Residents Fight Back Against Pittsburgh's Privatized Water Authority

[marmar]

(Truthout) Sandy, who didn't want to give her last name for fear of reprisal, is trembling with anger. For the last six months, the Pittsburgh resident hasn't gotten a bill for water in the mail, and she's fearful she'll be hit all at once by an avalanche of charges. But the worst part is that the charges, should they ever arrive, may not even be accurate; the last time she got a bill it had tripled for no rational reason.

"I had to cut back on everything else," says Sandy, a retiree who lives alone in an apartment. "You don't know if it's going to come in, whether it's late or not, how much it will be. Then you get it and there's a late charge."

Sandy is in a room full of people, most of them older and on a fixed income, who echo her woes. After months of second guessing themselves in isolation, wondering if their showers had run too long or if they'd forgotten to turn off a faucet, neighbors in sleepy Millvale, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, are finally talking to each other and realizing they share the same problem. Only it's much bigger than most had realized: Over 42,000 people, based on an estimate from the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority (PWSA), have received inaccurate and/or delayed water bills for months on end, about 14 percent of the population.

On June 24, dozens of Millvale residents have gathered in a community space to learn about a class-action lawsuit recently filed on their behalf against the PWSA, as well as the private water corporation Veolia Water North America, and the authority's collection agency, Jordan Tax Service. The group behind the lawsuit, Campaign to Reform PWSA, hopes to end what they see as the PWSA's coercive, slapdash attempts to shake down citizens for money. They also hope to alter the PWSA so that it is more transparent and responsive, because right now, they contend, the PWSA has become a smokescreen for France-based Veolia Environment, the largest private water company in the world. Its unbalanced partnership with the PWSA is supposed to represent the company's new approach to managing cities' water systems after a decade of failures with outright privatization, but if the anger in the room is any measure, residents in Pittsburgh may be souring on Veolia, too. ...............(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/31830-residents-fight-back-against-pittsburgh-s-privatized-water-authority

[PatrickforO]

1. Yeah that private sector sure is efficient, isn't it?

Yep, the market will take care of everything...

[daleanime]

3. +1

[Art_from_Ark]

6. The market *will* take care of everything...

...for big shareholders and corporate executives.

[PatrickforO]

7. Yes it will, unless we elect Bernie and kick these corporatist Third Way people OUT of DC

[Demeter]

2. There are no words that I can type to express my disbelief and horror

This cannot be tolerated for anyone or for any length of time.

[mwooldri]

4. Water meters. Eurgh.

I don't care if it's municipal or privatized. Of course muni's better than private but i just want to put it on record that I hate the general principle water meters for residential use. It forces those who can least afford to ration their water to do just that. In my head I believe that residential water should be charged at a flat rate - based on how many people live at an address and whether or not there's a swimming pool. Water meters ration water use, and that's good in times of drought... and should be used as an incentive to pay less. But when you have a broken water meter (and a broken water management outfit - muni or private) if your bill is tied in directly to how much water it says you have used, it'll be wrong.

So my idea is this: water services should be municipally run and owned. The basic water rates are applied by household and are placed in as an addition to the property tax, to be paid for by the homeowner. Landlords can pass this charge on if they so want to. Install water meters on an opt-in basis and when metered have a maximum water charge per month/year/etc. I haven't a clue how to do it for business. Also find other sources of water and find better ways to conserve what we do have (better waste water treatment, rain collection, etc).

[cer7711]

5. Insane! Must we privatize EVERYTHING?!

Public utilities should NEVER be privatized, for just this reason.