“The focus right now is making sure we can get the bottled water out,” FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell told CNN’s Dana Bash. “Right now, we are providing temporary measures to increase the water pressure so that people can at least flush their toilets and use the taps.” Jackson, home to about 150,000 residents, had already been under a boil water notice since July 30 due to high “manganese levels combined with lime use” at the OB Curtis water treatment plant in nearby Ridgeland, in the city of Jackson. The main pumps at the water treatment plant were severely damaged around the end of July, forcing the facility to operate with smaller backup pumps, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said last week. The governor did not provide details on the damage. Then heavy rain and flooding in late August caused a chemical imbalance at the OB Curtis plant — the main water plant serving Jackson. The water treatment plant began failing Monday, Reeves said. FEMA’s director visited the site Friday and said it is uncertain when the water plant will be fully operational again. “There’s been a lot of damage to infrastructure that’s been there for many years,” Criswell told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. But “I think having the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers, we had a really good discussion on Friday about what it’s going to take and the assessments that they’re doing,” Criswell said. “It will be done in phases.” City officials said the water plant made “significant gains” in water pressure late Friday night into Saturday, raising the plant’s output to 86 pounds per square inch (PSI) — close to their target of 87 PSI. But even after Jackson’s boil water advisory is lifted, water treatment infrastructure will still be in a fragile state, Chokwe Mayor Adare Lumumba told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “As I’ve always warned, even when pressure is restored, even when we don’t have a boil alert, it’s not a question of if these systems will fail, but when these systems will fail,” Lumumba said. “There are multiple points of failure. We’re talking about a set of cumulative challenges that have taken place over the better part of 30 years.” The mayor told the ABC he expects a long road ahead to achieve a “safe, drinkable, reliable, sustainable and fair” water treatment facility. “I have raised this occasion among many people who are in leadership and have influence on a solution,” Lumumba said. “I don’t want to put it on one person’s lap, but I think there’s a well-established record that I ran it.”
