美国国家公共电台 NPR--A Jackson, Mississippi suburb decided to create its own water system

A Jackson, Mississippi suburb decided¹ to create its own water system

Transcript²

Failing infrastructure³ left tens of thousands in Jackson, Mississippi without safe tap water for more than a month this summer. For the Jackson suburb of Byram, the solution is to go their own way.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

People in Mississippi are trying to fix their failing water infrastructure. And some in the Jackson suburb of Byram are doing it on their own. But as Stephan Bisaha of the Gulf⁴ States Newsroom reports, solving the nation's water problems isn't about independence but cooperation.

STEPHAN BISAHA, BYLINE⁵: Byram, Miss., has a vigilante plumber⁶. And his name is Richard White, who also happens to be the town mayor.

RICHARD WHITE: This is the deal right here. This is where I came the other night. This is 110. And just take a look at it, OK?

BISAHA: White had gotten worried this new brick house had a leak in the yard going on for five months now. So he came here at 8 p.m. with his slip-joint pliers and fixed⁷ it himself.

WHITE: And somewhere along the line, I went down on my knees.

BISAHA: Covered in a lot of mud?

WHITE: I knew is going to be nasty, but this is just not acceptable.

BISAHA: Now, White says it's actually illegal for him to touch the water pipes laid here and throughout his small town just southwest of Jackson. The city of Jackson owns the pipes. And they're the ones responsible for fixing the problems. But Jackson says its water system is underfunded. And it has problems maintaining infrastructure just in its own city limits, let alone in the suburb of Byram. So White wants Byram to break off and provide its own water.

WHITE: We're going to have four wells and one tank.

BISAHA: How much would that cost?

WHITE: About 26 million.

BISAHA: Pretty small town - 26 million sounds like a lot of money.

WHITE: It is. But right now, there's a lot of money out there that you can use for long-range plans. And that's what we plan to do right now.

BISAHA: Mississippi should receive more than $400 million for water infrastructure improvements from the federal infrastructure bill, according to the White House. But White's plan to splinter off from Jackson is actually the opposite of the national trend. Instead of breaking up, water utilities in this country have been slowly merging⁸ together. Emily Simonson is with the US Water Alliance, which advocates for sustainable water policies. She says mergers⁹ make sense.

EMILY SIMONSON: We can think of it like a basic math problem.

BISAHA: Basically, the fewer people getting their water from the same system, the more each person has to pay for that water. And the United States has a lot of tiny and, therefore, expensive water systems.

SIMONSON: Just think about that for a second. We have more than 50,000 drinking water systems across the United States. Some of those serve fewer than 10,000 people.

BISAHA: The math also works the other way. The more customers, the cheaper it is for everyone. And that sounds all well and good. But if you're one of the other Jackson suburbs that already has its own perfectly¹⁰ reliable water system, unlike Byram, why join up with Jackson's failing one?

ANDRE PERRY: As Jackson goes, so does the rest of the state.

BISAHA: Andre Perry is a senior fellow with the Brookings Institute. He says, if Jackson's losing big employers or can't recruit new ones because of issues like water, then the Jackson metro¹¹ is going to be hurting, too.

PERRY: This sort of splintering, it certainly saves those particular institutions. But it's horrible for regional economic growth.

WHITE: Yes. But that's not my problem. My problem is Byram, Miss.

BISAHA: Byram Mayor Richard White doesn't think it's his town's job to pay for Jackson's maintenance backlog¹².

WHITE: The bottom line here is they've had their opportunities. We have water out in our city almost monthly.

BISAHA: While there is federal money out there Byram might be able to tap into to create its own water system, that money won't last forever, which would eventually leave Byram with the expensive task of running a city water system on its own.

For NPR News, I'm Stephan Bisaha in Byram.

(SOUNDBITE OF JUNIOR KIMBROUGH'S "MOST THINGS HAVEN'T WORKED OUT")

1 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

2 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

3 infrastructure   

n.下部构造，下部组织，基础结构，基础设施

参考例句：

• We should step up the development of infrastructure for research.加强科学基础设施建设。
• We should strengthen cultural infrastructure and boost various types of popular culture.加强文化基础设施建设，发展各类群众文化。

4 gulf   

n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂

参考例句：

• The gulf between the two leaders cannot be bridged.两位领导人之间的鸿沟难以跨越。
• There is a gulf between the two cities.这两座城市间有个海湾。

5 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

6 plumber   

n.(装修水管的)管子工

参考例句：

• Have you asked the plumber to come and look at the leaking pipe?你叫管道工来检查漏水的管子了吗？
• The plumber screwed up the tap by means of a spanner.管子工用板手把龙头旋紧。

7 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

8 merging   

合并（分类）

参考例句：

• Many companies continued to grow by merging with or buying competing firms. 许多公司通过合并或收买竞争对手的公司而不断扩大。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• To sequence by repeated splitting and merging. 用反复分开和合并的方法进行的排序。

9 mergers   

n.（两个公司的）合并( merger的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Mergers fall into three categories: horizontal, vertical, and conglomerate. 合并分为以下三种：横向合并，纵向合并和混合合并。 来自辞典例句
• Many recent mergers are concentrated within specific industries, particularly in retailing, airlines and communications. 现代许多合并企业集中进行某些特定业务，在零售业、民航和通讯业中更是如此。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件

10 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

11 metro   

n.地铁；adj.大都市的；(METRO)麦德隆(财富500强公司之一总部所在地德国，主要经营零售)

参考例句：

• Can you reach the park by metro?你可以乘地铁到达那个公园吗？
• The metro flood gate system is a disaster prevention equipment.地铁防淹门系统是一种防灾设备。

12 backlog   

n.积压未办之事

参考例句：

• It will take a month to clear the backlog of work.要花一个月的时间才能清理完积压的工作。
• Investment is needed to reduce the backlog of repairs.需要投资来減轻积压的维修工作。