JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) – Efforts to renegotiate Jackson’s sewer consent decree are on hold, at least temporarily, thanks to a new executive order handed down by President Donald Trump.

On Tuesday, City Attorney Drew Martin told the council the president had issued an order pausing all environmental litigation within the U.S. Department of Justice, and that attorneys working on environmental cases were being reassigned.

“All talks are paused everything is stayed for some indefinite period of time… What we expect and hope is that whatever pauses occur will be lifted in fairly short order and we’ll keep moving on,” he said. “If it drags on longer than that, we don’t have a good answer for that.

Martin learned about the executive order Tuesday morning. He shared a copy of a report from Reuters outlining the order, which “halted all pending environmental litigation and reassigned four career Justice Department attorneys focused on environmental issues.”

Martin said those attorneys were given the option to be reassigned to the Department of Justice’s Sanctuary City Task Force, which was formed under Trump’s January 21 executive order, “Protecting the American People Against Invasion.”

It’s not known the names of the attorneys that were reassigned, and if Karl Fingerhood, senior counsel for the DOJ’s Environmental Enforcement Section, was impacted.

Fingerhood has been the lead attorney representing the agency in its water and sewer enforcement actions against the city.

We reached out to Fingerhood directly for comment and he did not immediately respond to our call.

Martin said he was planning to reach out to Fingerhood but had not yet talked to him when he spoke with WLBT. He expects Fingerhood will be impacted directly by Trump’s order.

“As far as I can tell, the executive order says, ‘Whatever you’re doing, if it’s an environmental-based thing, stop.’ They said, ‘If you’re negotiating a consent decree… stop,’ and that’s where we are obviously,” Martin said.

“We were trying to schedule a call with them this week. I’m guessing we didn’t hear back because of this. But we’ll find out. We’ll know more in the next week.”

Jackson was placed under a sewer consent decree back in 2012 or 2013, after the city failed to comply with provisions of the federal Clean Water Act.

In 2023, U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate placed the sewer system under the control of Interim Third-Party Manager Ted Henifin after the city failed to comply with the decree.

Under terms of the order, Henifin is tasked with bringing the system into compliance with federal law, while a new decree is hammered out.

The order is expected to be in place through October 2027. Henifin also is in charge of Jackson’s water system.

The city has been working to renegotiate decree terms almost since Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba took office, in part, saying the decree would be too expensive to implement.

Initially, officials estimated it would cost around $400 million to fulfill decree mandates. In 2021, the Lumumba estimated those costs had more than doubled.

In November 2021, attorneys for the federal government filed a motion to reopen the decree in U.S. District Court asking a judge to allow renegotiations to go forward. The following month, U.S. District Judge Tom Lee approved reopening the case.

The president’s order halting environmental litigation comes on the heels of another order temporarily pausing the disbursement of “all federal assistance” through at least February 10.

According to a copy of the January 28 order posted by NBC News, federal agencies are mandated to “identify and review all federal financial assistance programs and supporting activities consistent with the President’s policies and requirements” and “must complete a comprehensive analysis of all of their federal financial assistance programs to identify programs, projects, and activities that may be implicated by any of the President’s executive orders.”

It’s unclear how that order will impact the roughly $800 million in federal funding Jackson received to shore up its water system.

As for the $800 million, the funds were approved in late 2022 and included $600 million from H.R. 2617, a separate appropriations bill approved by Congress, $120 million in Water Resource and Development Act funding directed to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to help Jackson and $71 million in American Rescue Act Plan funds.

The funds are currently being used to restore the water system following the 2022 water crisis. They’re also being used to cover maintenance and operation costs while collections improve.

According to JXN Water’s website, the utility spent $105.4 million on the water and sewer system last year, including some $31.2 million to maintain Jackson’s two water surface treatment plants.

“The system isn’t self-sustaining as of right now, as far as I can tell… I don’t know what happens,” he said, describing it as a “nightmare scenario.”

“I don’t see how the system can operate anywhere near optimal without that money.”

Interim Third-Party Manager Ted Henifin could not be reached for comment.

A spokesman with EPA Region Four provided the following statement: “EPA is working diligently to implement the Office of Management and Budget’s memorandum, ‘Temporary Pause of Agency Grant, Loan, and Other Financial Assistance Programs,’ to align federal spending and action with the will of the American people as expressed through President Trump’s priorities. The agency is temporarily pausing all activities related to the obligation or disbursement of EPA Federal financial assistance at this time. EPA is continuing to work with OMB as they review processes, policies, and programs, as required by the memorandum.”

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