Following two consecutive storms in February 2021, the city of Jackson, Mississippi with a population of 150,000 was faced with a major water crisis. Thousands were subjected to a boil-water advisory after the storms.

Republican Governor Tate Reeves blasted the city when it sought assistance for its water crisis at the time.

“I do think it’s really important that the city of Jackson start collecting their water bill payments before they start going and asking everyone else to pony up more money,” Reeves said. At the time, around 25% of its population lived in poverty.

In Jackson, where the population of more than 80% of residents are Black, has left thousands without reliable and clean water for nearly a week after flood waters knocked the O.B. Curtis Water Plant offline.

On Sunday, the city said most of the water pressure returned to normal, but U.S. officials warned that it was still too early to say when a reliable supply of drinking water could be restored.

Sadly, water crises like these are nothing new for residents who live in the city.

Residents accuse state government of neglect

During the 2021 water crisis, Democrat Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba told Democracy Now! that the city wasn’t just ill-prepared for winter storms, but “were ill-equipped.”

After this year’s water crisis worsened, Mayor Lumumba said it developed because of “a set of accumulated problems based on deferred maintenance that has not taken place over decades.”

Other residents of the town expressed similar frustrations about the lack of investment in the community.

“We have a water treatment facility that’s obsolete that nobody has thought about for years,” Professor Edmund Merem who teaches urban planning and environmental studies at Jackson State University told BBC.

A local activist who is a part of the effort to distribute water to residents told NPR news that those in power “neglected to do what they had the power to do, and that is to invest in the infrastructure here in the city of Jackson.”

The structure of the crisis

Other residents note that decades of redlining and racial segregation have contributed to the current crisis. Activists say that because of the racist practices, low income and predominantly Black communities were concentrated in areas near landfills, oil refineries and wastewater treatment plants.

White Flight, where White resident’s left Jackson for surrounding suburbs in the 1950s and 1960s, has also played a big part in the deterioration of the city’s prospects.

The Brookings Institute notes that while infrastructure should be a nonpartisan issue, many communities of color are often faced with poorly maintained or intentionally overlooked infrastructure, leading to a lack of access, affordability and safety.

The city’s shrinking tax base has also exacerbated the crisis. The city began losing Black residents in 2010. Federal funding for the city's water infrastructure has been falling by nearly  80% since the 1970s.

Mayor Lumumba said that repairing the system could cost up to $2 billion.

For now, the Biden administration has approved a state of emergency for the city, providing it with protective measures, coordination with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help alleviate the hardship and suffering caused by the disaster, and provide federal funding for a period of 90 days.

However, the hundreds of thousands are still without water and it’s still not clear when and if potable water will return to the city.