![]() ![]() “You put that together, and anything's going to fail.” “Not enough money, natural age and loss of skilled people,” one former Jackson water system manager said. The challenges in repairing the broken system, including undertrained and mismanaged staffing. The human toll, through the lens of residents along one hard-hit street How much more can Jackson withstand? One family sent their children to Honduras to avoid the third-world conditions in Jackson. The environmental impact, with millions of plastic water bottles that had been distributed to residents in need being discarded in a city that has no recycling program, and offering tips on how to manage proper disposal The impact on race in a city that is 83% people of color Throughout the fall, the Clarion Ledger, buoyed by regional help, dissected the City of Jackson’s water system problems from a variety of angles, exploring: 15 all-clear notice from the governor, helping reassure residents that, from a bacterial standpoint, the water was safe to consume. The Clarion Ledger also tested for bacteria in water, immediately after the Sept. Experts say no amount of lead in water is safe to consume. What testing revealed, albeit in a far more limited scale than what the city had announced, was that elevated lead results could be far more widespread than the city had reported. In an effort to hold public officials accountable, the Clarion Ledger partnered with the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting and, at the Clarion Ledger’s sole expense, tested water connections throughout the city using an independent third-party laboratory. At one point, Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba declared the city had tested the city’s water for lead and revealed that fewer than 16 out of 24,000 connections had tested positive for lead in water. 15, many residents had little trust for any statement coming from politicians. This time, when the water was finally cleared to drink on Sept. Jackson’s residents have often felt betrayed by city and state officials regarding the city’s ongoing water system problems and failures in the past. ![]()
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