After some Leflore County residents lacked clean water for over a year, they are finally getting a new well.
Government officials broke ground in an area located between Itta Bena and Schlater Thursday morning after Central Mississippi Inc., a nonprofit that hopes to reduce poverty, received a $63,000 disaster and relief grant through the Community Services Block Grant program from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Minerva Clemon, left, shows Leflore County Supervisor Anjuan Brown and state Sen. David Jordan the old well that pumped undrinkable water.
“I feel great that we were able to help these residents,” Leflore County Supervisor Anjuan Brown said.
Brown has been working with several other governmental agencies on this issue since December.
“We’re here in the greatest country in the world in 2020, and people don’t have running water,” he said. “So we’re definitely concerned about that.”
Since the news first broke, people from all over, including other states, have donated cases of drinking water to the residents of that area. Brown also said he reached out to the Schlater Riders motorcycle club and others for a water tank, which has been helping the residents for most of this year.
Now that the ground has been broken for the well, Brown said it should be fully functional in “a couple of weeks.”
The area, which is on a county road between Schlater and Itta Bena, had five families — around 12 people total — who suffered from a lack of clean water, according to Dr. Pamela Gary, CEO of Central Mississippi Inc.
Perhaps the happiest about the new well is Minerva Clemon, a retired restaurant server who has been living without clean water access for around a year and a half.
“It means everything,” she said. “What kind of life can you have if you don’t have clean, running water?”
Clemon’s story was first reported by Mississippi Today. Her testimony shed light on the area's issue and inspired officials to get working on a solution.
In a previous article, Brown said her story caused a “bittersweet” response. He said, “I hate it happened to families, but what it did was it opened a lot of eyes, and it’s giving the state an opportunity to look at where we are when we’re talking about water.”
Today, Clemon said she is just happy she will soon no longer need to go all around the area trying to find water. She had to drive to the nearest gas station or Dollar General to fill buckets with their outside water faucets — before the businesses cut the supply.
“It was rough,” she said.
Soon, this will be a problem of the past, and Clemons said she was grateful to everyone involved.
State Sen. David Jordan, who was also in attendance, called the new well “a blessing.”
“I’m glad this particular place is able to get running water,” he said. “It does really have an effect on lives.”
Brandon Presley, Northern District commissioner of the Mississippi Public Service Commission, who worked with the Leflore County officials after he heard about the problem, said he is glad a solution was achieved and called it a “team effort.”
Presley said that this is just the start of what he hopes to do to help the state. “There’s too many communities in Mississippi that have this problem,” he said. “After this story came out, we were made aware of another community in Tishomingo County.”
He said he and his office are creating a database for people lacking drinking water and will try to help as many communities as possible. “Water is just a basic need that everyone has, and we’re just proud to see that this could get fixed, but we know that this is just one of many areas that need this service,” he said.
Brown shared a similar sentiment. “Hopefully we can get this cured here in Mississippi,” he said. “Because, there’s no reason for this. Regardless if you live in a rural area, you still should have access to running water.”
• Contact Adam Bakst at 581-7233 or abakst@gwcommonwealth.com. Twitter: @AdamBakst_GWCW
The original version of this article reported incorrectly that the grant was given to the town of Schlater. The grant was awarded to Central Mississippi Inc. Also, the area served is not within the town's limits, but on a county road located between Schlater and Itta Bena.
