(no subject)
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.
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.