EPA opens civil rights probe into Mississippi water crisis

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The U.S. Environmental Safety Company stated Thursday that it’s investigating whether or not Mississippi state companies discriminated towards the state’s majority-Black capital metropolis by refusing to fund enhancements for its failing water system.

The announcement got here days after leaders of two congressional committees stated they had been beginning a joint investigation right into a disaster that left most houses and companies in Jackson with out operating water for a number of days in late August and early September.

Heavy rainfall in late August exacerbated issues at Jackson’s predominant water remedy facility. Republican Gov. Tate Reeves declared an emergency Aug. 29, and the state well being division and the Mississippi Emergency Administration Company have been overseeing operations and repairs on the facility since then.

READ MORE: Many years of systemic racism seen as root of Jackson Mississippi water disaster

About 80 p.c of Jackson’s 150,000 residents are Black, and a few quarter of the inhabitants lives in poverty. By the point Reeves issued the emergency order, Jackson residents had already been advised for a month to boil their water earlier than to kill potential contaminants.

NAACP President Derrick Johnson, who lives in Jackson together with his household, referred to as the EPA investigation a step in the precise route after years of the state withholding federal funds wanted to avert town’s water system.

“We imagine we gave compelling proof that the state of Mississippi deliberately starved town of Jackson of the assets to take care of its water infrastructure,” Johnson advised The Related Press on Thursday. “We wish the EPA and this administration to place forth a plan of action to stop the state of Mississippi from ever doing this once more.”

Johnson was named amongst a number of resident complainants within the NAACP’s civil rights criticism towards Mississippi. He stated the state’s inaction and file of divestment in Jackson quantities to “systemic neglect.”

“We imagine that each one residents of this nation needs to be entitled to wash, recent ingesting water,” Johnson stated. “Sadly, we dwell in a state that’s nonetheless dealing in racial politics. And because of that, you’ve got state leaders who search to penalize African American residents of town of Jackson in a really discriminatory method.”

Related Press author Michael Phillis in St. Louis contributed to this report. Daly reported from Washington and Morrison reported from New York.