By the time the government took over, Jackson’s water works were in a state of chaos. There was a lack of staff, regular maintenance of the system was not being carried out, and customers’ water bills were not being sent or collected. The problems grew to the point that even if the shrinking capital could find a competent manager, it would not have the financial means to fix the water system’s numerous deficiencies.

But a federal regulator says Jackson’s water problems weren’t just a failure of the city itself. They were also a failure of the state, specifically the Mississippi Department of Health, which allegedly allowed the situation to get to the point where it took a major crisis – weeks without clean drinking water or water at all – to draw attention to how much the water system had deteriorated and what a health threat it posed to the people it was supposed to serve.

The conclusion of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector general should concern not only the residents of Jackson, but every person in the state.

The report, released this week, said the state Department of Health has not adequately used the enforcement powers it has had since 1977 to ensure the safety of the state’s drinking water. The report also criticized the EPA for not pushing the Department of Health to do better.

Although the report focuses only on lax enforcement in Jackson, one wonders where else this is happening.

The report states that the Department of Health’s mandatory inspections of the Jackson water system often overlooked or failed to respond to serious problems in the system in a timely manner.

“For most sanitation investigations and inspections from 2016 to 2020, there was inconsistent communication between the MSDH and Jackson,” the report states. “Either the MSDH sent written notification of significant deficiencies several months after a sanitation investigation or inspection was conducted, or it did not notify Jackson.”

It also said communication between the Department of Health and the EPA was poor, leaving the federal agency, which is supposed to act as a backup for states’ enforcement of drinking water regulations, in the dark about how bad the situation had become in Jackson – such as the exorbitant number of pipe breaks that led to the issuance of nearly 1,600 boil water notices between 2014 and 2022.

Thanks to federal government intervention and hundreds of millions of dollars in water and sewer repairs, Jackson is on the road to recovery.

But before a similar crisis occurs in another Mississippi community, the state legislature should hold hearings to determine whether the EPA’s report is accurate. If so, it should require the state Department of Health’s leadership to take corrective action to meet its regulatory obligations in a timely and transparent manner.

Of course, the Department of Health has a lot to do, but one of its most important responsibilities is to ensure that the water coming out of taps is safe to drink. If the Department of Health cannot fulfill that responsibility, Mississippi should consider asking the EPA to assume primary responsibility for enforcing drinking water laws.