Jackson’s sewer contractor fought to keep its place and a federal judge took new steps to address a neglectful apartment complex owner in the latest court hearings over the city’s water and wastewater utilities.

Notably, U.S. District Court Judge Henry Wingate said during Thursday’s status conference that he’s planning an in-person visit next week to Blossom Apartments, where third-party utility JXN Water shut off service after the owner said he wouldn’t pay over $400,000 in unpaid water bills. The judge also said he wants to have the complex’s owner, Tony Little, appear in court.

But most of Thursday’s status conference focused on Jackson’s sewer contract with Veoilia, which has managed the city’s three wastewater treatment facilities and pumping stations for the past nine years. Jackson has been under a federal consent decree since 2013 over its sewer system failures, which include polluting the Pearl River. Wingate placed the sewer operations under JXN Water in 2023.

Earlier this year, WLBT reported, JXN Water manager Ted Henifin clashed with city leaders after he decided to replace Veoilia with Jacobs Solutions, the firm that already manages the city’s water treatment services. Jacobs is set to take over the contract in October. Veoilia’s contract was set to end in November 2026.

Henifin, along with several Jacobs employees, attempted on Thursday to enter the Savanna Street Wastewater Treatment Plant to meet with Veoilia about the transition. But Veolia staff denied Henifin and the Jacobs employees entry, saying they no longer wanted to have their scheduled meeting.

Matt Johnson, Veolia’s vice president of operations, told Wingate that the meeting would have been disruptive to daily operations, and that he didn’t understand the “business sense” of Henifin’s decision to end the contract contract early.

Henifin said going with Jacobs would save about $800,000 a year, largely because it already has staff in the area. Johnson contested that it would cost $1.2 million to $1.6 million to end its contract early, but Henifin disputed that number, saying Jacobs would attempt to retain all of Veoilia’s staff.

The manager also criticized Veoilia’s performance.

“I’m a little dumbfounded they’re continuing to push this,” Henifin said, arguing the company neglected Jackson for roughly seven years before only recently turning things around.

Johnson, as well as representatives for Jackson, pushed back on Henifin for not going through a competitive process for choosing a new sewer contract, arguing Veolia could have competed with Jacobs’ price if there was an open bidding process. Jackson interim chief administrative officer Pieter Teeuwissen, speaking on behalf of the mayor’s office, agreed that a request for proposals, or RFP, would benefit the city by providing transparency and boosting trust in JXN Water.

The federal order that appointed Henifin over the water and sewer systems allows him to bypass laws around bidding contracts as well as public records. The manager has said before that an RFP process would be expensive and time-consuming.

Wingate made no ruling regarding the contract itself, but told Veoilia that Henifin should have “unfettered” access to all sewer facilities going forward.

At the end of the status conference, Wingate said he would soon address the question over whether to put Blossom Apartments and another abandoned complex into receiverships.

Representatives of the Mississippi Poor People’s Campaign, one of the intervenor plaintiffs, asked whether there was any way to turn water on at Blossom Apartments for just the weekend as Wingate decides how to proceed. Organizer Danyelle Holmes described “inhumane” conditions at the complex, where tenants haven’t had running water for over two weeks. Henifin responded that, short of the judge ordering him to do so, he wouldn’t restore service, emphasizing that neglectful property owners need to face consequences.

Mayor John Horhn, who took office July 1, told reporters this week that the city is providing potable water to residents as officials work to relocate tenants.

Horhn also came out against Henifin’s proposal to increase water rates, which Wingate is waiting to rule on as he finds out how the city spent money from its Siemens settlement.

“I’ve gone on record with the judge saying that I’m not in favor of a rate increase,” Horhn said at a press conference. “The people of Jackson are suffering enough under the water availability fee for example, just in order to qualify for getting water, you have to pay a $40 availability fee and a lot of residents have a lot of push back on that.”

The mayor mentioned the potential to reallocate federal funds to help pay for daily water operations. While Henifin has said he’s asking federal officials to do just that, he’s maintained a rate increase would still be necessary.

Reporter Maya Miller contributed to this story.