Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo
A water fountain at Woodside Church in Flint, February 2016
In order to recover from the COVID economic depression, America will need a massive public infrastructure effort. This will do triple duty—in addition to providing stimulus and jobs, it will modernize our museum-quality public facilities, and accelerate an overdue green transition.
The House Democrats have made a good start with HR2, the Invest in America Act—but with one weird exception: A provision slipped into the bill by the water privatization industry and its Congressional allies would create incentives to privatize America’s water supply systems, one of the few essential services that are still mostly public thanks to the heroic struggles of our Progressive Era forebears, who worked to assure clean and affordable water via public systems.
In the House, the offending language was inserted by Rep. Bill Pascrell of New Jersey, whose state is home to water privatization companies, and Richie Neal of Massachusetts, the industry-afflicted chair of the House Ways and Means Committee. And in the Senate, oddly, the companion measure, drafted by the water privatization industry, is sponsored by Tammy Duckworth.
Joe Biden take notice.
A word about water privatization. About 83 percent of Americans get their drinking water from public systems, according to an authoritative report by the leading research and advocacy group, Food and Water Watch.
Conversions from public water to private water have been costly fiascos.
Privatized systems are typically less reliable, far more expensive, and prone to corrupt deal-making. The average community with privatized water paid 59 percent more than those with government supplied water. In New Jersey, which has more private water than most, private systems charged 79 percent more. In Illinois, they charged 95 percent more. Private water corporations have also been implicated in environmental disasters. The French multinational, Veolia, issued a report in 2015 certifying that Flint, Michigan’s water system met EPA standards, but neglected to mention high lead concentrations.
Conversions from public water to private water have been costly fiascos. One gambit by private water companies following a privatization is to grab land needed for watersheds, and sell it to developers.
Poor cities and Black and Latino communities are more at risk, according to a report by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. In the heavily Black Philadelphia suburb of Chester, the mayor of the financially stressed town, Thaddeus Kirkland, is proposing to sell its reservoir and municipal water system to a private company for $200 million.
This is a classic pattern in the privatization game. The city gets a one time infusion of cash which temporarily gets the current mayor out of a jam—and the residents pay more.
There is invariably a more extreme fiscal squeeze in cities that are Black and poor, and suffer from low income, low tax base, and inadequate federal support. The color of water, like the color of so much else, is structurally racist.
The Chester system that Mayor Kirkland proposes to sell off has been public for more than a century. But when you’re broke, you start selling off the furniture.
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The ground has been softened for the latest privatization initiative by the underfunding of EPA clean water support. Currently, according to the group, In The Public Interest, there are 1,326 community water systems that are in serious violation of EPA clean water standards.
In this context, private water companies offer to take the problem off local government’s hands. The fallacy, however, is that many privatized systems are also out of compliance.
The key provision in the Duckworth bill would give water systems that converted from public to private an extra three years to come into compliance. The bill requires no capital commitment from the private company, and includes weakened enforcement even after the three years grave period.
Why is Sen. Duckworth a lead sponsor of this travesty? Her office has not replied to my request for comment. Water in Illinois is overwhelmingly public. Her press release on the bill reads like rewrite of the industry press release.
Meanwhile on the House side, heroic efforts by clean water activists and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees have just removed the single worst feature of the House bill. In the latest draft, the major benefits are limited to water systems that are already privatized; no incentives are created for new privatizations. It would be better if the provision were stripped from the Democrats’ infrastructure bill entirely.
AFSCME’s role is a reminder that public worker unions are advocates not just of employees, but of the importance of safeguarding the public realm from relentless efforts to privatize it.
Donald Trump’s version of an infrastructure program is more and more privatization. Turn public systems over to private corporations, which will presumably invest in them, and stick consumers and citizens with the higher costs.
The progressive alternative is adequate funding for all necessary things public.
Privatization is a logical enough ploy for Republicans—both ideologically and to reward industry allies. What in hell are Democrats doing supporting this stuff?
