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United States

Mississippi Crisis Highlights Climate Threat To Drinking Water Nationwide (nytimes.com) 91

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Flash floods, wildfires and hurricanes are easy to recognize as ravages of a fast-changing climate. But now, climate change has also emerged as a growing threat to clean, safe drinking water across the country. The New York Times: The deluge that knocked out a fraying water plant in Jackson, Miss., this week, depriving more than 150,000 people of drinking water, offered the latest example of how quickly America's aging treatment plants and decades-old pipes can crumple under the shocks of a warming world. "There's a crisis at hand," said Mikhail V. Chester, a professor of civil, environmental and sustainable engineering at Arizona State University. "The climate is simply changing too fast, relative to how quickly we could change our infrastructure." Earlier this summer, more than 25,000 people lost their water, some for weeks, after deadly floods ripped through eastern Kentucky, breaking water lines as they obliterated entire neighborhoods.

Utility companies across Texas spent the summer coping with hundreds of water-main breaks as record heat baked and shifted the drought-stricken soil surrounding pipes. This came after a bitter winter storm that plunged Texas into freezing darkness in February 2021 and caused thousands of pipes to burst. And from the Gulf Coast to the East Coast, supercharged hurricanes like Harvey and Ida now regularly debilitate water suppliers, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to boil their water or scramble for bottles days or weeks after the storms pass. This is on top of the slower-moving threats such as rising sea levels that can contaminate water supplies with saltwater, or a Western "mega-drought" that is withering reservoirs and parching the Colorado River that supplies water to some 40 million people.
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Mississippi Crisis Highlights Climate Threat To Drinking Water Nationwide More

Mississippi Crisis Highlights Climate Threat To Drinking Water Nationwide

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  • Climate change as a red herring (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SchroedingersCat ( 583063 ) on Friday September 02, 2022 @02:36PM (#62847315)
    Aging treatment plants and decades-old pipes crumbling under stress is a maintenance problem, not a climate change problem.

    https://www.pbs.org/newshour/n... [pbs.org]

    Jackson has longstanding problems with its water system. A cold snap in 2021 left a significant number of people without running water after pipes froze. Similar problems happened again early this year, on a smaller scale. Even before the flooding Monday caused low-water pressure problems, city residents since July were already being advised to boil the water coming out of their pipes before using it to wash dishes or to do other household chores.

    • And a world with changing climate stabilizes the infrastructure in future years?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Arethan ( 223197 )

        No, but it is a bit irritating when reporters sensationalize events and selectively include facts to champion activism causes, regardless of the cause.

    • The straw that broke the camel's back? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Spazmania ( 174582 ) on Friday September 02, 2022 @02:44PM (#62847353) Homepage

      Did the straw break the camel's back? No. All the other weight added before that last fraction of an ounce is what broke the camel's back.

      Jackson's water system has been collapsing from neglect for decades. The floods did it no favors but they played at worst a small role in the system's collapse.

      • Re:The straw that broke the camel's back? (Score:4)

        by MeNeXT ( 200840 ) on Friday September 02, 2022 @02:56PM (#62847397)

        This is exactly what happens. We neglect the essentials, spend on the frills and when something goes wrong we blame something else and hold our hand out.

        • We didn't spend on frills (Score:4, Informative)

          by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday September 02, 2022 @03:55PM (#62847557)
          We didn't spend on anything. We did massive tax breaks for the top 20,000 families in America and really tiny tax breaks for everybody else until the government was starved for money and couldn't maintain basic services.

          That was actually the point. Right wing extremists literally call it starving the beast. The goal is to undermine the capacity of the government to function so you can seize control of it. The other phrase they use is small enough to drown in a bathtub.

          This is what happens when you let extremism fester for decades because you're picking political candidates based on who has the most name recognition and the best TV ads and treating politics like its reality TV instead of a civic duty

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Var1abl3 ( 1021413 )

            This is a local issue not a Federal issue. Federal tax breaks had zero impact on Jackson Mississippi's water supply. Apples and oranges.

          • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

            by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 )

            Federal taxes have no role in maintaining local water systems. This is squarely on the shoulders of the city's own leaders, not Congress.

            • Federal funds make up short calls and poor states and have for always. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that as long as you remember that you're an American and they're an American and we're all fucking Americans and Americans take care of Americans.

              • When Flint's mismanagement led to widespread lead poisoning, the state took over, not the Feds. The state literally took over the operation of the city government because they had made such a mess. This is very similar to the situation in Jackson. The state probably should bail out Jackson, and boot out the city leaders as they do so.

                Sure, I disagree with the tax cuts passed under Trump, but I disagree with them because they weren't accompanied by reductions in spending. Regardless, there is no direct line

          • Somehow I doubt the federal funding for water systems maintenance that Jackson got over a decade ago and spent less than a 10th of on water maintenance was impacted in any way by tax cuts.

      • The flooding had zero impact on the water plant. The mayor is lying through his teeth (again)

    • Re:Climate change as a red herring (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Train0987 ( 1059246 ) on Friday September 02, 2022 @03:01PM (#62847415)

      This is 100% gaslighting. The plant was high and dry during the "flooding", not one bit of damage. Local reporters flew a drone over it for proof. The city has been controlled by inept D politicians for over a generation and every time state or federal funds have been earmarked to modernize their water infrastructure they spent the money on something else (or rather, whatever money was leftover that they didn't pocket themselves). They've always known that when the water system became a giant crisis they would get a bailout by crying 'racism' whereas none of the other things they spent the money on instead would get funding. So that's what they did.

      • The problem is rural voters have been cutting taxes and funding for decades and it doesn't matter how good bad or indifferent you are you can't magically budget your way out of not having enough money.

        I got a buddy of mine who's not the best with numbers and math and I never could get him to understand this concept. Blue collar buddy who didn't make a lot of money because we screwed over blue collar workers when we shifted their jobs to China and Mexico when the unions broke. As his pay went down he wor

        • Jackson MS is not rural. I didn't read past that.

          • I said rural voters. The people in the cities knew better. Rural voters have somehow been convinced that their interests don't align the interests of Americans in cities. To be fair billions of dollars were spent on propaganda to convince them of that lie. They were targeted because our voting system gives them more power than they've earned. This was on purpose because when I voting system was created wealthy rural landowners were the ruling class and they wanted to be able to protect their interests.

            • Rural voters have somehow been convinced that their interests don't align the interests of Americans in cities.

              Probably because city slickers are constantly voting against the interests of rural voters.

              • As would the billions and billions of dollars city folk have funneled into rural communities for education, clean water, recovering from natural disasters and all sorts of other things to bring civilization to rural voters.

                And no we don't do that because we need rural voters to grow food. Slaves worked just fine for that for a very long time. We could just use prison labor. We did it because rural voters are Americans too and nobody gets left behind. Or at least that's what we tried and what the rural v

                • And no we don't do that because we need rural voters to grow food. Slaves worked just fine for that for a very long time. We could just use prison labor.

                  It's this kind of shit. All you city slickers talking as though you're superior. And then wonder why people don't want to vote for you.

                  • Because you watch too much Fox News or wherever you're getting your fix of right-wing propaganda and they're tricking you.

                    Neither City or rural voters are superior. We're the same. But you've been convinced where somehow different. Rural voters have less money because we don't pay them very well to do the things they do. Our society gives shitloads of money to bankers and a tiny bit of money to Farmers. We pick winners and losers based on who can claim ownership instead of who actually does the work.

                    • Neither City or rural voters are superior. We're the same

                      Then why do you look down on rural voters? I've seen you do it over and over. Not just in this thread, all over the place.

                      Because you watch too much Fox News

                      I don't watch Fox News, I've been reading your posts. The smug sense of superiority oozes out of them.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gtall ( 79522 )

        "The plant was high and dry during the "flooding", not one bit of damage. " and yet "They've always known that when the water system became a giant crisis"

        So which is it? Is the plant operational or basket case. Make up your mind before spouting off.

        • The entire system was failing long before last week's flood, they were already under a boil notice. Jackson went through the same thing and made national news just a couple years ago. Where did the money go?

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward
          I live there. Yes, my water is affected. No, it's not the end of the world; we've been under a boil-water notice for a few months now, and the pressure shortage is actually not as bad as it was during the big freeze last year. I drink it anyway, and haven't had issues.

          The water treatment plant was not affected at all by the flooding; it has been minor and relegated to areas that everyone knew were prone to flooding. The plant is not fully operational because it is poorly maintained and badly understaffed;

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ichijo ( 607641 )

      That's true, while aging infrastructure is not caused by climate change (correlation is not causation), they both have a common cause: too much infrastructure per capita, a.k.a. urban sprawl. We've spread ourselves too thin, expecting the next generation to pay for it like some kind of Ponzi scheme [strongtowns.org].

      In a sane world, cities wouldn't be so terrified of a little traffic congestion but rather embrace it as a sign of success, just as any restaurant owner would be pleased to see a line out the door. (Not that dens [streetsblog.org]

      • Or, you know, they could stop service when people refuse to pay their bills and fix the leaks.

        • The problem is that the water grid operator wants the customer to pay for the leaks.
          Happened to a friend of mine. Got new water pipe brought into his house, new meter outside to read for the water company.
          Suddenly got absurd bills, in the $1000 range per month. The mongrels in the company told him: "that is normal", your previous bills are all wrong, expect to pay up for them.
          So he got some independent consultants analysing the problem. Bad luck for the water company: he had his old meter still in the basem

  • Republicans hate and ruin government (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Mississippi is a shithole because it is run by republicans.

    They can't even keep the water running in a medium sized city because they are too busy trying to explain why the Bible justifies their racism.

    Mississippi sucks today, Mississippi sucks tomorrow! Mississippi sucks forever!

    Also Trump is going to prison soon, so expect these thirsty retards to get even dumber.

  • Word on the street is they were running with backup pumps for months because their main pumps were out.

    Backups break, and lo and behold, an emergency is declared and a new pump is brought in for replacement in a matter of days/weeks.

    Kinda like a lot of excellent roof repair happens after some rain, not after a stretch of clear skies.

  • In order to spend money on serious upgrades the owner has to agree a bond issue and raise the cost of the product for consumers. Both of these will cause kick back and so don't happen; instead the necessary repairs don't happen.

    The privitised utility model does help separate the responsibility.

    • Right, because privatized, for-profit, utilities are what's best for society at large, which is why American have both spottier and more expensive Internet than most of the rest of the developed countries. All hail capitalism; privatize the profit and socialize the losses!

  • I got a headache just reading those two paragraphs; you want me to read the whole article? I'm not clicking that link.

    Look, it's simple: maintenance was not done, and the inevitable happened. This has been a national problem for as long as the boomers have held the purse strings of our financial and political institutions - at least since the 90s. They're more than happy to spend the country into bankruptcy if it gets them one more face lift before having to slip into the grave.

  • I guess Michael Burry investing in water doesn't seem like such a crazy idea after all.

  • 1969 (Score:3)

    by laughingskeptic ( 1004414 ) on Friday September 02, 2022 @04:20PM (#62847613)
    Desegregation was ordered in 1969. The exploiters were never going to send their kids to the same school as the exploitees, so they left. The U.S.'s economic system for cities assumes perpetual growth. The moment a city doesn't grow, pensions and debt consume a destabilizing fraction of the budget and decline follows. Jackson has been in decline since 1970. A devastating flood that begets federal funds would be the best thing to happen to them except that you can bet the funds will not go to Jackson businesses but rather they will go to politically connected businesses in the surrounding towns established by the fleeing exploiters.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by DudeBlokeLadFellow ( 6206386 )

      Only a tone-deaf idiot would send innocent children to a public school in Jackson. They'd come home with concussions and stab wounds, if not in a body-bag. White flight exists because of black violence.

  • No such thing as climate change. Hmm.

  • Now take into account that these are just the first small, benign (relatively speaking) effects...

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by DudeBlokeLadFellow ( 6206386 )

      This not the problem you think it is.
      Civilization can only be maintained when the populace has a high enough IQ to be trustworthy and competent. Jackson doesn't have that anymore. It's a case of demographic change from civilization makers to civilization despoilers. Like Detroit.

  • No kidding! (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Crowded ( 6202674 ) on Friday September 02, 2022 @10:44PM (#62848381)

    REALLY? Clean/safe water and air are endangered you say?

    Honestly, our 'emergency plan' for gulf coast state residents that get displaced could be "bus them to state X, put up temporary to permanent housing, figure the rest out while people DON'T DIE" and it would be better than everything we've been doing.

    Unlike the rest of the NIMBYs in my neighborhood, I'd loan out the back 1/2 (.2acre) of my lot to set up temporary 2-family shelter/sanitation and rotate people through . . . yeah, I'm one of those "do unto others" kooks.

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