(no subject)

[paft.livejournal.com]

Last March, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) announced plans to shut off water service for 1,500 to 3,000 customers every week if their water bills were not paid. And on Tuesday, the City Council approved an 8.7-percent water rate increase.

According to a DWSD document, more than 80,000 residential households – in a city of 680,000 people – are in arrears, with thousands of families without water, and thousands more expected to lose access at any moment...

Over the last decade, Detroit residents have seen water rates rise by 119 percent, according to a press release Wednesday.

With unemployment rates at a record high and the poverty rate at about 40 percent, Detroit water bills are unaffordable to a significant portion of the population.

Many of those affected by the shut-offs were given no warning.

Insanity. What exactly do the authorities imagine is going to happen to those thousands of people -- many of them disabled, children, infants, etc. -- without access to potable water?

If Cholera breaks out, how do they intend to deal with it?

You know, I can remember once posting to a board about the privatization of water and the dangers it poses to the life and health of countless low income Americans. Some blase moderate yawned and said, "call me when you can cite large numbers of people in the US being denied easy access to potable water."

Wish I could remember which dozy moderate to call.

Comments

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Well, the attempts to privatize water supply resulted in something like a popular revolution and regime change in Bolivia, which arguably drove the new wave of leftist governments throughout the entire Latin America, so there.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Some citizens advocate groups have asked the United Nations to step in. *Jawdrop*

In a letter sent to the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation last week, local nonprofit Detroit People’s Water Board, Food and Water Watch and Canada-based Blue Planet Project pleaded for the world body to weigh in on the shutoffs. Nearly 50 percent of DWSD’s 323,000 accounts were behind on payments as of March, according to the Detroit Free Press. That’s left DWSD with $175 million in outstanding bills.

More details at the source. (http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/6/22/detroit-water-un.html)

[paft.livejournal.com]

Access to clean, safe water is a pretty basic human right.

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

In before one of our lolotarians tells you that it's not. And if it was, people would find a way to pay it. After all, they have refrigerators and maybe a cell phone.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Access to clean, safe water is a pretty basic human right.

...for corporations to turn in to toxic sludge in pursuit of the almighty dollar!

[telemann.livejournal.com]

No: I know that, and I fully agree. I'm embarrassed this had to get to the point where the U.N. has been asked to intercede.

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

Oh jeez, wait until the Agenda 21 Truther folks get a hold of that. :/

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Wasn't this the plot in Quantum of Solace?

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

"You know, I can remember once posting to a board about the privatization of water and the dangers it poses to the life and health of countless low income Americans. Some blase moderate yawned and said, "call me when you can cite large numbers of people in the US being denied easy access to potable water."

Wish I could remember which dozy moderate to call."

Unfortunately, I'm sure they'd be quick to find some way to move those goalposts.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

You know, I can remember once posting to a board about the privatization of water and the dangers it poses to the life and health of countless low income Americans. Some blase moderate yawned and said, "call me when you can cite large numbers of people in the US being denied easy access to potable water."

Wish I could remember which dozy moderate to call.

But isn't Detroit's municipal water public?

[paft.livejournal.com]

Not for much longer. It's currently under attack from the Emergency City Manager, who wants to at last partially privatize the department. This latest is believed to be an effort to make it more attractive to private investors by dumping low income consumers.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

So maybe privatization is the answer here. The city sure isn't showing much in the way of ability to deliver.

[404.livejournal.com]

So what is the solution to this?

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

[404.livejournal.com]

Good business is where you find it.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Keeping water as a public utility rather than privatizing it.

Or do you figure the likely deaths from contaminated water just the cost of doing business?

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Major regulation on pollution in the 1980s and 1990s.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Surely only the poor and middle classes will get cholera. Those of us bathing in asses milk, washing our food in Evian, and only drinking San Pelligrino will never encounter the pesky little spirochete.

The thing is, Jeff isn't one of us. :) No matter how hard he shills for what he imagines to be our values.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

The thing is, Jeff isn't one of us.

In what way?

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Have you been mimicking John Hodgman, the Deranged Millionaire character, mhmmm?

[vehemencet-t.livejournal.com]

Lack of something so arbitrary and symbolic as money is not what is actually physically keeping these people from access to water. Unlike in parts of Africa, water systems have been well developed all over the U.S. by many generations of laborers. It is not "scarcity" which is causing this at all.

What actually will prevent people is the irrational idea that a small grou or individual can claim ownership over a resource that an entire region needs to LIVE to the point of denying them access. And what actually enforces this is, of course, the sanctioned violence of the state that would arrest or kill someone for violating this "sacred" principle and "stealing water." It is completely unjustified and unethical, but it is just another symptom of the same problem.

But as long as you keep defending the system, such logic will only continue to be justified.

[cheezyfish.livejournal.com]

water systems have been well developed all over the U.S. by many generations of laborers.

Infrastructure needs to be replaced, does it not? There was 240,000 water main breaks last year in the U.S.

No one owns the water, however someone needs to pay for the replacement of old infrastructure, treatment, and transportation cost. These things are not free. If you live in a rural area, you can build your own well and your own sewage system (typically at a large cost), and be free from the city charging your for their water. In the city, the water table can't typically handle that much water draw, so you don't get that option.

I think you are speaking from ignorance. The water that people need simply isn't there. Remove that entity that "owns that resource" (to use your words), whether public or private, and you will have a real crisis on your hands.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Do you understand the concept of "infrastructure?" Do you understand that it needs to be maintained, or do you figure Brownies and other helpful elves will keep pipes from leaking, etc?

[cheezyfish.livejournal.com]

This is a prime example at how progressive policies fail miserably and ultimately end up hurting the poor far more than they help (along with everyone else). After decades of not shutting off people's water for nonpayment, you literally have half the city not paying their water bills (why should they, it isn't like it will be shutoff). They might not be able to afford it you say? Well, that may be true, but it's true because the city has had delinquent accounts for so long that they have to raise rates to cover those who don't pay. This of course is making it so more people are not able to pay, which in turn makes more delinquent accounts which means that they have to raise rates again. Eventually this causes some of the suburbs to say "no thanks, we will get our own water" making Detroit have to raise rates again! How is it that Detroit, which literally sits on the coast of 20% of the worlds fresh water, have rates almost double the national average and still have failing infrastructure?

I know what you are thinking, people who can't afford not to pay won't magically have the money to pay once you shutoff their water. Well, the city claims 65% of people who had their water shutoff found the money to come in to make payments to have their water turned back on. What about the other 35%? Well, I would argue that significant and meaningful programs be in place to identify those who truly can't pay, and provide them with assistance so they can so you can responsibly shutoff the rest. It is the only responsible way to do it. The sentiment expressed in the OP is how Detroit ran things, and it is exactly why they are in the situation they are in. If it continues, we will something much worse than people getting their water shutoff. We will instead have a large amount of people losing water services for extended periods of time and/or getting sick, whether they paid or not, because the Detroit's water system completely failed.

[paft.livejournal.com]

ch: They might not be able to afford it you say?

No.

Many many people WOULD not be able to afford it.

ch: Well, I would argue that significant and meaningful programs be in place to identify those who truly can't pay, and provide them with assistance so they can so you can responsibly shutoff the rest.

Except that they aren't in place. And by "programs" do you mean public programs or private charities?

ch: The sentiment expressed in the OP...

That "sentiment" being, it's a bad, bad idea to cut off water access to people based on nonpayment because water is necessary for life and you could end up endangering people's lives.