The state awarded $180 million in matching American Rescue Plan Act funds on Friday for water, sewer and wastewater projects.
The amount includes $35.6 million for Jackson, exactly what the city applied for last month from the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, which is administering the match program known as the Municipality & County Water Infrastructure Grant Program, or MCWI.
But in total, the $180 million MDEQ awarded on Friday is less than half, 41%, of the $435 million that cities and counties applied for from the fund. The first round of awards leaves $270 million remaining in the MCWI fund. A release from Sen. John Horhn, D-Jackson, said that the agency will begin a second round of funding in the spring.
The dollar-for-dollar match gives Jackson, which has said it needs $2 billion to fix its drinking water and wastewater systems, a total of $71.3 million in ARPA money for the following water projects:
• Jackson J.H. Fewell Plant Filter and Transmission Line Project Drinking Water.
• Jackson O.B. Curtis Raw Water Pump Replacement Drinking Water.
• Jackson O.B. Curtis/J.H. Fewell Chemical Feed Automation Drinking Water.
• Jackson O.B. Curtis General Filter Upgrade Project Drinking Water.
• Jackson J.H. Fewell General Pump Repair and Replacement Drinking Water.
• Jackson West Bank Interceptor Sewer Line Repair and Rehabilitation Project Wastewater.
• Jackson Mill Street Sewer Basin Reconstruction Wastewater.
Horhn said on Friday that “we are looking for the state to do more once the regular session begins in January.”
MDEQ did not yet have a list of how much each project received by the time this story published, but Mississippi Today will update this story later with those numbers.
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