Mississippi Today

‘Trainwreck on the horizon’: The costly pains of Mississippi’s small water and sewer systems

Published

1 week ago

April 21, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @alxrzr – 2025-04-21 06:00:00

by Alex Rozier, Mississippi Today
April 21, 2025

This is the first of a two-part story.

“This state ain’t nothing but a big Jackson,” Central District Public Service Commissioner De’Keither Stamps said during a December meeting that harkened back to his time as a capital city councilman. “We got a whole statewide trainwreck that’s on the horizon.”

Over a thousand drinking water systems, most of them small, and hundreds of additional sewer systems operate in Mississippi. Nearly 60 percent of those water systems, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, have committed a violation in the last three years, and one in three sewer systems in the state have violated pollution limits in just the last year.

In 2014, a couple in DeSoto County, the wealthiest part of the state, sent a letter with photos of their yard to the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality. Tarnishing their garden were small clumps of feces and wads of wet toilet paper stuck together.

“When having company with children playing in our backyard last summer, suddenly, water and sewage began rushing out of the back flow valve, into the flower bed, across our yard and into the backyard where the children were playing,” the Olive Branch couple wrote. “Everyone had to come inside due to the sewage rushing in our yard…This went on for several hours.”

The culprit, MDEQ later identified, was the malfunctioning collection system at the Belmor Lakes Subdivision sewage treatment facility, which serves about 200 people. The couple continued sending complaints the next four years, while the state sent repeated notices of violation to the plant’s operator. The facility allowed sewage overflows from at least 2011 to 2020, records show, and it remains out of compliance to this day.

Another facility, at the Openwood Plantation in Vicksburg, exceeded fecal coliform limits as early as 2004. A 2011 inspection noted the plant’s effluent structure “has been leaking for at least two years, still not repaired.” The next year, a neighbor complained to MDEQ about a funky smelling green liquid on their property. The agency found not only was the treatment plant responsible, but it also leaked raw sewage that flowed into a local recreational lake. Over two decades after the initial violation, the facility still regularly exceeds, by significant degrees, water pollution limits for chemicals such as E.coli, chlorine and ammonia nitrogen.

Small water and sewer systems around Mississippi have for years struggled to stay afloat because of, to some degree, the nature of being a small water or sewer system. Now, as they try to correct deficiencies during a time of growing regulations and higher costs, many cash-strapped systems are facing the hard reality of needing to raise rates for necessary services in the country’s second poorest state.

“System officials think that part of the job is to hold rates at a low level, and that doesn’t necessarily jive with what the need is,” said Bill Moody, director of the Bureau of Water Supply at the Mississippi State Department of Health.

Moody spoke anecdotally of system owners who bragged about keeping rates low, unaware of the revenue shortfall they would soon have.

A 2023 EPA report on funding needs for drinking water systems found that, over the next 20 years, Mississippi will have an $8.1 billion need. That equals $2,751 per Mississippian, the fourth largest per capita need of any state. Small systems in the state had a per capita need 26% higher than that, the report’s data shows, equalling $3,456 per person.

Treated water at a water treatment facility in the Wellsgate subdivision in Oxford, Miss., on Monday, March 10, 2025.

The United States, and especially Mississippi, suffers from what industry wonks call “fragmentation.” Compared to other countries, the U.S. has a spread out population, meaning its utilities are spread out, too. But by having so many water and sewer systems serving small pockets of people, scant infrastructure funding is spread to the point it loses spending power.

“ The problems the city of Jackson has had, for instance, is replayed over and over and over again in these smaller systems,” said MDEQ executive director Chris Wells. “ What you have is these small systems that, for one reason or other, aren’t properly functioning.”

For instance, Wells explained, a developer with no utility experience might build and operate a sewage lagoon to serve a subdivision. Sometimes the developer moves or dies and passes the reins onto the homeowners association.

“We’ve had situations where the person who built the lagoon or the treatment system literally disappears, abandons the system,” Wells said.

While consolidating small systems would help, experts say, some are so far behind that their customers’ bills will go up regardless.

“It gets a little depressing, I don’t know what the answer is,” Greg Pierce, a water policy expert at the University of California, Los Angeles said. “Usually these systems are under-maintained. They have low rates, but they also have low quality and low reliability.”

Each year, the Health Department takes the temperature of the state’s drinking water systems. In the last two years, the agency found 83 providers that were in “poor” condition. While the median population for a water system in Mississippi is around 1,400 people, that number drops to 422 for the “poor” performing systems, about 80% of which serve under a 1,000 people.

In the small town of Utica, for instance, the Reedtown Water Association has frequent power outages and boil water notices. Stamps, the Public Service commissioner for the area, said necessary repairs would cost $4 million to $5 million, “an amount far beyond what the water association and its (1,200) customers can afford.”

One water association with just 829 customers – Cascillia, in Tallahatchie County – had 83 violations in just the last 5 years, including exceeding arsenic limits in 2023. Several other small water systems (such as the Moore Bayou Water Association in Coahoma County, or Truelight Redevelopment in Sharkey County) are considered “serious violators” by the EPA for, in part, not meeting limits on disinfectant byproducts that were set in 2006. Of the state’s 19 “serious violators,” more than half serve 1,200 or fewer people. The EPA defines a small water system as serving 3,300 people or fewer.

Kyle Cummings stands next to a water tank as he discusses the treatment process at a water treatment facility in the Wellsgate subdivision in Oxford, Miss., on Monday, March 10, 2025.

Smaller systems struggle nationwide. A 2018 study from researchers at the University of California, Irvine and Columbia University found that systems in rural areas around the country see “substantially” more violations than those in urban areas.

Wells, of MDEQ – which oversees sewer compliance – said it’s a challenge motivating struggling systems to meet permit limits. The state can technically take over a system, but MDEQ doesn’t have the resources to do so, and levying large fines can be counterproductive because ratepayers ultimately have to make up the difference.

“Every dollar that we take in penalties is one less dollar that the community has to spend toward the upgrades that they need to make,” he said.

Wells described that, for some repeat offenders, sending them violation notices is like “trying to get blood out of a turnip.” While MDEQ works with systems to correct deficiencies, he said, sometimes the best answer is a third-party utility coming in to save the day.

The American Society of Civil Engineers’ 2024 “Infrastructure Report Card” estimated that Mississippi, between all its water and sewer systems, needed $9.4 billion in investments over the next 20 years.

“The capacity of drinking water systems in the state is mediocre,” the report says, adding that “wet weather conditions, inconsistent maintenance, and a lack of rehabilitation pose extreme threats to the state’s wastewater infrastructure.”

Soda ash at a water treatment facility in the Wellsgate subdivision in Oxford, Miss., on Monday, March 10, 2025.

Between the historic amounts of federal funding from the American Rescue Plan Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Mississippi received roughly $1.2 billion for water and wastewater improvements, or just 13% of the state’s projected need.

Especially with large expenses looming to meet the new national standards for PFAs, some small systems are looking to consolidate to ease financial headaches. The Oxford Eagle reported last year, for instance, that the Punkin Water Association would soon join the city of Oxford’s service area after years of water quality issues.

But given the spacial challenges of connecting far apart systems – especially in Mississippi, which, according to Census data, has the fourth most rural population of any state – some say there are limits to how much water providers can actually unify.

“When it comes to the physical pipes in the ground, you can’t move them,” said Mildred Warner, a professor of city and regional planning at Cornell University, explaining that many systems can only consolidate in terms of management.

Mississippi is experimenting with consolidating management for some of its small, privately owned water and sewer systems. In 2021, a company called Great River began buying struggling systems around the state. A subsidiary of the national firm Central States Water Resources, the company focuses on struggling, poorly financed systems that most large utility firms wouldn’t touch. Now operating in 11 states, the company has access to more resources than what a small operator would, and can reduce overall costs by spreading them out throughout its service area.

In Mississippi, part of the PSC’s job is to make sure private utilities that have a monopoly over a given service area, like Great River, only charge customers for what their services are worth, plus enough profit to stay in business. Given the challenges of some small systems in the state, the PSC welcomed the company’s help. But Great River, as is common when a large private utility takes over, quickly imposed steep rate increases to fund its repairs.

As Great River’s ratepayers plead with the PSC to soften the financial blow, the condition of some Mississippi water and sewer providers suggest those basic services will have to cost much more than they used to, especially for customers of small systems.

Part two of this story will further explore the Great River’s impact on ratepayers, and what the future holds for small water and sewer systems struggling to stay afloat.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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Mississippi Today

On this day in 1945, Sister Rosetta Tharpe hit the R&B charts

Published

8 hours ago

April 30, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-04-30 07:00:00

by Jerry Mitchell, Mississippi Today
April 30, 2025

April 30, 1945

Publicity photo of American musician Sister Rosetta Tharpe in 1938.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe, known as the “godmother of rock ‘n’ roll,” made history by becoming the first gospel artist to rocket up the R&B charts with her gospel hit, “Strange Things Happening Every Day.” In so doing, she paved the way for a strange new sound.

“Rock ‘n’ roll was bred between the church and the nightclubs in the soul of a queer Black woman in the 1940s named Sister Rosetta Tharpe,” National Public Radio wrote. “She was there before Elvis, Little Richard and Johnny Cash swiveled their hips and strummed their guitars. It was Tharpe, the godmother of rock ‘n’ roll, who turned this burgeoning musical style into an international sensation.”

Born in Arkansas, the musical prodigy grew up in Mississippi in the Church of God in Christ, a Pentecostal denomination that welcomed all-out music and praise. By age 6, she was performing alongside her mandolin-playing mother in a traveling evangelistic troupe. By the mid-1920s, she and her mother had joined the Great Migration to Chicago, where they continued performing.

“As Tharpe grew up, she began fusing Delta blues, New Orleans jazz and gospel music into what would become her signature style,” NPR wrote.

Her hard work paid off when she joined the Cotton Club Revue in New York City. She was only 23. Before the end of 1938, she recorded gospel songs for Decca, including “Rock Me,” which became a huge hit and made her an overnight sensation. Little Richard, Aretha Franklin and Jerry Lee Lewis have all cited her as an influence.

“Sister Rosetta played guitar like the men I was listening to, only smoother, with bigger notes,” said singer-songwriter Janis Ian. “And of course, personally, any female player was a big influence on me, because there were so few.”

After hearing her successors on the radio, Tharpe was quoted as saying, “Oh, these kids and rock and roll — this is just sped up rhythm and blues. I’ve been doing that forever.”

On the eve of a 1973 recording session, she died of a stroke and was buried in an unmarked grave. In the decades that followed, she finally began to receive the accolades that had eluded her in life.

In 2007, she was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, and money was raised for her headstone. Eleven years later, she was inducted into the Rock and Rock Hall of Fame.

“She was, and is,” NPR concluded, “an unmatched artist.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post On this day in 1945, Sister Rosetta Tharpe hit the R&B charts appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

The article is a historical and biographical piece about Sister Rosetta Tharpe, a pioneering musician who influenced the development of rock ‘n’ roll. The content is factual, focusing on her contributions to music and her impact on the genre. The language used does not present any ideological stance or promote a specific political view. It highlights the cultural and musical significance of Tharpe without delving into any political or controversial matters, making it neutral in tone. Therefore, the article can be classified as centrist in its presentation.

Mississippi Today

Ex-MS Coast police officer accused of assaulting 74-year-old female protester

Published

24 hours ago

April 29, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @BobbyHarrison9 – 2025-04-29 15:51:00

by Margaret Baker, Sun Herald, Mississippi Today
April 29, 2025

LONG BEACH — A retired Long Beach police officer arrested Thursday is accused of assaulting a woman holding a protest sign and threatening a second victim, Long Beach Police Chief Billy Seal confirmed Friday.

Police arrested Craig DeRouche, 64, for allegedly assaulting a woman during an encounter on U.S. 90 at Jeff Davis Avenue. He is charged with a second misdemeanor charge of assault by threat for allegedly threatening a man who reported that he saw the alleged attack and tried to intervene, Seal said.

A woman protesting on the Mississippi Coast was allegedly assaulted by a former police officer. Photo courtesy of the Sun Herald.

According to Seal, the protester, identified as a 74-year-old woman, was holding a protest sign supporting the right to due process under the U.S. Constitution for Americans before the assault occurred.

The woman, a Navy veteran, is now in stable condition in a local hospital.

READ THE FULL STORY at the Sun Herald.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Ex-MS Coast police officer accused of assaulting 74-year-old female protester appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

The article presents a factual account of an incident involving a retired police officer accused of assaulting a protester. The tone is neutral, focusing on the details of the event without engaging in overt political rhetoric or bias. The source, Mississippi Today, is known for providing straightforward news coverage, and there is no clear indication of political framing or partisanship in the language used. The article simply reports the incident and includes basic details about the people involved, including the protester’s age, condition, and the charges against the officer. No ideological perspectives are offered, which supports a centrist assessment.

Mississippi Today

Chris Lemonis had at least earned the right to finish season

Published

1 day ago

April 29, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @rick_cleveland – 2025-04-29 15:11:00

by Rick Cleveland, Mississippi Today
April 29, 2025

Chris Lemonis speaks to reporters during a press conference at the 2021 College World Series

On April 28, 2022, the Ole Miss baseball Rebels had won 23 games and lost 17 overall. They were 6-12 in the Southeastern Conference. The various Internet message boards were filled with posts calling for head baseball coach Mike Bianco’s dismissal. Yes, and two months later, Bianco and his Rebels won the College World Series.

Contrast that with this: On April 28 of this year, Mississippi State’s Diamond Dogs had a 25-19 record overall, 7-14 in the SEC. The various Internets boards were filled with posts calling for head coach Chris Lemonis to be fired. He was.

In both those situations, the Mississippi teams were six games over the .500 mark overall. In both those situations, the teams had lost twice as many SEC games as they had won. Ole Miss stayed the course, and it paid off, remarkably so. In sharp contrast, Mississippi State pulled the trigger, and we shall see what happens next.

Another big difference in the two situations: Bianco had never won a national championship in his previous 20 years at Ole Miss. Lemonis won the first national championship in State history just four years ago.

You ask me, that national championship, not even four years ago, should have earned Lemonis, at the very least, the right to finish out this season. I don’t see anything to be gained with firing the man with three weeks remaining in the regular season. Most NCAA Tournament projections have Mississippi State listed as one of the first four teams out. The Bulldogs are ranked 45th in RPI against the nation’s 13th most difficult schedule. They are on the NCAA Tournament bubble, just as Ole Miss was three seasons ago.

This is not to say I believe that Lemonis, given the opportunity, would have done what Bianco did three years ago, But it is certainly within the realm of possibility. We’ve seen it happen. In baseball, more than any other sport, teams run hot and cold. State could have gotten hot, gotten on a roll in May and June and at least made it to the College World Series. It happens for someone nearly every year in college baseball. For that matter, it could still happen for State this year with interim head coach Justin Parker calling the shots.

And I know what many of those calling for the dismissal of Lemonis will say. They’ll say that in firing Lemonis now, State can get a head start on hiring a new coach to turn the program around. Not so. Any coach that the Bulldogs would hire is still coaching a team and will be coaching a team through at least May.

Traditionally, Mississippi State baseball is one of the nation’s top programs. State baseball facilities are second to none. Fan support is among the nation’s best.

But it is not, as athletic director Zac Selmon put it “the premier program in college baseball.” It is much more accurate to say State’s is a really good program in the premier conference in college baseball.

LSU, Texas, and Arkansas, all teams in the same conference, have similar fan support, terrific facilities and have enjoyed much more on-the-field success. Tennessee has improved dramatically. Ole Miss, Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Texas A & M have made huge strides in facilities, fan support and baseball emphasis.

And here’s the deal: Tradition, facilities and fan support, while still important, all have become secondary issues when it comes to ingredients for success in college athletics. You know what really matters most? NIL and the ability to attract players in the transfer portal, that’s what. This is no longer amateur sports. It’s pay-for-play. It’s professional sports in every respect.

The first question recruits ask: What can you pay me? The first question any prospective coach will ask Mississippi State: How much money will I get to pay players? In Monday’s press release announcing the dismissal of Lemonis, Selmon was quoted as saying State’s baseball “NIL offerings” are second to none. There’s no way of knowing for sure, but I have heard otherwise from numerous sources.

I hate that we have reached this point in college athletics, but we most assuredly have. I also hate that Lemonis, a good man and a good coach, doesn’t get the chance to finish the season. I thought he had earned that.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Chris Lemonis had at least earned the right to finish season appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

The article presents an opinion focused on the dismissal of Mississippi State baseball coach Chris Lemonis, highlighting the contrast between the treatment of Lemonis and Ole Miss’ coach Mike Bianco. The writer criticizes the decision to fire Lemonis prematurely, arguing that his past success, including a national championship, warranted the opportunity to finish the season. The piece does not lean heavily toward any political or ideological position, instead focusing on the dynamics within college athletics and coaching decisions. While the critique of the decision might appeal to readers who value stability and tradition, it does not show a clear partisan or ideological bias.