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In Jackson, Mississippi, a water crisis of unparalleled scale

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Re: In Jackson, Mississippi, a water crisis of unparalleled scale

#121

Post by dehrmann »

sirspacey wrote: post #110
boeingUH60 wrote: post #45

Where I reside..what you’ll call a third-world country (Nigeria), everyone who builds a home digs their personal water borehole and sewage system because our government is too incompetent to maintain city-wide infrastructure. I’ve always thought it would be much better if we can get centralized systems for these things as they do in developed countries, but I’m pretty sure this is the type of thing we would see regul…

This is actually quite common in New England, where many homes have both their own spring & sewage - even when public systems are available Far more resilient design in the event of extreme weather events, which most rural homes must endure Centralizes has benefits, but so does decentralization!

The tradeoff is efficiency vs. redundancy.

Re: In Jackson, Mississippi, a water crisis of unparalleled scale

#122

Post by adolph »

boeingUH60 wrote: post #45

Where I reside..what you’ll call a third-world country (Nigeria), everyone who builds a home digs their personal water borehole and sewage system because our government is too incompetent to maintain city-wide infrastructure. I’ve always thought it would be much better if we can get centralized systems for these things as they do in developed countries, but I’m pretty sure this is the type of thing we would see regul…

Accidents happen. My own neighborhood had a boil notice for the better part of a week after a line break that flooded a freeway. [1]

an issue at the O.B. Curtis Water Treatment Facility that was caused by the Pearl River flooding this past weekend. [0]

Wealth is a lagging indicator for competence. Many systems can coast along even as problems pile up and don't seem to be problems even though the system cannot withstand an accident.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) assessment team flagged numerous system problems in a July 2022 report, one month before the system failed. The problems highlighted in the report include: [0]

  - Poor administration, lack of staff
  - Finances are in shambles
  - Customer complaints
  - Lack of routine monitoring and maintenance
  - Water in storage tanks isn’t cycled
  - Frequent line breaks
0. https://www.wjtv.com/news/jacksons-water-crisis/jacksons-wat...

1. https://abc7.com/houston-water-main-break-city-of-flooding-o...

Re: In Jackson, Mississippi, a water crisis of unparalleled scale

#123

Post by MisterBastahrd »

cs702 wrote: post #5

By all measures, this is due to the kind of neglect and mismanagement one would expect to see in an underdeveloped or war-torn country, not in a city inside a state that is part of the most powerful country on earth. And Jackson is the state's largest city and as well as its capital ! It must be so embarrassing for the politicians who have been running Mississippi. They've done a truly terrible, horrible job on this.

For most of the southern states in the US, their ideology demands that disasters disproportionately impact the poor for the sin of being poor. In order to do this effectively, the various state governments actively avoid supporting, maintaining, or improving infrastructure past the bare functional minimum during good times. They know that for all of their crying and complaining about welfare and handouts, the federal government will be right there to write them a check to fix their shit when times are tough, and they'll turn around and use that money to pad the pockets of themselves and their political donors. That money has to trickle down through the state legislature's pockets before even making it to the city.

Re: In Jackson, Mississippi, a water crisis of unparalleled scale

#124

Post by vnchr »

surge_drink wrote: post #95

Maybe they can use some of that Ukraine money.

I don’t know if the $13.5 Billion committed by the US for security assistance in Ukraine would make any difference in the well being of US citizens with targeted infrastructure improvements or expanded social services.

Re: In Jackson, Mississippi, a water crisis of unparalleled scale

#126

Post by [deleted] »

cs702 wrote: post #24
dehrmann wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Mississippi is one of the poorest states in that country.

Mississippi's GDP per capita is roughly between Spain's and Portugal's, so by global standards, the state is actually quite wealthy -- definitely wealthy enough to ensure everyone has drinking water in all its cities.

[deleted]

Re: In Jackson, Mississippi, a water crisis of unparalleled scale

#127

Post by Bud »

nostromo wrote: post #102

Jackson is in a death spiral. It’s been shrinking for decades and the people who leave first are the people with income, money, and opportunity. The people left are increasingly poor, on public assistance, and simply don’t pay enough in taxes to maintain their city’s infrastructure. When this happens, cities need to restructure. Shrink the city boundaries and end service to people outside of it. Give them plenty of w…

I get your general argument, and in a lot of circumstances, it has validity, but I don't think it does in this case.

Jackson has indeed experienced white flight and a population decline. But it still has basically the same population it had 10 years ago (153k now, 173k as of the 2010 census). And the water treatment infrastructure issues there have been ongoing for many years. There have been repeated appeals to the state for funding. The state has denied anything close to the requested funding.

In this particular case, it's not about failing to wisely "physically shrink" the "amount of infrastructure" to something 10% smaller. It's about failure to address chronically broken fundamental infrastructure.

Re: In Jackson, Mississippi, a water crisis of unparalleled scale

#128

Post by matthewdgreen »

mjmahone17 wrote: post #56
sokoloff wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a city water department that has failed, not a state facility. Those in charge should be ashamed, indeed, but that shame is at a city level as far as I can tell.

In the US states tend to have the most power. The federal government can coax states by offering more money (for instance, funding 90% of highway projects), but can’t usually force states to take any specific action. There are exceptions but in general, if you want an action to happen the state needs to be OK with it. Cities may have a lot of autonomy or almost no autonomy, depending on the specific state and city. I…

This is exactly the point. The goal is to take poorer people and problems (need for school funding, crime, older infrastructure) and concentrate them in a location where you can say “hey, they need to solve their own problems.” Then all the suburbs get great services and low taxes, while all the social and infrastructure problems can be ignored. The suburbs then fight like hell to make sure they don’t pay a dime for any of this stuff, while working hard to ensure that public transportation never exists to allow people to access the economic opportunities in the suburbs (AKA “bring crime into their neighborhoods.”) Cities can raise taxes to pay for their needs, but businesses and wealthier people just move across the city line. The poverty and lack of education inevitably breed local political corruption, and everyone outside the city gets another opportunity to feel righteous about writing the poorer cities off.

Re: In Jackson, Mississippi, a water crisis of unparalleled scale

#129

Post by Bud »

peterpost2 wrote: post #21
scifibestfi wrote: post #14

Does anyone else feel like all of our institutions are crumbling in real time? And to the degree they still work is a product of momentum?

That was the most shocking thing to me when I visited the United States for the first time in my live last month, the road system is so incredibly poorly maintained and so incredibly poorly thought out. It all is incredibly expansive but not maintained. That being said I only saw 3 (eastern) states, maybe it's different elsewhere.

It is indeed very different from state to state, depending on the state's tax base and priorities, and also within states from locale to locale, at times.

Re: In Jackson, Mississippi, a water crisis of unparalleled scale

#130

Post by [deleted] »

systemvoltage wrote: post #105
pkrotich wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess your idea of America is from movies - immigrated here 24 years ago from a so called third-world country and I can tell you it’s rather unsettling when you see the bowels of America especially in the southern parts (I live in Louisiana).

Honest question - why do we send so much foreign aid but don't fix our own backyard? This has been going on for decades and there must be an opportunity cost here. Sure some things cannot be solved by just throwing more money at it, but a lot of things can be. I remember this was a popular topic in pro Ron Paul 2008 reddit discussions. More people are eager to help Ukraine than our own states. They'd be ashamed infac…

[deleted]
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