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Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said the city's water is safe, despite a state-issued boil-water notice.

The Mississippi State Department of Health issued the notice July 29 because of higher than normal turbidity levels, or cloudy water.

Lumumba held a news conference Monday outside the O.B. Curtis Water Treatment Plant, where he explained that the city is using a lime slurry to clean the water instead of soda ash.

"We believe that is the main culprit for making our turbidity so high," Lumumba said. "It is not a public health threat."

The mayor brought in consultant Keith Allen, with Cornerstone Engineering, to explain what sparked the boil-water notice.

"The issues that we've had, especially last week, is turbidity, which is essentially calcium carbonate," Allen said. "The calcium carbonate fools the turbidity and it'll give you the higher number. That's what happened to us last week."

Allen said while calcium carbonate has no health consequences, the increased turbidity is a violation of state health regulations.

The mayor said last week that the problem was caused by the use of lime to increase pH levels. The city switched from ash to lime to clean the water while the water treatment plant undergoes winterization. Lumumba amended his statement Monday, adding that clumping soda ash is a problem.

"I said the soda ash tank had been removed for this structure. The reality is that the soda ash tank had been removed because the humidity of Mississippi was leading to clumping in the distribution of the soda ash system."

In addition to two winterization projects underway at the water treatment plant, the city is working on "chemical weatherization" to install a dehumidifier to prevent the soda ash from clumping.

The mayor and city engineer Robert Lee outlined several projects that have nearly completed the design project that will update and rehabilitate the city's water treatment plants.

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