JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) – On Thursday morning a news conference was held to announce the 2024 report card for Mississippi’s infrastructure.
The Mississippi Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers is the group that gathered this information and announced it to the public.
The Report Card for Mississippi’s Infrastructure raises awareness of the importance of modern and well-maintained infrastructure.
It focuses on 12 categories across the state. These categories are aviation, bridges, dams, drinking water, energy, ports, roads, schools, solid waste, stormwater, transit, and wastewater.
The overall grade for the 2024 report card for Mississippi’s infrastructure is a “C-.”
A grade of “C-” means that the infrastructure is in fair condition but still requires attention and investment.
MDOT Commissioner Willie Simmons was a key speaker at the conference. He says that funding in recent years has helped the state’s overall infrastructure.
“The big one that you hear all the time about is what we do with our roads and bridges when we pull that together,” said Simmons. “We were very fortunate over the past few years to finally have been getting some money to help work on the system.”
According to officials, this report helps citizens understand how Mississippi’s infrastructure is progressing and what can be done to update its systems.
Will Carruth, president of the Mississippi Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers, said that reliable infrastructure is certainly the backbone of our economy.
“When our infrastructure is working, it’s typically out of sight and out of mind,” said Carruth. “But as we’ve seen here in Mississippi over the last several years, particularly in our urban areas like Jackson, infrastructure failures can cause major consequences to the public health, safety, and welfare, and we need to do everything possible to prevent this in the future.”
Officials say it is important to remember that Mississippi citizens pay for these systems through taxes and other fees. Because of that decisions about infrastructure tend to take long-term planning.
Dr. Jennifer Sloan Ziegler, president of ASCE Environmental and Water Resources Institute, said it’s great to come together to focus on Mississippi’s infrastructure.
“Now I want to focus on the infrastructure that helps connect Mississippi to the world and plays a big role in our state’s economic success, from getting goods and services across the country shipped to the rest of the world and delivering imported products to Mississippi and the rest of the country,” said Ziegler.
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