Mayor says city is still 'several months away' in full confidence in drinking water

Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, at a press conference Wednesday morning announcing the launch of free water filters for women who are pregnant and women with children under the age of five, said the city's water is still "several months away" until residents can be fully confident in its safety.

The reason, the mayor said, is that officials are still determining "what is the best engineering solution" to treat the water system.

Those two solutions are either between sodium carbonate, commonly referred to as "soda ash," or liquid lime slurry. Both are regularly used in the treatment of water. According to Lumumba, the problem with soda ash is it clumps together in warmer climate, saying the region's "humidity makes it difficult for even distribution into our water systems."

But Lumumba clarified that "it hasn't been demonstrated that our water is in fact dangerous." The move to supply free water filters was made to try and restore confidence when residents receive precautionary notices about the water supply.

"When residents receive those notices, that are the precautionary notices that the Department of Health indicates that we have to put out, it creates questions in terms of confidence in whether I can drink this water, whether I'm safe, whether my child is safe," Lumumba said. "And so, this is an effort to make certain that we're sure that we're sure. An effort to restore their confidence in the drinking water without them having to bear the burden of cost of having to buy bottled water each and every week, each and everyday.

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Cautionary water notices have been sent out to Jackson residents since the O. B. Curtis Water Treatment Plant, the city's largest water treatment facility which had already been experiencing issues for years, flooded after heavy rainfall in August 2022. A complete shut down of the water supply left more than 153,000 residents without access to running water. Progress has been made since then, but residents still lack confidence in the city's water.

The free water filters were donated by United Healthcare, providing more than $100,000. Each comes with one water pitcher and two filters.

"At the height of our water crisis, we had so many so many corporations, cities and residents providing bottled water to the city that it became more than we could maintain and far more that we could deliver to the residents. But we indicated to them that we needed to restore confidence and if we could provide filters to residents it would be a blessing and a benefit to our customers," Lumumba said.

Jackson Hinds Comprehensive Health Center is supporting the move and is the site where expecting mothers and mothers with young children can pick up their free water filters. The address of the health center is 3502 W. Northside Drive.

Contact Charlie Drape at 913-982-6139 or cdrape@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Best solution to treat Jackson MS Water Crisis? City still figuring out