Landmark Survey Shows For-Profit Water is a Risky Rip-Off

With Flint’s water supply still tainted and undrinkable, one advocacy group is spotlighting the benefits of publicly owned, locally managed water systems, which it says could help ensure that the Michigan health crisis doesn’t repeat itself across the country.

In a new survey (pdf), the largest of its kind, Food & Water Watch (FWW) documents how the dominant trend in the U.S. is toward public ownership of water and sewer systems, while showing that the alternative—large, for-profit, privately owned systems—are often more expensive and less reliable. 

“Rather than running water systems like businesses, or worse, handing them over to corporations, we need increased federal investment in municipal water.”
—Wenonah Hauter, Food & Water Watch

Indeed, FWW’s analysis finds that nearly nine out of 10 people in the country receive their water service from a publicly owned utility, leading the advocacy organization to propose establishing a steady, dedicated source of federal funding for such water systems that could pay for the replacement of lead pipes in schools and homes and rehabilitate aging water systems across the country.

“From emergency management in Michigan to failed privatization experiments across the country, corporate influence has failed U.S. water systems,” said FWW executive director Wenonah Hauter on Tuesday.

It was a government-appointed emergency manager in Flint who made the decision to switch the city’s water supply from a safe source to a polluted river in order to cut costs. “In a failed attempt to save a few bucks,” one lawyer said last month, “state-appointed officials poisoned the drinking water of an important American city, causing permanent damage to an entire generation of its children.

Meanwhile, “many of our community water systems are over 100 years old, and in desperate need of repair,” she added. “Rather than running water systems like businesses, or worse, handing them over to corporations, we need increased federal investment in municipal water. With this federal funding, we can help avoid future infrastructure-related catastrophes.”

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