The City of Jackson's Water Crisis

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The governor of Mississippi is now declaring a state of emergency after days of heavy rainfall in the central part of the state. The Jackson area saw a lot of flooding, and with that flooding came a lot of extra chemicals in the water into Jackson's water plant. That meant they had to also raise the amount of treatment processes they were doing on those contaminated waters. When that happened, we saw water pressure across the city drop as the storage tanks that are used began to drain.

What’s happening in Jackson is hardly unique: Cities and states across the US are setting themselves up for failure by postponing expensive but critical work on aging water infrastructure. Climate change is making things worse, faster.

This episode was produced by Jillian Weinberger and Amanda Lewellyn with help from Victoria Chamberlin and Victoria Dominguez, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Serena Solin, engineered by Paul Robert Mounsey, and hosted by Noel King.

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