Detroit Goes Dry
by
Marie Mason and Priscilla Dziubek
Sweetwater Alliance Detroit
Detroit
has been providing water to its residents since 1836, when it first
established its water department. Over the years, the system was
expanded to service the growing city and the new suburban
communities. One of the unfortunate effects of this was to
facilitate flight from the city proper by businesses and former
residents by supplying the water needed to support those new
population centers. The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department now
supplies high-quality drinking water to 4.3 million people who live
and work in Detroit, as well as 125 other communities in southeast
Michigan.
Throughout
this past decade, many legislative attempts have been made to take
control of the water from the residents of Detroit. Detroit’s water
department has been under consistent attack from suburban state
representatives. These representatives sponsored House Bill 5788,
which would regionalize the department and open the way for
large-scale privatization. In many ways, this effort epitomizes a
racist lack of confidence in the ability of a predominantly
African-American city government to supervise such an important
service to the city and surrounding areas. Just as control of
Detroit public schools was wrested away from Detroiters by force,
this current campaign to diminish the city’s power over its own
resources is part of a larger problem with the interactions of the
city and the state. The water workers union, Local 207, has loudly
labeled the takeover “racist” because first off, it clearly is, but
also to urge suburban ratepayers to disassociate themselves from it.
As if this
were not enough, it now appears that Detroit’s city government is
also willing to move control of the water from the public to the
private sector. The new policy at the water board is summed up by
the comments of water department spokesman George Ellenwood, “People
need to understand that the days when water bills could go unpaid
for great amounts of time are over”. Last June, Victor M. Mercado
was named Director of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department. He
has worked for a number of major corporate players in international
water privatization. He previously served as Vice President of
Thames Water North America, and President and General Manager of
Thames Water Puerto Rico (1999-2002), Vice President and General
Manager of United Water Delaware and President of United Water
Bethel and United Water Virginia (1997-1999). “We’ve got a vision,
and plan to make DWSD a world-class utility”, said Mercado.
Apparently, you can’t be a world-class system if you aren’t a
profitable system.
In an
effort to make DWSO a more “profitable” (as opposed to more
service-oriented), Director Mercado has implemented such austerity
measures as: eliminating 598 vacant, budgeted positions; holding
managers accountable for their budgets and refinancing capital debt
through bond issues. The good director claims that this can be done
“without compromising service to DWSO customers”. If managers are
held personally accountable for their budgets, is there not a
considerable pressure on them to cut off overdue accounts? How can a
shut off be in any way described as “good service”? In a time when
Detroit is desperately in need of more decent jobs, can eliminating
budgeted public service positions be a responsible measure? Finally,
if their bad management practices have in fact brought them to the
brink, why should they be allowed to bail themselves out at the
public’s expense? This is wrong, especially if they have arbitrarily
changed their mission from one of public service to one of private
profit.
More moves
towards profitability include current and proposed rate hikes for
both city and suburban customers. DWSD announced that these rate
increases (proposed to begin July 1, 2003) will average about nine
percent. These rate hikes make it harder for the poorest among us to
have access to clean, safe drinking water.
A major
expansion is planned for the system as well. The city has contracted
Montgomery Watson to help design and build its record-breaking Water
Works Park II. When completed in 2004, this fully automated (read:
no jobs), 240-million-gallons-per-day water treatment plant will
become a major supplier of potable water to about 4 million people
in a 1,000-square-mile service area. This facility, at a cost of
$300 million, would also be able to bottle this water for subsequent
sale. The idea floated by ex-director Stephen Gordan, and would put
Detroit in the position of cutting some residents off of municipal
water and then offering that same water for sale to anyone who could
pay.
At the
same time, an unprecedented water cut-off to delinquent accounts was
ordered to occur during the sub-freezing weather of January. Bear
in mind that many Detroit homes are steam heated, losing water meant
losing heat. Also bear in mind that Social Services uses a water
shut-off as a deciding factor for removal of children from the
premises. The people most affected by these shut-offs are the poor,
the elderly, children and the disabled. As Maureen Taylor of
Michigan Welfare Rights Organization says “It's an extreme time we
live in when the public utility is cutting off something we all need
to live: water. This is a crime against humanity...and what are we
going to do [but] fight. Fight for justice till everyone's water is
turned on and never turned off again."
The policy
of deregulation of the energy industry has not only led to high,
sometimes even exorbitant, prices, but has also lent itself to
concealment of shutoffs. Utilities do not report shutoffs in real
time, and there are no regulatory agencies that monitor the energy
business. We must work to maintain basic human services for all
citizens. That means keeping all public utilities “Public”, where
jobs and profits from these services stay in the community. We must
demand that service, and not profit, is the motivating force that
defines our utility policy. We must demand a city where people have
access to and are provided with clean drinking water, as well as all
essential services.
The last
thing Detroit needs is a privatized water system. There are so many
examples of the suffering that privatization the community brings to
a community. In Atlanta, they experienced: degradation in water
quality, lacking and long coming upgrades and repairs, as well as
interrupted availability. This community is currently trying to get
out of its contract, as they are so unhappy with the results of
privatization. Why repeat the mistakes of other communities?
It is
predicted by the United Nations that in 20 – 25 years we will be
fighting worldwide water wars. Our children and grandchildren will
inherit a frightening future if we do not deal with the water issue
now. In the water wars of the future, the Great Lakes will represent
the third largest supply of fresh water in the world. This precious
resource will be coveted and targeted by myriads of corporations. If
we do not take steps now to protect our water as a common good, to
protect access to clean safe water as a basic human right, then we
will lose to the corporate interests who want to redefine water as a
commodity that only the wealthy can access.
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