Children leave Wilkins School in Jackson, Mississippi on March 24, 2022 (AFP/Mark Felix)
Every morning, 180 children leave their school in Jackson, the capital of Mississippi, to reach another by bus. The reason? Being able to go to the toilet. Because it is impossible, for lack of sufficient pressure, to fill the flushes with those of their establishment.
Cheryl Brown, the principal of the Wilkins school, where 98% of the 400 students are African-American and largely from disadvantaged backgrounds, does not hide her weariness.
“It’s very hard. It’s exhausting for the boys and girls at school and it’s exhausting for our staff,” she told AFP.
In the first world power, Jackson, with its 155,000 inhabitants, is experiencing a water crisis. The Mississippi Water Authority found the municipal system to have “significant deficiencies” as early as 2016.
A bucket of water in the toilets at Wilkins School to replace toilet flushes on March 23, 2022 (AFP/Mark Felix)
In question, water contaminated with lead, a century-old treatment plant, burst cast iron pipes.
“The pipes are dilapidated and the replacement plan decided by the city in 2013 has not been implemented (…). The city estimates that its system is losing 40 to 50% of its water”, pointed out the Agency United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in a 2020 report.
“Three local hospitals had to dig their own wells,” she added.
– Health scandal –
Such a situation is far from being a first. One of the worst health scandals in the United States occurred in the former industrial city of Flint, Michigan, where a change in supply decided to save money exposed residents to lead poisoning.
The towns of Flint and Jackson are predominantly black, which for many illustrates “environmental racism” as African Americans are disproportionately affected by pollutants.
Cheryl Brown on March 23, 2022 in Jackson (AFP / Mark Felix)
Cheryl Brown, the principal of the Wilkins school, does not want to dwell on this question. What she is sure of is that the situation is untenable.
Today, half of the students use the Wilkins toilets, where the toilets are filled manually by employees. The other half leave daily for another establishment for the day, which generates a significant loss of instruction time, she laments.
The city engineer in charge of water, Charles Williams, explains to AFP the lack of pressure in the pipes by the geographical location of the school. But he recognizes that the general problem is more complex.
According to him, the city came to this because of “a delay in maintenance (of factories and pipes) and a lack of funds”.
He estimates that 3 to 5 billion dollars would be needed to rebuild a healthy system.
Local journalist Nick Judin conducted a lengthy investigation for the online media “Mississippi Free Press” on the subject. For him, the decline in EPA resources to help municipalities manage their water, as well as the exodus of the population to the suburbs, have their share of responsibility.
Jackson has a quarter fewer inhabitants than in 1980. The amount brought in by taxes and water bills to support the maintenance of the network has therefore decreased.
Especially since “some (residents) receive bills regularly, others intermittently and others never”, adds Nick Judin.
– “Not normal” –
At the end of 2012, the city commissioned the German company Siemens to deploy an efficient metering and billing system.
But at the beginning of 2020, the group reimbursed the 90 million dollars of the contract, accused by the mayor of never having tested the compatibility between meters and the computer system…
The severity of the following winter brought the main treatment plant to a standstill, and a number of hundred-year-old pipes burst one following the other.
Since then, no improvement has been seen, residents told AFP.
“We haven’t had (Jackson’s) water for regarding 12 years,” said Priscilla Sterling on sad Farish Street, the backbone of a prosperous black neighborhood until the 1970s. wash with it,” she adds.
“We’re not supposed to live like this. It’s not normal. It’s not normal at all,” said Barbara Davis, who works in a church, pointing to the brownish water coming out of her tap.
Water distribution in Jackson, Mississippi on March 24, 2022 (AFP/Mark Felix)
Terun Moore helps the inhabitants of a poor and particularly affected neighborhood in the south of the city thanks to a water filtering system offered by the association 501CTHREE.
“Not everyone can buy water. We give reusable jerry cans, they can fill them,” he shows.
The city assures AFP that even brown and contaminated with lead, the water remains drinkable, except for pregnant women and children. None of the inhabitants crossed believes in it.