MDEQ Executive Director Responds to EPA Civil Rights Investigation Findings

JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) – The executive director of the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality responds, a day after WLBT reported that the EPA found “insufficient evidence” to determine that the agency was failing Jackson in allocating money for sewer rehabilitation discriminated against.

“The evidence overwhelmingly shows that (MDEQ) did everything right,” Executive Director Chris Well said in a statement. “Our state is blessed to have its own environmental protection agency through the MDEQ… These claims were completely false and distracted from our agency’s mission.”

On Monday, the EPA’s Office of External Civil Rights Compliance notified the MDEQ and the Mississippi State Department of Health that it had closed its Title VI investigation into the agencies, saying there was insufficient evidence to support Jackson discriminated against in the allocation of federal funds for water and repairs to sewer infrastructure.

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act prohibits agencies receiving federal funding from discriminating based on race, national origin, and other factors.

The investigation was launched after the National NAACP, the Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP, former Jackson Mayor Harvey Johnson and others filed a complaint against authorities weeks after the 2022 water crisis.

NAACP President Derrick Johnson disagreed with the federal government’s findings.

“The majority-Black city of Jackson is continually lacking resources – including safe, clean drinking water,” said NAACP President Derrick Johnson. “We allege that Jackson residents have been discriminated against.”

The groups also filed a complaint against the Mississippi Department of Finance and Administration, but that matter was rejected by the EPA’s Office of External Civil Rights Compliance for lack of jurisdiction.

The complaints alleged that the state withheld funds from the capital to make it available to “smaller, majority-white communities with less pressing needs.”

These funds come from the state’s State Revolving Fund (SRF) water and wastewater programs. The federal government provides MDEQ and MSDH with money to finance the programs, which they in turn distribute to municipalities in the form of low-interest loans.

The investigation should last 180 days. However, it took more than a year and a half.

“MDEQ has already done everything the regulations require,” Wells said. He previously told the EPA that his agency had actually awarded a larger share of its SRF funds to Jackson than to other cities in the state.

Meanwhile, Wells took the EPA to task for upgrades and improvements “that were not specifically required by the regulations and were in the works long before the complaint was filed.”

These improvements included updates to MDEQ’s website, which also includes its non-discrimination policy.

“MDEQ has already done everything the regulations require,” Wells said.

MDEQ also questioned EPA’s findings that there were several deficiencies in the implementation of “procedural safeguards” to prevent discrimination under Title VI.

According to EPA findings, these deficiencies could prevent people with disabilities and language barriers from accessing MDEQ services. To address these issues, the agency was asked to update its website so that it can be read in more languages ​​and to amend its non-discrimination notice, which is also published online.

The EPA also recommended that the state conduct periodic assessments of infrastructure across the state to better assess cities’ needs, change repayment terms for SRF loans, offer interest-free or negative-interest loans, and increase the cap on the amount that can be paid Cities could receive loan forgiveness.

However, it is the EPA, not the MDEQ, that determines how much SRF loans can be forgiven and which cities are eligible.

Under MDEQ’s 2023 SRF Annual Use Plan, states were required to reevaluate the criteria for awarding subsidies to give greater priority to cities with lower per capita income, higher unemployment and higher poverty.

Authorities are also required to give priority to smaller communities over larger cities like Jackson.

Even then, the maximum amount MDEQ can provide in loan forgiveness is 80 percent of the total loan amount, up to $4 million. That $4 million would mean little to Jackson, which has received more than $116 million in loans through the SRF sewer system.

Johnson pointed out how some of these requirements could harm cities like Jackson in a May 6 memo to EPA Administrator Michael Regan.

“The deliberate decision to target federal funding toward small systems risks discriminating against the state’s large and predominantly African-American urban areas,” he wrote. “Awarding federal funding through state programs without a thorough needs assessment – ​​designed to identify the areas most in need of that funding – is a violation of Title VI and should be remedied.”

EPA officials were not immediately available for comment.

A copy of Johnson’s memo can be found below.

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