"Mississippi’s state health department did not adequately enforce the Safe Drinking Water Act in Jackson, contributing to the 2022 crisis that left 150,000 residents without drinking water, according to a report released Tuesday by the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Inspector General (OIG).
The OIG found that annual inspections by the Mississippi State Department of Health (MSDH) between 2015 and 2021 did not properly document inadequacies in Jackson’s water system or properly notify the city of those issues.
“As a result, the EPA did not have a comprehensive understanding of the extent of the management and operational issues at Jackson’s system,” the report states. “The MSDH oversight failures obscured Jackson’s long-standing challenges, allowed issues to compound over time, and contributed to the system’s eventual failure.”"
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