National Guard distributes Water in Mississippi

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves says 600 National Guard members were deployed to help respond to the water crisis in the state capital, Jackson.

The water crisis unfolding in Jackson, Mississippi, was decades in the making: the culmination of crumbling infrastructure, systemic racism and more extreme weather. It’s also a stark warning of trouble to come as climate change piles new stress onto the essential services Americans rely on every day.

In addition to warming up the planet by nearly 1.2° Celsius compared to pre-industrial times, climate change is making precipitation events more intense, and therefore more likely to overwhelm strained systems. Lower-income and minority communities such as Jackson — which is 82% Black and where a quarter of residents live in poverty — bear the brunt of the impacts.

“The situation in Jackson isn’t new,” said Dominika Parry, president of the climate activism group 2CMississippi and an environmental economist. “It’s a consequence of many, many decades of disinvestment in water infrastructure, in general infrastructure in the city of Jackson.”

After heavy rainfall caused the Pearl River to flood, the main water treatment plant in Jackson, which has a history of pump problems, failed. The rain wasn’t record-setting or even as bad as initially predicted. But the outage left thousands without safe drinking water for days.

Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba declared an emergency on Monday, after the underfunded, understaffed water plant started to fail. The next day Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves declared a state of emergency, calling on the state National Guard to distribute water for drinking and other purposes.

By Wednesday, President Joe Biden had declared a federal emergency. Jackson residents have been waiting in line to get water, and restaurants and other businesses have had to source additional bottled water.

While the situation in Jackson is acute, its problems aren’t unique. “Jackson quickly has become symbolic of everything that we’re talking about when we talk about environmental and climate injustices,” said Katherine Egland, who serves on the board of directors of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, but “this is happening all over the nation.”

The American Society of Civil Engineers gave the country’s drinking water infrastructure a C- in its annual report card last year, describing the need for public investment as “staggering.”

Water systems across America were built for a climate that no longer exists, says Jesse M. Keenan, an associate professor at Tulane University and an expert in how climate change affects cities. Their upkeep is getting more expensive by the day, and for infrastructure that’s already deteriorating, the problems and costs are even higher: Keenan estimates the backlog of capital investments “far exceeds” the $550 billion in President Biden’s infrastructure law.

“Underinvestment in everything from maintenance to capital improvements, combined with the increased costs of climate impacts, means that for cities like Jackson — clean and reliable water is not guaranteed,” he wrote in an email.

According to NOAA, Mississippi has experienced above-average precipitation since the 1970s, and its precipitation patterns are likely to change, with less expected in the summer and more in the fall and winter. The state has experienced little warming from climate change so far, but “historically unprecedented warming” is projected to affect it this century.

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