This is part two of a two-part interview with Jackson Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba and Interim Third Party Manager Ted Henifin. Read the interview with Chokwe A. Lumumba here.
Ted Henifin has now led the Jackson water system for almost two years, coming on as an advisor during the systemwide collapse of late 2022. Since then, his administration has faced the challenges of a broken metering and billing system, a lack of qualified operators, maintenance technicians and field crews, degraded water treatment plants and distribution pipes, the threat of severe weather, and the attempted intervention of the State of Mississippi.
But over the course of Henifin’s time as interim third-party manager, a new challenge has emerged: a sharp and public break with the City of Jackson and especially Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba. For a time, the two spoke at joint press events, campaigning for public trust in the water system and for the successful federal intercession that brought over half a billion dollars to Jackson.
Now, the relationship between city leadership and JXN Water has collapsed. At status conferences, Lumumba and other city representatives have questioned the leadership of JXN Water and argued that the federal team is failing in its responsibilities to repair Jackson’s water system and to properly communicate with its residents. For JXN Water’s part, the organization has repeatedly challenged city officials’ statements, asserting that they have misrepresented the safety of the water quality and undermined the ultimate goal of restoring public trust in Jackson’s drinking water.
The relationship reached a nadir this year when Lumumba sent a letter directly to the Environmental Protection Agency, which oversees drinking water and has shared in a direct oversight role in Jackson since 2020, with a list of what it said were JXN Water’s missteps and failures as a water utility: an uncompetitive procurement process for key operations and maintenance projects, lack of progress on priority projects, poor communication with the city and the public, uncertain financial planning and improper support for the Legislature against the city.
After discussing the letter with Mayor Lumumba, the Mississippi Free Press took his responses to Ted Henifin to discuss the complaints and the ongoing progress JXN Water has made in mending both the system and the public trust in its water.
The following interview has been edited and condensed for context and clarity.
Nick Judin: The mayor suggests that JXN Water awarded a major contract to Jacobs Engineering without any procurement process at all. Is that the case?
Ted Henifin: I’d first point back to the exact language in the stipulated order. Under my responsibilities, paragraph M—
You don’t have to follow Mississippi’s procurement process.
Exactly. And it says I’ll make best efforts that the procurement process be competitive, transparent and efficient. So, let’s start with the Jacobs contract because that seems to be what the mayor is focused on. We took over the water treatment plant operations back in late November (of 2022). Essentially, there was no city staff left.
There were just a few operators. There were no maintenance folks. We engaged Jacobs initially just for bodies to help us out through December and January with the goal of entering into a contract with them as soon as we were able to.
Through the discussions with Jacobs, and the lack of city records on what the cost to operate the plant was, no one knew what a fair bid would be. We had nothing to compare it to. We could look at the city’s budget, but we knew they were woefully underfunding pretty much every part of the operation. That’s where we were.
So the discussion with Jacobs was, let’s go into an open book, complete, reimbursable contract until we could understand what it really cost to operate (the plants).
That’s what we’re under today. We expected it to be a little bit shorter than it has (been). They are billing us monthly for their actual costs. We get a very comprehensive invoice on a monthly basis that outlines every person charged to the contract, and It varies from month to month, depending on what work is done.
The idea was that we’d get a knowledge base—both Jacobs and JXN Water—of what the costs really are to operate the plants, the well system, and the 12 or so elevated tanks. That’s their responsibility. Everything else is still JXN Water’s.
But because they’re the only ones with this knowledge, now no one else, effectively, can bid on this contract. It would be bidding blindfolded, and they’d have to build a lot of risk in. They don’t know the cost. They don’t know what they’re getting into.
As a result, the most cost-effective solution for us right now is to enter a long-term contract. Now that we know what the cost to operate is, we figure out how to share that risk with Jacobs. … We’ve seen costs go from anywhere around $1.7 to $3.5 million a month. This will flatten that out (and) make it a lot easier to budget and understand what we’re going to be paying going forward. There isn’t really anyone else we could potentially contract with to do this work.
Now, I think you may recall a local contractor, Socrates Garrett, at a meeting held by one of the community groups, who came out and said that we should contract with him and he would contract with Jacobs. The value-add from him would be… I’m not sure, other than a pass-through to Jacobs.
A key point for the mayor, when he brings up Jacobs and other matters of contracting and procurement, is that there should be—quoting here—“intentionality to engage with local firms” on these projects. Ultimately, he says we have to “turn our crumbling infrastructure into an economic frontier.”
We have to turn our crumbling infrastructure into fully functional, sustainable, working infrastructure.
If we can stimulate the economy along the way, great. And we are working hard on the local economy, but in the case of operating contracts, like Jacobs, there is no local vendor. In fact, there’s no one even in the Southeast that is competitive.
There’s only two national firms, and you can start looking hard, Nick, but Veolia and Jacobs are about the only two fully functional maintenance and operation firms. There is one smaller firm in the Southeast: Inframark. We spoke with them at length before we brought in Jacobs and they were not interested in working with Jackson.
So you did actually seek out other firms that could potentially be engaged in this process?
That was back in October of 2022.
Before you were even the (interim third-party manager), when you were just an advisor in this process.
Right. I was calling everybody in the United States trying to find folks. The federal disaster declaration was winding down, the resources we were getting ended with the disaster declaration.
Going into November, we had nobody. So we were advertising a contract from the city to try to get an operator under emergency procurement. We couldn’t get anybody to bid on that project. I had extensive conversations with pretty much anybody in the industry about working for Jackson.
I circled back to Jacobs and said, “Hey, we’ve got to have some bodies down here.” And they were the only firm that said that “we can send you maintenance folks, and you can pay for them by the hour.”
And on that particular contract, guess who Jacobs is hiring? They’re hiring local contractors as subs. They’re hiring local Jacksonians as Jacobs employees. They’ve been working hard to get Jacksonians on their payroll.
This is another thing I’ve been trying to understand. There are engineering firms in the area, and as we discuss who should handle these (operations and management) contracts, I’d like to know what the firms are that could bid on these projects. I asked Mayor Lumumba, and he declined to answer, in his words to avoid showing favoritism. What’s your response to that?
(Laughter) It’s because they don’t exist. It’s just not a factual statement. But anyway, we are using so many local firms, not only working as subcontractors to Jacobs, but on the distribution system we’re using several local contractors. Not all are from Jackson because, again, there’s not a plethora of piping contractors in Jackson.
But where we can, we’ve been using Jacksonian contractors and we use others from the region, from surrounding communities. And you can’t say that to the administration. “We’ve got someone out of Rankin County doing a lot of work for us. Oh, no!”
But they employ local folks who live in the metropolitan area. They’re tax-paying, hardworking people, and they’re putting a lot of great work into the system to make it work. So you know, we have piping contracts, we have paving contractors: small minority-owned paving firms have done millions of dollars worth of paving work.
The next thing that the mayor brought up in his letter was a lack of progress on priority projects. “81 boil water notices, 250 million gallons of raw sewage and delays to the O.B. Curtis corrosion control system,” delays which, given the federal funds JXN Water has received, “is a disservice to the residents of Jackson.”
So, has JXN Water made sufficient progress with its goals?
I say absolutely we have, and I think that was reinforced with EPA’s response. The specific wording of his letter mentioned a lack of progress on priority projects “within designated time frames.”
Right, and that’s the follow-up: He says that JXN Water did not provide documentation of the extensions on these projects.
Again, the schedule is up to the third-party manager and is based on funding availability.
So far we’ve completed the winterization of the system. We’ve proven that as the plants made it through the deep freeze this year without any problems.
We’ve completed the corrosion control at Fewell and we’re underway with the corrosion control of O.B. Curtis. We’ve got an (operations and management) contract in place. Priority Project Four was changed from an alternative water-source plan to an emergency water-source plan.
On the distribution system, we’ve completed the (geographic information systems), we’ve got the valve and hydrant work going currently. We’ve replaced hundreds of valves. We’ve got the asset management system under design.
You told me earlier this year that Jackson has reduced its water demand from 55 million gallons a day to 38 million—meaning an over 25% reduction in water loss.
We’re working on water loss. We’ve got the hydraulic model working. We’re working on the lead service line inventory that has to be completed by October of this year, and we’re going to make that date without any problem. We’ve replaced the two lead lines we found.
Only two lead lines found thus far?
Yes, so far.
We have not worked on the system stabilization and sustainability plan. That’s become more of a master plan. We need the information we’re doing from our distribution work to feed that.
On (supervisory control and data acquisition) system improvements, that project is under design and we just sent the scope to the state for (state revolving loan) funding. That and the chlorine system improvements at Curtis are together in a package; that will be the first SRF project going.
On intake structure repairs, we haven’t been able to do that because we really hadn’t had the plant stable enough to shut it down for any period of time, but we’re trying to figure that step out. (Same with) the sludge assessment and finished water storage facilities.
Oh, and the resilient power plan: We’ve got the technical memo on that and we’re moving forward with the design for the ultimate solution there.
OK. But aside from that, what has JXN Water done?
(Laughter) Oh, we’re just sitting around.
Of the 13 projects, we haven’t done a lot on the intake structure yet, but otherwise we’ve pretty well got everything moving hard and fast less than two years after the order started.
This complaint about progress, I think, bookends with the complaint about communication. The mayor says that there has not been sufficient communication between JXN Water and the City of Jackson. The response to that from JXN Water’s end is, obviously, that there is a regular meeting with (Chief Administrative Officer Louis Wright).
But the mayor stated that Wright is invited to a standing meeting with numerous others and that the intention was for there to be a standing meeting, specifically, between leadership—in this case Wright and you. Where did the communication breakdown occur?
I live by the order. The order is something that I wasn’t a party to. The city negotiated it with the State, the EPA, MSDH and the Department of Justice.
On communication, the exact language is: regularly consult with the (acting leadership) on all aspects of complying with the stipulated order, and advise, consult and collaborate with (Jackson), the EPA, and MDEQ on matters that may in the judgment of the ITPM materially impact the sewer system. That’s it.
CAO Louis Wright is the acting public works director. Terry Williamson, the city attorney that does public works, has always been coming to the meeting and that’s not even required.
We meet (almost) every Tuesday morning.
But those meetings involve multiple people from multiple organizations.
No. It’s just Williamson, Louis and me sitting down. If the mayor wanted to come to that… I wouldn’t invite him, but… I don’t know what I would do. I’m not required to meet with the mayor.
It has been a challenge. I started out meeting with the mayor regularly, and that became a… challenge. And so I went back to exactly what’s in the order.
What became challenging about the regular meetings with the mayor?
From my perspective, he would take the information I provided, twist it, turn it, and get it wrong in the public. His desire to repeat that information at his regular press conferences and other public meetings just complicated things. Because he wouldn’t always get it straight.
Can you provide some specific instances that convinced you of this? Obviously, the disagreement over the health of pregnant women was a major issue.
I don’t want to go there. It was information provided to keep him updated and he took it and used it without taking adequate notes relaying it accurately. It became a telephone game.
The order is clear. This is largely technical. My communication with the City is with the director of public works.
The word mayor is not in here, except where I have to collaborate with him on presenting a new (water rate), which I did. That’s the last time, I think, we’ve met in person. I did it exactly the way the order said I was supposed to do it.
The mayor also suggests that JXN Water is not communicating appropriately with the public, saying that citizens don’t have a place to go in person, and that they’re unsatisfied with the call center.
But even beyond that, he also questioned if JXN Water’s monitoring and reporting of boil water notices is actually accurate. I brought up the new sensor system—that we should actually have even better visibility of pressure problems throughout the system than ever before, and he questioned that—saying that he hasn’t seen any documentation that there’s actually pressure monitors.
(Laughter) Nick, I dunno what to say.
We are required to do an intensive quarterly report and public meeting. We’re not getting flooded with mobs of folks coming in and saying they’re upset with anything. Frankly, it’s pretty calm and cool at the moment. And we’re largely getting kudos from folks—unsolicited.
If there was a problem, I think we would know about it. Every test we run that goes to the health department gets posted on our website. You can see every little test that’s been run!
I don’t think we could be any more transparent than we are.
On to the subject of debt: JXN Water’s plan is still to use a significant portion of the federal funds to retire the City’s debt. The mayor agrees that there are benefits to this but says that JXN Water’s intentions in retiring the debt “aren’t entirely pure, (because) the State doesn’t want to take over a water system that retains debt.”
I want to be clear, I’m not connecting the dots on the mayor’s behalf here, I’m quoting directly: “This is the way that we,” meaning JXN Water, “can deliver in the hands of state leadership that wants to take over this water system by eliminating this debt.” What’s your response?
Well, a couple of things. One, I’d love to say that we’re gonna be able to use SRF funds to retire the debt (but) we’re running into some significant hurdles that are being thrown up by EPA. At this point, we’re working to restructure the existing debt and probably issuing new debt to take all that out.
Under the current EPA and the current rules, we’re not going to be able to take out much, if any debt, using the SRF funds. That means we’re running in a negative cash flow at the moment. If we don’t do something soon, we’re going to be struggling to meet our financial obligations going forward, even though we’ve got $450 million dollars in the bank.
It’s interesting to think that we’re struggling financially and we’ve got $450 million of SRF funds sitting out there. Obviously we’re gonna put that money to work on these major capital projects, but that doesn’t solve our near-term financial struggles.
But the idea that this is part of a plan to—
We’re not sitting in back rooms figuring out how to turn over the system to anybody.
We do need a future governance model. Frankly, I don’t know what that looks like, but if it’s an authority that gets introduced and passed in legislation, so be it.
If it’s some other mechanism—and there’s not a lot out there that can develop a governance model that will keep this utility on the right path. That’s part of my job as a third-party manager, to find and recommend, to the judge and to the court, a sustainable future for Jackson’s water system.
The mayor, on this exact subject, says he believes that you have—I’m quoting here, “breached the wall of neutrality and impartiality expected of them as an arm of the court.”
I noted that for the previous version of the bill to determine a governance structure for the water system, which you were very opposed to—you and the mayor spoke with one voice on the matter. Regardless, is neutrality your role here?
That bill that was introduced a year ago had some significant problems from my perspective, and I voiced them. After I voiced those, I was asked by (Mississippi Senator) David Parker to come sit down with him. He obviously took that to heart and came back with a bill that incorporated an awful lot of the things that we talked about at the time.
I think it was a case of, “Ready, fire, aim” with that first bill.
But, to the point, do I have a role in this? Absolutely. The sewer order has an end date. But the (DOJ order regarding the water system) is not over until the judge says it’s over, and it’s clear that the judge wants financial stability, viability and sustainability going forward.
He wants a sustainable and functional governance structure and he wants the system to be running well. It’s not just, “Fix the water system.” The judge has an interest in making sure that all the time and federal money and effort we’re putting into this continues, that there’s perpetually a good water system serving the citizens of Jackson.
I think that’s why there’s no end date in the order; it’s open-ended.
On that exact subject, my understanding is that disagreements like this are to be adjudicated in the conference hearings within the structure of the court-appointed order. I asked the mayor, why pursue this directly with the EPA rather than through the court? He responded that Jackson and the EPA were in alignment, omitting the DOJ and U.S. District Court Judge Henry Wingate.
From your perspective, do you see there being different interests—for better or for worse—amongst the different parties of this order?
No. Of the four parties—the Department of Justice, the City of Jackson, the Mississippi State Department of Health and the EPA—, I think the City has a slightly different interest than the other three.
But the other three are focused clearly on restoring safe drinking water, and now additionally a sewer system that doesn’t put sewage back into the environment. I think they recognize that this is what we’re here to do. And I think they’re all right in line with that.
I think the EPA’s response to the mayor’s letter is clear that they’re thinking we’re making great progress. The Department of Justice really, almost, has no dog in the fight. They’re the lawyers.
At the state level they’re looking for a functional water system that’s safe and responding to regulations and in conformance with all the requirements that they have to enforce.
I’d say everybody’s in line from those perspectives. The City seems a bit out of alignment with comments like this and going around those processes. I’m not sure what they thought they negotiated, but I think they need to go back and read what they actually signed.
I want to focus on a quote here from your response to the EPA’s inquiries. Specifically, with regard to the availability of alternative drinking water in the case of temporary outages. You wrote that “Jackson residents have managed through extended routine water outages and low-pressure events for years. They are so happy to have JXN Water proactively repairing their water system that they have not complained.”
That was something that the mayor took issue with. He says that there are substantial complaints. How do we quantify this—complaints requesting emergency water, complaints about water quality, availability, pressure issues, any of that?
What we get in the call center, occasionally, maybe one or two a week, is we’ll get a discolored water complaint, we’ll go investigate that and find out what the problem is, and take care of it or work with the homeowner on it.
And that’s often within the home?
Many times it is. And sometimes it’s related to work we’re doing. Or it could be a dead-end line that needs to be flushed. Water systems have those problems routinely across the country, it’s not unique to Jackson in any form or fashion.
You know, we’re not getting inundated.
These (broader) complaints that we hear are coming from a very small number of the same people. And I think they’re all potentially closely related to—or are closely aligned with—the mayor.
You’re saying it’s a specific interest group?
It appears that way. You look at who filed the intervention—the same group filed a petition with the EPA. I think you can count the concerned people in that group on your two hands and two feet. We’re just not getting overwhelmed with complaints at all.
I’d like to zoom out a little bit. In this debate over authority and process, I think we often elide some very real questions about the future of the Jackson water system.
I want to ask very directly: Is the City of Jackson, in its current form, capable of taking on the responsibility of managing its own water and sewer system in the near future?
This is my opinion: No, they’re not.
That’s as we sit today. Who knows how they’ll look when the judge thinks we’re ready to turn it back over to whatever (management) entity exists?
But I don’t believe they’ve got the capacity to manage the system to ensure that it stays functional and meets regulations, to make sure everybody has water all the time. I just don’t think they’ve proven that they’ve got that capability.
I’d say my two big exhibits aren’t even with the mayor.
So first, we went to do a rate increase. Because here’s what happens. Utilities gotta figure out what their costs are. You’ve got to raise the revenue to support those costs, right? So we basically did a budget from zero to figure out what revenue we needed to bring in. And then we had to develop the rate to support that.
We took that to the administration, and then we took it, as we were required to, to the City Council. We can’t put this all on the administration. The City Council, I think, to a person, when we presented it, said they understood the need. They were glad that we were doing this. But they couldn’t vote for it because their constituents might not be able to afford it.
And they all abstained from the vote.
So you’re gonna put a utility back in the hands of people who admit you need the resources and yet don’t have the spine to support it? That’s exhibit one.
Exhibit two would be shortly after the freeze in this past January—where we did have some pressure problems, but the plants made it through and did very, very well.
A councilmember brought up, I guess, a resolution, and presented it to the rest of the Council saying that JXN Water should refund everybody for the water they used to keep their taps from freezing—the water they used to keep their own plumbing from freezing—and that we should suspend any shutoffs for another 90 days.
For that, they voted 5 to 1. That passed. It was a crazy resolution. Now, they don’t have that (power). But again, it’s irresponsible as the operator of a utility to do things like that. So we’ve got two recent votes that prove that this Council, at least, is not capable. Or at least not willing to demonstrate their capacity to actually run a utility.
What you’re describing increasingly feels like a growing, nationwide concern of two competing interests: one of the micro-local retail politics of mayors, councils and boards, versus the broader engineering concerns of system operators and managers.
The engineering needs of maintaining and managing water systems are actually increasing quite rapidly, perhaps faster than incomes and budgets. That seems to be creating an impasse where there’s the need, but not the willpower to address the need.
I think, across the country, you are absolutely right.
Water utilities are largely municipally governed. It’s either a city department, or they might switch hats and be a board of directors at the same time. They’re still the council members. They’re still worried about getting elected every four years.
You put them in charge of a utility with assets with 50 and 100-year lifespans. You need to be making those investments today for future generations.
But those people are never going to vote for them. They aren’t even born yet.
We’ve really caused this disconnect between who’s governing, the risks and rewards for their decisions, and what they’re governing.
In the case of an investor in an energy utility, they need to make similar decisions but they need to make sure they’re focused also on the long view of their utility and the continued return to their investors.
It’s a different incentive for those folks than the elected politicians who have to raise rates.
So you’ve got the lack of political will to make the right call on a utility—the only utility that you put in your body, by the way—electricity, natural gas, you’re not drinking any of that stuff—but water we’ve put in the hands of local officials focused on getting elected.
Then the other side of this is, as a country, we have undervalued water for decades, maybe generations. We think water is pretty much free.
Turn on the tap, it should be there all the time. It’s a human right.
That was fine when all of this was very cheap. As you pointed out, the cost of providing this service continues to rise. It rises not just because of the cost of labor and equipment and materials. Regulations continue to be written, and the cost of compliance with regulations continues to go up.
So all those factors that have worked together to create this need to increase rates. If we had done that appropriately 50 years ago, (the problems would not be) as significant as they have over the last 20 years, because we’d be generating revenue. We’d be self-sufficient. We’d be reinvesting in the infrastructure with local funds. But we started way too late.
Suddenly, we found ourselves, as a sector, way behind, needing to make significant investments in our systems. Infrastructure was and is falling apart and there just isn’t that political will to start charging what water really costs.
All of this crashes together into where we are today.
So you’re spot on. It needs to be somewhat removed from directly elected political officials.
There’s a variety of models that may or may not work. Some have been tried, and some are very successful across the country. Others are equally as challenged as Jackson.
And Nick, just in closing, the mayor’s administration complains about communication, transparency, all sorts of things. But I had no knowledge and no heads up that they sent this letter to the EPA.
I didn’t hear anything about it. EPA didn’t bother to tell me that it had received a complaint from the City. I heard secondhand after the EPA responded. Someone asked if I’d seen the EPA response to the mayor’s letter. I said, “What mayor’s letter and what EPA response?” That was long after these things happened.
No one’s even keeping us in the loop. It’s just interesting that transparency and communication are an issue. None of this has been brought to our attention directly from the administration.
Well, that’s what I’m here for.
Obviously! You’re the communication go-between here.
There’s an idea. Every couple of months we can all sit down—you, me, the mayor, maybe grab some coffee—and I can moderate.
Yeah. I just don’t think I can sit in his presence right now.
To wrap this all up, as a resident of Jackson, it’s disheartening to see all the different moving parts not working together well.
What do you have to say to the people of Jackson who have one desire: to have a functioning water system, and would really like to see everybody collaborating?
Anecdotally, I hear from people everywhere I go. The notoriety is crazy. Because it pretty much doesn’t exist in my world. Any of my counterparts can be a utility director and you’re below the radar.
People don’t pick you off on the street. I hear from residents pretty much every day that I’m out, whether it’s a restaurant, the grocery store, just walking down Lakeland, beeping horns, waving, thanking me for what we’re doing, thanking me for JXN Water’s efforts. And the comment I hear most often is don’t listen to the naysayers. You’re doing a great job.
I have to believe, just based on that anecdotal evidence, that there’s probably well over 100,000 people that really don’t care about the mechanisms that get the water to them. The governance structure, whether it’s the City or the State or JXN Water. All they want is to be able to open the tap every day, all the time, get water, know that it’s safe and be able to go on with their lives.
These people are not clamoring to understand who’s going to be responsible for running the system. They just want a system that works.
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