EPA Promised to Address Environmental Racism. Then States Pushed Back.
This story was produced as part of a collaboration with the Center for Public Integrity, a newsroom that investigates inequality. FLINT, Mich. — Civil rights
This story was produced as part of a collaboration with the Center for Public Integrity, a newsroom that investigates inequality. FLINT, Mich. — Civil rights
Both federal manager Ted Henifin and the Jackson Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba are warning that state politicians are attempting to take over Jackson’s water system, along with hundreds of millions in federal funds meant for repairing it.
This project could destroy a fragile wetland and pose a significant flooding threat to two historic Black communities, Greg Schwartz writes.
HR 3339, a current bill in Congress, would create a $5-trillion National Infrastructure Bank to finance projects that federal, state and local governments cannot. This plan would allow Mississippi to receive up to $47 billion over 10 years to cover all infrastructure improvements, including roads, bridges, levees and dams, affordable housing, public transport and more, Alphecca Muttardy writes.
Rhea Williams-Bishop, director of Mississippi and New Orleans programs at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation writes that “together, we can be the ones who create the environments and communities that build up our children, rather than tear them down.” She encourages Mississippians to come together to solve the Jackson water crisis—and then to repair the systems that led to it.
Michael S. Regan, the head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, is touring Jackson today and addressing topics on the environment with an emphasis on the city’s longstanding water infrastructure woes.
Unresolved inequity is revealed when Black communities are hit first and hardest from hurricanes and floods yet are given inadequate resources to repair before the next storm, Heather McTeer Toney writes.
The Tennessee Valley Authority may have a big problem—and one that could soon spill over into Mississippi. The federally owned corporation manages the now-defunct Allen Fossil Plant in Memphis, Tenn., where environmental experts claim ash ponds have been contaminating groundwater said to be locally connected to the Memphis Sand Aquifer since at least 2017. This aquifer is the primary source of drinking water for the city of Memphis and serves other communities across the Mid-South.
Neither party has stood up for American descendants of slavery when it comes to racial disparities in environmental, social and economic policies. Co-founder Leo Carney writes that ADOS of MS are seeking reparative justice that is a pathway for statewide and federal reparations for American descendants of slavery in Mississippi and across America.
Mississippi Journalism and Education Group is a a 501(c)(3) nonprofit media organization (EIN 85-1403937) for the state, devoted to going beyond partisanship and publishing solutions journalism for the Magnolia State and all of its people.
125 S. Congress Street #1324
Jackson, MS 39201
info@mississippifreepress.org
tips@mississippifreepress.org
events@mississippifreepress.org
601-362-6121