Big Companies Cashed In on Mississippi’s Water. Small Towns Paid the Price.
By Sarah Fowler, New York Times
February 5, 2024
In winter 2021, more than 150,000 people living in Jackson, Miss., were left without running water.
Faucets were dry or dribbling a muddy brown. For weeks, people across the city lost the water they normally relied on to drink, cook and bathe. With no way to flush their toilets, some parents sent their children into the woods to relieve themselves. Businesses closed. Mississippi’s capital effectively shut down.
The following year, at the height of Mississippi’s sweltering summer in August 2022, it would all happen again.