Mississippi Today
‘Trainwreck on the horizon’: The costly pains of Mississippi’s small water and sewer systems
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.
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.
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“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.
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.”
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.
The University of Mississippi Medical Center has acquired Canton-based Merit Health Madison and is preparing to move a pediatric clinic to Madison, continuing a trend of moving services to Jackson’s suburbs.
The 67-bed hospital, now called UMMC Madison, will provide a wide range of community hospital services, including emergency services, medical-surgical care, intensive care, cardiology, neurology, general surgery and radiology services. It also will serve as a training site for medical students, and it plans to offer OB-GYN care in the future.
“As Mississippi’s only academic medical center, we must continue to be focused on our three-part mission to educate the next generation of health care providers, conduct impactful research and deliver accessible high-quality health care,” Dr. LouAnn Woodward, UMMC’s vice chancellor of health affairs, said in a statement. “Every decision we make is rooted in our mission.”
The new facility will help address space constraints at the medical center’s main campus in Jackson by freeing up hospital beds, imaging services and operating areas, said Dr. Alan Jones, associate vice chancellor for health affairs.
UMMC physicians have performed surgeries and other procedures at the hospital in Madison since 2019. UMMC became the full owner of the hospital May 1 after purchasing it from Franklin, Tennessee-based Community Health Systems.
The Batson Kids Clinic, which offers pediatric primary care, will move to the former Mississippi Center for Advanced Medicine location in Madison. This space will allow the medical center to offer pediatric primary care and specialty services and resolve space issues that prevent the clinic from adding new providers, according to Institutions of Higher Learning board minutes.
A UMMC spokesperson did not respond to questions about the services that will be offered at the clinic or when it will begin accepting patients.
The Mississippi Center for Advanced Medicine, a pediatric subspecialty clinic, closed last year as a result of a settlement in a seven-year legal battle between the clinic and UMMC in a federal trade secrets lawsuit.
The changes come after the opening of UMMC’s Colony Park South clinic in Ridgeland in February. The clinic offers a range of specialty outpatient services, including surgical services. Another Ridgeland UMMC clinic, Colony Park North, will open in 2026.
The expansion of UMMC clinical services to Madison County has been criticized by state lawmakers and Jackson city leaders. The medical center does not need state approval to open new educational facilities. Critics say UMMC has used this exemption to locate facilities in wealthier, whiter neighborhoods outside Jackson while reducing services in the city.
UMMC did not respond to a request for comment about its movement of services to Madison County.
UMMC began removing clinical services this year from Jackson Medical Mall, which is in a majority-Black neighborhood with a high poverty rate. The medical center plans to reduce its square footage at the mall by about 75% in the next year.
The movement of health care services from Jackson to the suburbs is a “very troubling trend” that will make it more difficult for Jackson residents to access care, Democratic state Sen. John Horhn, who will become Jackson’s mayor July 1, previously told Mississippi Today.
Lawmakers sought to rein in UMMC’s expansion outside Jackson this year by passing a bill that would require the medical center to receive state approval before opening new educational medical facilities in areas other than the vicinity of its main campus and Jackson Medical Mall. Republican Gov. Tate Reeves vetoed the legislation, saying he opposed an unrelated provision in the bill.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The post UMMC hospital madison county 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: Center-Left
The article presents a primarily factual report on UMMC’s expansion into Madison County, outlining the medical center’s services and strategic decisions while including critiques from Democratic leaders and local officials about the suburban shift. The inclusion of concerns over equity and access—highlighting that the expansion is occurring in wealthier, whiter suburbs at the expense of services in majority-Black, poorer neighborhoods—leans the piece toward a center-left perspective, emphasizing social justice and community impact. However, the article maintains a measured tone by presenting statements from UMMC representatives and government officials without overt editorializing, thus keeping the overall coverage grounded in balanced reporting with a slight progressive framing.
Nationally known comedian Rita Brent will host the Medgar & Myrlie Evers Institute’s “Medgar at 100” Concert on June 28.
Tickets go on sale Saturday, June 14, and can be ordered on the institute’s website.
The concert will take place at the Jackson Convention Complex and is the capstone event of the “Medgar at 100” Celebration. Organizers are calling the event “a cultural tribute and concert honoring the enduring legacy of Medgar Wiley Evers.”
“My father believed in the power of people coming together — not just in protest, but in joy and purpose, and my mother and father loved music,” said Reena Evers-Everette, executive director of the institute. “This evening is about honoring his legacy with soul, celebration, and a shared commitment to carry his work forward. Through music and unity, we are creating space for remembrance, resilience, and the rising voices of a new generation.”
In addition to Brent, other featured performers include: actress, comedian and singer Tisha Campbell; soul R&B powerhouse Leela James; and Grammy award-winning artist, actor, entrepreneur and philanthropist Q Parker and Friends.
Organizers said the concert is also “a call to action — a gathering rooted in remembrance, resistance, and renewal.”
Proceeds from the event will go to support the Medgar & Myrlie Evers Institute’s mission to “advance civic engagement, develop youth leadership, and continue the fight for justice in Mississippi and beyond.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The post Rita Brent, Q Parker headline 'Medgar at 100' Concert 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
This article presents a straightforward, factual report on the upcoming “Medgar at 100” concert honoring civil rights leader Medgar Wiley Evers. The tone is respectful and celebratory, focusing on the event’s cultural and community significance without expressing a political stance or ideological bias. It quotes organizers and highlights performers while emphasizing themes of remembrance, unity, and justice. The coverage remains neutral by reporting the event details and mission of the Medgar & Myrlie Evers Institute without editorializing or promoting a specific political viewpoint. Overall, it maintains balanced and informative reporting.
Residents at Chapel Ridge Apartments in Jackson are left wondering what to do next after months dealing with trash pileups, property theft and the possibility of water shutoffs due to the property owner skipping out on the bill.
On Sunday, Ward 5 Councilman Vernon Hartley, city attorney Drew Martin and code enforcement officers discussed next steps for the complex, which, since April 30, has been without a property manager.
“How are you all cracking down on other possible fraudulent property managers around Jackson?” one woman asked Martin.
“ We don’t know they’re there until we know they’re there, and I know that’s a terrible answer, but I don’t personally have another one I’m aware of right now,” Martin said. “These individuals don’t seem to have owned another apartment complex in the Metro Jackson area, despite owning a whole bunch nationwide.”
Back in April, a letter was left on the door of the leasing office advising residents to not make rental payments until a new property manager arrives. The previous property managers are Lynd Management Group, a company based in San Antonio, Texas.
The complex has been under increased scrutiny after Chapel Ridge Apartments lost its solid waste contract mid-March due to months of nonpayment. The removal of dumpsters led to a portion of the parking lot turning into a dumping site, an influx of rodents and gnats, and an investigation by the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality. Local leaders pitched in to help remedy the situation, and in May, Waste Management provided two dumpsters for the complex.
However, the problems persisted. In May, JXN Water released the names of 15 apartment complexes that owe more than $100,000 in unpaid water fees. Chapel Ridge was on the list. JXN Water spokesperson Aisha Carson said via email that they are “pursuing legal options to address these large-scale delinquencies across several properties.”
“While no shutoffs are imminent at this time, we are evaluating each case based on legal feasibility and the need to balance enforcement with tenant protections. Our focus is on transparency and accountability, not disruption—but we will act when needed to ensure the integrity of the system,” Carson said.
And earlier this week, Chapel Ridge Apartments was declared a public nuisance. Martin said this gives the city of Jackson “the authority to come in, mow the grass and board up any of the units where people aren’t living.”
Martin said the situation is complicated, because the complex is owned by Chapel Ridge Apartments LLC. The limited liability corporation is owned by CRBM Realty Inc. and Crown Capital Holdings LLC, which are ultimately owned by Moshe “Mark” Silber. In April, Silber was sentenced to 30 months in prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud affecting a financial institution. Earlier this month, both companies filed for bankruptcy in New Jersey.
Now, Martin said the main goal is to find someone who can manage the property.
“Somebody’s got to be able to collect rent from you,” Martin said. “They got to be able to pay the water. They got to be able to pay the garbage. They got to be able to pay for the lights to be on. They got to maintain the property, so that’s our goal is to put that in place.”
Chapel Ridge offers a rent scale based on household income. Those earning under 50% of the area median income — between $21,800 and $36,150 depending on household size — for example, pay $480 for a two-bedroom and $539 for a three-bedroom unit. Rent increases between $20 and $40 for those earning under 60% of the area median income.
Valarie Banks said that when she moved into Chapel Ridge nearly 13 years ago, it was a great community. The disabled mother and grandmother moved from West Jackson to the complex because it was neatly kept and quiet.
“It was beautiful. I saw a lot of kids out playing. There were people that were engaging you when you came out. They were eager to help,” Banks said. “ I hope that they could bring this place back to the way it once was.”
But after months of uncertainty, Banks is preparing to move. She said she’s not the only one.
“I have somewhere to go, but I’m just trying to get my money together so I can be able to handle the deposits and the bills that come after you move,” she said. “All of my doctors are around here close to me. In 12 years, I made this place home for me. … I’ve been stacking my rent, but it’s still not enough if I want to move this month.”
While she said she’s holding onto her rent payments for the time being, she realizes that many of her fellow residents may not be as lucky. Without someone to maintain the apartments, some residents are finding themselves without basic amenities.
“Some people are in dire straits, because they don’t have a stove or a fridge or the air conditioner,” she said. “Their stove went out, or the fridge went out, or they stole the air conditioner while you’re in the apartment.”
Banks isn’t the only one who is formulating a plan to leave. One woman, who asked to remain anonymous, said she’s been trying to save money to move, but she already has $354 wrapped up in a money order that she’s unable to pass off for her rent, due to the property manager’s recent departure.
“It really feels like an abandonment and just stressful to live where I’m living at right now. This just doesn’t happen. It just feels stressful. It doesn’t feel good at all,” she said.
She’s trying to remain optimistic, but as each day passes without someone to maintain the property, she’s losing hope.
“ I just hope that things get better some day, somehow, hopefully, because if not, more than likely I’m going to have to leave because I can only take so much,” she said. “I can’t continue to deal with this situation of hoping and wishing somebody comes, and they don’t.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The post Future uncertain for residents of abandoned south Jackson apartment complex 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: Center-Left
This article from *Mississippi Today* primarily focuses on the struggles of low-income residents at Chapel Ridge Apartments, emphasizing the human impact of property mismanagement, regulatory gaps, and systemic neglect. The piece maintains a factual tone, but it centers the voices of vulnerable tenants and local officials seeking accountability—hallmarks of a center-left perspective. While it does not overtly advocate for policy change, the narrative framing highlights social injustice and institutional failures, subtly aligning with progressive concerns about housing equity and corporate responsibility.
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