Jackson, Mississippi water crisis: FEMA director says it's still too early to tell when residents will have clean drinking water

Jackson, Mississippi water crisis: FEMA director says it’s still too early to tell when residents will have clean drinking water

While significant progress has been made in restoring water pressure after a major failure at a water treatment plant last week, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency said Sunday that it is still too soon to say when all Jackson residents will have safe, running drinking water.

“The focus right now is making sure we can get bottled water out,” FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell told CNN’s Dana Bash.

City officials announced Sunday that most Jackson residents are experiencing normal water pressure after substantial strides were made at the O.B. Curtis Water Treatment Plant, increasing tank levels.

“All tanks saw increased storage levels overnight. Multiple tanks are approaching full. We no longer have any tanks at low levels. All of Jackson should now have pressure and most are now experiencing normal pressure,” the city said in a news release.

The city warned “additional challenges” as repairs are made may impact the improved water pressure.

Jackson residents are still under a boil-water advisory, the city said. In order to lift the advisory, officials must get two rounds of clear samples from the water, a process the city hopes to begin midweek.

Jackson, home to about 150,000 residents, had been under a boil-water advisory since July 30 due to a high “level of manganese combined with the use of lime” at the O.B. Curtis plant in nearby Ridgeland, the city said.

The main pumps at the water treatment plant were severely damaged around late July, forcing the facility to operate on smaller backup pumps, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said last week. The governor did not elaborate on the damage.

Then heavy rain and flooding in late August caused a chemical imbalance at the O.B. Curtis plant — the main water plant servicing Jackson. The water treatment facility began failing Monday, Reeves said.

The FEMA director visited the site Friday and said it’s not certain when the water plant will be fully operational again.

Jim Craig of the Mississippi State Department of Health, left, leads FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, center; Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, right; and Gov. Tate Reeves, rear, as they walk past basins at the O.B. Curtis Water Treatment Facility in Ridgeland on Friday.

“There has been a lot of infrastructure damage that has been present for many years,” Criswell told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.

But “I think that having EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers, we had a really good conversation on Friday about what it’s going to take and the assessments they’re doing,” Criswell said. “It’s going to happen in phases.”

City officials said the water plant made “significant gains” in terms of water pressure late Friday night into Saturday, increasing plant output to 86 pounds per square inch (PSI) — close to their goal of 87 PSI.

On Sunday, water pressure levels exceeded their goal, reaching 90 PSI, the city said.

But even when Jackson’s boil water advisory is lifted, the water treatment infrastructure will still be in a fragile state, Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday.

“As I have always warned, even when the pressure is restored, even when we’re not under a boil water notice, it’s not a matter of if these systems will fail, but when these systems will fail,” Lumumba said.

“There are many points of failure. We’re talking about a set of accumulated challenges that have taken place over the better part of 30 years.”

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The mayor told ABC he expects a long road ahead to achieve a “safe, drinkable, reliable, sustainable and equitable” water treatment facility.

“I’ve been lifting up this circumstance amongst many individuals that are in leadership and have influence over a solution,” Lumumba said. “I don’t want to put it squarely in one person’s lap, but I think there’s a well-defined record of me lifting that up.”

CNN’s Tina Burnside contributed to this report.

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