Jackson, Mississippi resident hit with $4,000 water bill following the water crisis that left the city without clean drinking water for over a month: ‘No one should be paying this amount’

• Virginia Evans instructed CNN she acquired a $4,000 water invoice following the Mississippi water disaster.
• Jackson, Miss. fundamental water therapy facility started to fail in late August, prompting the disaster. 
• “Nobody must be paying this quantity whenever you’re not even ready to make use of the water,” Evans instructed CNN.

One lady in Jackson, Mississippi says she was hit with a $4,000 water invoice in September following a water disaster that left the town with out clear ingesting water for greater than a month.

Virginia Evans mentioned she acquired the invoice on September 9 regardless of the water disaster that has pressured her and different residents there to keep away from ingesting or cooking with faucet water, in keeping with CNN.

“I do not know what they should do however they should do one thing as a result of nobody must be paying this quantity whenever you’re not even ready to make use of the water,” Evans instructed CNN.

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves declared a state of emergency on August 30 after Jackson’s fundamental water therapy facility started to fail, leaving the town with out sufficient water strain to flush bogs and meet different vital wants. Town remained beneath a boil water discover from July 29 to September 15.

Many Jackson residents have been complaining of excessive water payments following the disaster. In keeping with NBC, some folks within the metropolis started having issues with their water payments in 2010 when Siemens Company put in new water meters and put in a brand new billing system.

Jackson sued Siemens in 2019, claiming that 10,000 of the 60,000 new water meters it put in weren’t functioning appropriately, NBC reported. Siemens settled the lawsuit out of court docket for $90 million.

Siemens and Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba didn’t instantly reply to Insider’s requests for touch upon Saturday. 

Jackson started putting in new water meters in 2021 and a spokesperson for the town instructed CNN that its new water meters had been “studying precisely primarily based on our evaluation thus far.”

“There are some remaining software-related points which might be creating points for some residents with new meters,” spokeswoman Melissa Payne mentioned within the assertion. “These points have been recognized and work is underway to handle the problems.”

Throughout an October 6 group assembly, metropolis councilman Kenneth Stokes inspired folks dealing with abnormally excessive water payments and people who have acquired cutoff notices to enchantment their payments, in keeping with WJTV. Stokes emphasised through the assembly that their water companies can’t be disconnected if they’re in the midst of an enchantment on their invoice.

Debra Boswell, the communication director for Mississippi Animal Rescue in Jackson, instructed WJTV that the group didn’t obtain a water invoice from 2017 to 2021. The primary invoice the animal shelter recieved in 2021 was roughly $19,000, WJTV reported.

“We referred to as, we requested for copies of the of the payments that created that $19,000 steadiness, nothing,” Boswell instructed WJTV. “So I did not pay the invoice. I did not pay it.”