Nearly a hundred years ago, Jackson’s leaders were as concerned about its water supply infrastructure as they do today, but for different reasons.

On May 17, 1922, Clarion Ledger's headline read: "Jackson's tremendous growth has brought new problems."

JH Fewell, who was the director of the city's water plant at the time, said that the population is growing and more pipelines and processing facilities are required to be upgraded to accommodate them. Other city leaders agreed.

The imminent neglect of the system and the eventual exodus of Jackson’s white and middle-class residents could not have come to their minds.

Many city administrations failed to carry out regular maintenance, making the system more like a sieve. Boiling water notifications are unusually frequent. Since February, the city has issued at least 25 notifications.

In 1988, a study by the Mississippi State Public Service Commission found that the 1,400 water supply systems in the state at that time—especially the smaller private water supply systems—were not built with service life in mind.

"A lot of these systems use the cheapest materials," Commissioner Lynn Havens told Clarion Ledger at the time. "In 20 or 30 years, there will be nothing under the ground."

Jackson has acquired several smaller systems over the years, but after more than 30 years, all of its appearance has maintained a similar shape.

Read Part 1: How Jackson’s water system made it the focus of the US infrastructure crisis

At the same time, according to the standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency, the residents of the city drank technically safe water, but the loss was obvious. Two-thirds of the 1,352 water samples collected since 2015 contained lead — 90 of which met EPA standards — thanks to the aging of the connectors on the city’s oldest line. An outline on how to solve these problems is placed in the city’s public works office, but it doesn’t make much sense when the water revenue bank is almost empty.

Chief city engineer Charles Williams said in November that it would take more than a decade to repair all the problems in Jackson’s water and sewer system, and that it would only do so when the city gets the funds needed to achieve it.

City officials are currently considering increasing water and sewer rates by 20%-the first potential increase since 2013. Even with higher rates, Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said earlier this month that the city's water company will be at a loss for a few months, if not a few years, until it sees a change. 

It can also backfire politically. Before his death in June, former mayor Dale Danks told the Mississippi Free Press that raising interest rates during his administration in the late 1980s was necessary to solve problems and deficiencies.

"Frankly," he told the media in April, "this is why I beat me when I was running for re-election."

City response: Dirty water: A Jackson community struggles to trust the tap

For decades, city leaders have struggled to deal with the easily ruptured water pipe network because the previous government delayed maintenance due to cost, inaction, or both.

The city of Jackson was originally built in 1888 and purchased the original water supply system from a private company in 1908. Jackson’s population grew at a steady rate in the following years, prompting the construction of the JH Fewell water treatment facility in 1914 to help improve the quality and distribution of water resources.

The plant was initially capable of producing up to 4 million gallons of water per day for the residents of Jackson. At that time, the city transported water to a 500-mile waterline, which was only one-third the size of the system today.

As Jackson’s population continues to grow, the water supply system itself has become tense, forcing the city to expand rapidly or obtain water supply facilities from surrounding cities. Experts say that many of the oldest pipes in the city are small and made of cast iron. They are well known to be durable but are prone to corrosion and cracks over time.

Since the system was launched, the winding pipes underground in the city have not changed much. As early as 1948, Jackson’s mayor and city councillors called for improvements in infrastructure, especially in water-related areas. In 1953, former mayor Allen C. Thompson (Allen C. Thompson) made the replacement of the sewer the main focus of his re-election campaign. 

The Environmental Protection Agency warned Jackson’s leaders in 1978 that major improvements were needed to improve water quality—a precursor to the warning and consent decree the city faces today. In 1979, the Jackson City Council and former Mayor Danks called for investigation and investment after criticizing years of neglect in a report by the State Health Commission.

A few days before Christmas in 1989, a major winter storm swept through the state, and things came to a culmination. Hundreds of water cuts across the city led to water shortages and power outages that lasted for several days.  

"We are still supplying water to most parts of the system, but the pressure has dropped significantly," former mayor Kane Dito said at the time. "There may be no water in some areas now."

More than 30 years later, the current mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba uttered something horribly similar after another large-scale ice storm once again paralyzed the system, this time for a month.

Lumumba said at a press conference on February 18: "We don't have a clear timetable on when to restore water to the tank." "We are continuing to fill the tank with water. We are continuing to work on recovery."

One of the main plans adopted by the city leaders to address these issues is to establish an OB Curtis water treatment facility at Ross Barnett Reservoir in Ridgeland, which now treats most of the city's water.

The plant was completed in the early 1990s and can handle up to 25 million gallons per day. The original construction purpose was to completely replace the JH Fewell plant when it was proposed in 1987. To date, even though OB Curtis has been built, JH Fewell is still operating' processing capacity increased to 50 million gallons per day in 1997.

When the pipes where a lot of water must pass to reach the customer are in serious disrepair, the increased output is of little use. Over the years, surveys commissioned by city leaders have shown that as much as 40% of the water processed in the city has been lost due to broken service lines and low efficiency.

To make matters worse, many of these pipes have lead joints, and these joints have begun to submerge in the water when it passes through the system. Records from the Mississippi Department of Health show that in the past six years, approximately two-thirds of Jackson’s water samples contained at least trace amounts of lead. 

The funding problem started very early in Jackson.

Since the mid-20th century, millions of water bonds, grants, and loans have entered Jackson’s water system, but this is not enough. Even in the early 1960s, before Jackson began to see its population decline, it was common for water pipes to rupture due to malfunctioning pipes under the street.

A study of the city’s system in 1987 indicated that Jackson’s water and sewer rates need to be substantially increased to address unexpected water revenue deficits. According to the survey results, if there is no increase, the city will face a shortage of more than 3 million U.S. dollars by 1992 due to slower urban growth and increased water consumption.

Former Jackson Mayor Harvey Johnson, who served two non-consecutive terms, said that during his tenure, these issues seemed daunting. The master plan commissioned during his first government in 1997 aimed to solve these problems slowly but methodically.

"Even if we have $1 billion (today), it is impossible to spend $1 billion. It will take us 20 years to spend this money," Johnson said. "The important thing is to keep the master plan in mind and fix it all at once."

An unfortunate water supply contract with Siemens can make things worse. The initial charging method was to simplify billing over time and save money for the city, but a faulty meter would send the wrong bill to the customer, if there is a bill generated.

In order to protect consumers, the city’s leadership has instituted payment suspension regulations over the years as the city struggles to find a way to repair the system. As a result, the city’s water revenue vault has dried up, so much so that funds have been drawn from the general fund for on-site repairs for many years.

Last year, the city reached an $89 million settlement agreement that ended the legend, but after the attorney's fees and the city repaid itself to supplement the dry water income, it had little impact on the physical system.

Since the citywide power outage in February was declared a disaster, the city has received millions of federal disaster assistance. As a result of the "American Rescue Plan Act", millions more entered. More from the federal infrastructure package passed in November.

It remains to be seen whether every dollar is just a drop of water, leaking more and more day by day.

This report was produced in cooperation with the Mississippi Community Foundation's local news cooperation organization, which was partly independently funded by Microsoft Corporation. This cooperative organization includes Clarion Ledger, Jackson State University, Mississippi State Public Broadcasting Corporation, Mississippi State Investigation Reporting Center, Jackson Advocates, and the state of Mississippi today.

Contact Keisha Rowe at nrowe@gannett.com, Twitter or (601) 760-2483.