Central Public Service Commissioner De’Keither Stamps said he will write to Gov. Tate Reeves to seek support for a proposal to allow Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits to be used to pay water bills, after the idea failed to advance at the commission’s monthly meeting, he told colleagues.
Stamps, a Democrat, pitched a “SNAP H2O” program that would let recipients use federally funded SNAP benefits to pay water utilities. He said the change would not require new federal funding because it would repurpose existing SNAP dollars, and added that the U.S. Department of Human Services would only need to “classify water as food.” Stamps said SNAP EBT card holders spend about $950 million a year on bottled water and that some people sell benefits for cash to pay water bills.
The motion died for lack of a second from the commission’s two Republican members, Northern Commissioner Chris Brown and Southern Commissioner Wayne Carr, Stamps said. He told the panel he heard during a recent local water drive that some residents used SNAP EBT cards to buy bottled water for donation because they could not use benefits to pay their own bills.
Carr, citing National Preparedness Month in September, urged residents to have a family and pet plan for disasters and promoted a free summit, “From Recovery to Resilience,” set for Oct. 8 at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College beginning at 9 a.m. He said registration is required and invited community leaders, utility representatives, officials, schools, hospitals and the public to attend. Carr also recalled surviving Hurricane Camille and the devastation of Hurricane Katrina as reasons to focus on preparedness, saying memories of destroyed homes and landmarks show rebuilding is not complete.
Jon Ross Myers is the executive editor and publisher of the Mississippi News Network, Mississippi's largest digital only media company. He can be reached at editor@tippahnews.com
