A Mississippi environmental regulator has denied claims that the state agency he leads discriminated against the capital city of Jackson in its distribution of federal funds for wastewater treatment.
In a recently unearthed letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality Executive Director Christopher Wells wrote that the NAACP has “failed to allege a single fact to support” its argument that the agency discriminated against Jackson. He said he believed the ongoing civil rights investigation into the matter was politically motivated.
“Jackson received a loan for every completed application it submitted,” Wells wrote. “And, because the amount of the loan is based on the cost of the project, no loans were reduced for any reason that could be considered discriminatory.”
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