Privatized water turns dirty, town suffers

Privatization is good. It creates competition. The consumers will benefit. Neah neah neah. Globalization supporters need to kill the rhetoric and try to explain how globalization will right the wrongs it is creating. This town and it’s water is the perfect example.

In San Jerardo, a tidy but poor farmworker cooperative encircled by the black earth of Salinas Valley fields, residents have been drinking bottled water for almost five years because the tap water they buy from a private company is unsafe.

Nearby, families in the modest town of Chualar are still smarting over monthly water charges that in some instances ballooned by 1,000% or more.

And about 40 miles to the northwest, the Santa Cruz Mountains hamlet of Felton voted last year to tax each household up to $700 a year to take control of the local for-profit water system after the new owner proposed a series of rate increases.

These communities are fronts in a statewide battle over the price, quality and reliability of water that investor-owned utilities are supplying to nearly one in five Californians.

In the late 19th century, private companies delivered water to most of the state’s homes and businesses. Today about 80% of the state’s people live in large cities and towns served by publicly owned utilities. About 140 for-profit companies provide water to more than 6 million people, mostly in suburbs and smaller communities.

Supporters of government-run water systems point out that they, unlike investor-owned utilities, do…

Posted by senssensibilityr
Student of German and Russian culture, history and language, emphasis on post-Dark Age European History. German and Russian 20th century literature. Studying Arabic. Cannot wait to go to Freiburg to study @ Goethe Institut im Februar.