OT- Update on the Jackson water situation
- Thread starter Antonio Brown's Foot
- Start date
I think the temporary pumps are working and holding pressure - that’s what they’re referring to. But the problem with pipes remains. That’s where the big money comes in to replace or repair. In fact, the concern now is that with the pumps finally running at optimal pressure, the pipes will begin to burst because they’re so brittle. The problem is FAR from resolved.
It’s a mess, but adults are in charge now. I’ve been involved a little. The people of Jackson should be thanking the state and federal governments for helping solve a city function that the incompetence of city leadership and employees totally neglected. The truth is that the city leadership can’t manage a water/sewer system. They don’t have the leadership skills, competence, and work ethic to do it. I am involved in the discussion on a long term solution for what happens after the repair. I don’t believe it should be turned back over to the city.
Had a work phone call with someone in New Orleans last week. Of course she asked about our water situation. I told her about how the Jackson water system has been hanging on by a thread for decades now. She said it sounds like New Orleans water system. I think there’s a lot of infrastructure working that needs to be done in cities all over the country with many relying on century-plus old systems.
Memphis began a lead pipe replacement program in 2014 that replaces lead pipes as they find them. It continues today. They are also in year 3 of a 5 year plan to upgrade various aspects of the water treatment system.
You see the water issue. You see how bad all the streets are and they are never repaired. Then you ask where is all the money going? Some outside source needs to come in and audit everything and see what is happening. I hate it for Jackson but before the State and Federal Governments starts to spend billions of dollar fixing Jackson I want to know what has happened to the money. They will just do it again if there is no accountability of the City Leaders.
You are wrong about this. Lack of maintenance and age is what is wrong with our pipes. “Yazoo clay” is basically an urban legend. Literally all clay expands when moist. Yazoo clay has been blamed on a million things that were actually caused by a leak or less than half *** engineering.
Ive been telling people this pipe problem was coming for 15 years. (When I started plumbing) Where my info came from is a working relationship i developed with the head of maintenance for the city (at the time). We were doing “pipe bursting” and jackson had just purchased the equipment to do it, themselves. I would call him and invite him to our jobs in Jackson and he would come out and basically get free on hands training.
He was a good guy and good at his job but he told me back then how bad things were. He said another problem was that jackson would pay for training and classes for water and sewer but then would only max you out at 15 dollars and hour, so people would use them and get a better job.
Often times the money simply wasn’t collected. You have to bill and collect. You can’t give water away for free.
Accountability? Look at the last several mayors and public works directors. It’s a clown show. Bob Miller had some skills, but he wasn’t there long. They keep electing the wrong people, and they keep hiring the wrong people.
Accountability? Look at the last several mayors and public works directors. It’s a clown show. Bob Miller had some skills, but he wasn’t there long. They keep electing the wrong people, and they keep hiring the wrong people.
Anyone who has miss handled money should be held accountable. Out side auditor should be sent in. I am not sure but I imagine the State gives Jackson money for the Capital being located in the City to keep the roads up. What ever the reason it has to be fix along with the roads and water.
I 100% agree with you but who is this "outside source" going to be ? Our federal gov't prints and wastes money (see the billions wasted or stolen during Covid) like confetti and our good ole boy state gov't over saw the spending of money meant for poor people on everything but (see Brett Favre et al). Sorry but I'm just a tad disillusioned these days.
Yep, Jackson is hardly alone on this issue. Do people not remember when Minneapolis had a bridge collapse in 2007? We have a reckoning coming. You have to maintain stuff.
The state auditor is involved. But neglecting to bill because you don’t know how to bill or how to operate the billing system isn’t a crime. It’s incompetence, but not criminal. All state agencies in the city should receive a water bill and should pay the bill. Their service should be disconnected if they don’t pay. The state agencies do pay all utility bills that they receive.
Urban legend? Did leaks cause all of those foundations in Jackson to shift and crack? Engineers been lying for years about Yazoo clay in the area?
Yes. They did. Clay expands when its wet and shrinks when it’s dry. It’s not complicated. All of those houses in eastover with CAST IRON drains leaking under the house will move.
Any builders/engineer types that can tell me why more houses in the clay belt are built on slabs instead of a traditional raised foundation? Would it even matter?
Memphis also has a separated sewer/stormwater system, which is a huge advantage during massive storms.
Wall Street Journal had a good article last week about how what’s happening in Jackson could easily happen in a number of other large cities. Many other cities have not kept their system up to date.
New Orleans was one mentioned. If I’m remember right, something like 30% of the water the pump leaks out because of holes in pipes.
New Orleans was one mentioned. If I’m remember right, something like 30% of the water the pump leaks out because of holes in pipes.
Oh, okay. I guess twenty plus years as a licensed onsite wastewater installer hasn’t really shown me much. I’ve only been dealing with soils from as far north as Oxford and Starkville to as far south as Ship and Horn islands. And averaging multiple hundreds of installations per year in the Metro. Plus I stated age as part of the problem in my statement.
I’m not saying you’re wrong about the other things, but Yazoo clay is a problem. My wife works for a national engineering and environmental consulting firm, and she’s telling me regularly about engineers in other states that are bewildered with some of the soil conditions is Mississippi.
Is it negligence and/or incompetence when, for political reasons, the city leadership literally refuses to enforce cutoffs for non-payment? In my opinion, that's an illegal donation and a violation of both the state constitution and state law.
Good job Governor and Federal Authorities.
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Imagine if instead of committing one trillion dollars (the current estimate) to forgiving student loans, the federal government had decided to apply that to infrastructure. The jobs created would be many and we would get something for our money that is desperately needed nationally. And the impact on inflation would be minimal as spending would be spread out. But this won’t happen because of our current leadership in Washington. Bone-headed and ideology-driven politics is killing us quickly. Jackson is just the canary.
Didn’t they try a big infrastructure bill a few years ago and the 2 sides couldn’t come to agreement? It does not matter who is President, unless one side has a big enough majority in Congress, no big bill is ever getting passed
I was told the city should be collecting approximately $15m a year in water fees, but only collected $2m last year.
The reason that the pipes burst is a combination of Yazoo Clay, 80-100 year old cast iron pipes, and a hollowed out tax base to pay for repairs for a big system, let alone maintenance, for 25 years. I graduated Millsaps in 2000 and there was constant discussion of the aging pipes then. I lived in Jackson for a cup of coffee in 2007-2008, and they were making as many repairs as they could make at that time with major issues all over the city. I think in 2008, the estimate that was being thrown around was $600 million to bring citywide pipes to sufficient levels. Not modern, just sufficient.
The whole process for building infrastructure in this country is broken. Why the 17 are projects 5-10 times more expensive than they were 50 years ago, even in inflation adjusted dollars?
We would have gotten $200B worth of infrastructure and a bunch of book doggles. Maybe I’m an optimist thinking only 80% would be wasted/embezzled.
Not sure what you mean by inflation-adjusted dollars in this application, but at an average inflation rate of 3.8% over last 50-60 years, that works out to 6.45x over 50 years.
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This isn’t too far off of the mark. The age of the pipes is definitely an issue and why we see some of the problems we have, particularly under roads - the recent Old Canton example comes to mind. The problem is that none of the city leaders since going back to your 2000 example, if not further, ever thought to implement a plan to start updating the water system pipes. They could have set aside x% of the budget each year for “ongoing water system pipe upgrades”. Not a one of them did that (if I am misremembering let me know), instead making the conscious decisions that it would be someone else’s problem and they’d only patch up whatever broke as it broke. The current mayor made the exact same conscious choice, except he realized that the dam may break and he may be left as the guy for whom it was “someone else’s problem”. So, he started bitching in the media about needing obscene amounts of money. Meanwhile, he never thought it might be a good idea to actually put together a plan for fixing anything so that he could maybe actually get some State or Federal help. So, here we are.
Also, the guy saying Yazoo clay is a myth - I guess if he’s a plumber and all he sees is broken pipes, then I might see how he’d come to that conclusion, misguided as it may be.
Yup.
You take a bunch of infrastructure that was created due to New Deal projects(those nasty socialist projects!) that are naturally just old and needing to be maintained/replaced, and couple them with regular maintenance that is pushed off due to funding being gutted due to reducing taxes and spending elsewhere, what you get is where we are now- well behind where we need to be as a country.
This is an issue at the federal level, state level, and local level.
Its unfortunate, but hardly surprising.
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