s water woes wisely and outlined several of his first priorities.

At the top of the list will be to create a computerized model of the distribution system, allowing workers to more immediately pinpoint problem areas and redirect water as needed.

“Right now we don’t even know where the valves are or what position they are in,” he said, adding that a computerized system should go a long way toward more quickly bringing water into low pressure areas.

Until that model is complete, Henifin said he will continue to experiment with different ways to improve delivery. For example, he said a 54-inch water line that connects the Curtis plant with the older J. H. Fewell water treatment plant near Belhaven was cut off Monday to monitor what effect that would have, and preliminary observations appear promising.

He predicted water pressure should be back to near normal levels by Tuesday in most areas and the entire system should be fully functional by Thursday morning when Jackson Public Schools campuses reopen for students.

Other priorities outlined by Henifin include the development of an new emergency water distribution plan in the event of future water outages and the total revamping of the city’s long problematic water metering and billing systems.

Henifin, a registered professional engineer, previously served as General Manager of the Hampton Roads Sanitation District in his native state of Virginia. Before coming to HRSD, he served as Director of Public Works for the City of Hampton, Virginia and was elected Vice President of the Virginia Association of Municipal Wastewater Agencies. Henifin earned his BS in Civil Engineering from the University of Virginia.

Banks said he called the meeting in an effort to bring more transparency to residents of his ward concerning the water crisis.

“As the councilman for the area of Jackson that is usually hit the hardest during most water crises, I think the flow of communication/information should be stronger, more consistent, more frequent and presented in a more truthful and concise way,” Banks stated in an announcement inviting residents to the town hall meeting.

Other officials attending the meeting included Jackson Ward 4 Councilman Brian Grizzell and state Sen. David Blount representing District 29.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Hundreds of residents turn out seeking answers at Jackson MS town hall