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[paft]

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

Comments

[mahnmut]

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]

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.

[paft]

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

[aviv_b]

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.

[hardblue]

Guns are a fundamental right.
Water isn't even in the Constitution!

[fizzyland]

Wasn't this the plot in Quantum of Solace?

[dexeron]

"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.

[paft]

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.

[paft]

Would it matter to you if privatization didn't get the water to people who can't afford it?