There have been a few drinking water crises in the U.S. this year that have made people stop and think about where their water is coming from, but most probably don’t give much thought to the politics behind drinking water. Here in the U.S., we have the misconception of taking water for granted completely and forgetting the long history of the battle people went through to get public water in this country. It used to be that there were private companies running the water supplies in the United States. At the beginning of the century, they started having major cholera outbreaks, which led to it being turned over to public utilities. Now, because we haven’t taken care of that system in terms of providing the funding for it, I think there’s a danger of losing it. As we decrease our funding for public water, private companies are being courted to come in and take over cities that are in dire circumstances with their water infrastructure. Detroit, for instance, is an example. In Detroit, they ran out of money to support public infrastructure, so they’ve been basically raising rates for consumers as a way to entice private water companies to take over. But they’ve also been cutting off tens of thousands of people from their water when they can’t pay. Corporations are a lot more ruthless about water cutoffs; they raise rates and they cut off water. While it’s shocking to watch a city deny the rights of its own citizens, that’s nothing compared to what could happen if private water companies are allowed to take over.
Posted on: Sun, 12 Oct 2014 02:09:29 +0000
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