Organizations in Jackson, Mississippi, are asking for help from other states as the water crisis dries up resources. It’s been over five months since the Pearl River crested and Jackson, Mississippi’s water system failed. Now, crews are working to replace the pipe system, but families and businesses are prepared to go without water periodically, for up to 10 years.
According to Fox News, Cities across the country are replacing fragile water pipe systems. Besides Jackson, there’s Flint, Michigan, Baltimore, Maryland, and Houston, Texas. The systems are replaced section-by-section after failure. But, these years-long projects can cause water main breaks.
Kenneth Wayne Jones serves as Hinds County Administrator, which includes Jackson. He said their water crisis was decades in the making and the situation will get worse before things become better.
“Every move you make to try to alleviate this problem causes pressure to go in another direction. And, when it gets to one direction, there are old pipes, or, the water main breaks. And, when the water mains start to break, it shifts pressure everywhere. It’s especially hard on our businesses,” Jones said.
The seven states that use water from the Colorado River are sitting on a time bomb. Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming have until the end of the month to come up with a plan for drastic water cuts on top of the cutbacks residents have already seen.
According to Fox 10. If they don’t make an agreement, an agreement will be made for them. The states have been given two chances to come up with their own plan. In the end, it may boil down to Arizona and California. The only thing they can agree on is that the other state should do more.
The shrinking river has continued to be a problem plaguing the Southwest, with a solution nowhere in sight. “I don’t I don’t expect that the states will hammer out an agreement. If they do, I’ll crack open the champagne,” said Sarah Porter, Director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at ASU.
Porter says California holds the cards over Arizona based on past legal agreements in an argument that seems to pit California farmers against Arizona’s subdivisions. “It’s a little bit of an urban versus agricultural discussion,” Porter explained. “By the same token agriculture uses most of the water [by] 75%.”
