FreeFlo

On Friday, the Milwaukee, Wisconsin Common Council announced that it will put on hold plans to privatize the city’s drinking water system. In May, Food & Water Watch worked with a broad range of local groups to form the Keep Public Our Water (KPOW) coalition to stop the privatization. Food & Water Watch applauds the Council’s decision and urges the City of Milwaukee to permanently abandon this potential privatization.

“Faced with budget pressures, Milwaukee had been considering leasing its water utility to a private company for 75 to 99 years in return for a one-time payment of up to $550 million to $600 million dollars. Yet privatizing Milwaukee’s water is no silver bullet for its budgetary shortfalls and doing so could have negative consequences for its residents. The potential lease is nothing but an expensive loan that would be repaid to the private company that buys the system by Milwaukeeans through water bills, while the company raises rates in order to guarantee its own profits. Studies show that customers of privatized water systems in Wisconsin pay as much as $150 more a month for service than those who receive their water from a public entity. Further, they are also more likely to encounter water quality and service problems. The affordability and integrity of this vital resource should not be compromised in order to compensate for the city’s financial problems. Doing so would lock Milwaukee into the deal for close to a century, and residents would have very little control over their water system or any problems that might arise from its provider.

“Milwaukee’s water utility, which is already well-run and well-maintained needs to remain public. While the tabling of the lease is an early success for the people of Milwaukee, the fight is not over yet. In April, the city began considering applications for a financial advisor to steward the privatization plan, and it remains unclear if or when that process will resume. Food & Water Watch and KPOW will continue working to demonstrate public opposition to privatizing the city’s water, and to ensure the continued access of safe, clean, affordable water to all of its residents.”

WASHINGTON - June 2 -
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/06/02-11

Colombia’s popular movement to reform the nation’s constitution by including explicit protection for the human right to water took a giant leap forward this week. The proposed reform suffered a near-setback when members of Congress, at the behest of Chief Executive Álvaro Uribe, proposed sweeping changes to the text of the reform. But on May 26, after intervention by a representative of the popular movement, the Congress voted 66 to 26 to sustain the original text of the reform, allowing it to move forward through the congressional process.

At the Second International Forum for Water and the Environment in Bogota last week, hundreds of representatives of the country’s diverse movements for the right to water gathered to criticize the government’s attempt to block constitutional reform and to strategize the way forward for the country’s growing democracy movement. Following the Forum, Rafael Colmenares, Director of Ecofondo, an umbrella organization made up of 125 NGOs and social movement groups, delivered a letter to the congress expressing concern over its recent move to derail the popular effort toward constitutional reform.

The House of Representatives’ acceptance of this intervention was received with surprise and jubilation. A news release from EcoFondo called the news "unexpected and hopeful," and continued, "The act constitutes an unusual manifestation of autonomy and independence by the congress, which is refreshing for democracy in Colombia,"

Jeff Conant, 01 June 2009
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1885/1/

Over the next five years, water efficiency and conservation will become critical factors in green design, construction and product selection, according to McGraw-Hill Construction's latest SmartMarket Report, Water Use in Buildings, released today with support from The Chicago Faucet Company and Sloan Valve Company. Architecture and engineering (A/E) firms, contractors and owners report that water efficiency is rapidly becoming a higher priority than other aspects of green building, such as energy efficiency and waste reduction.
NEW YORK, June 1 /PRNewswire/
http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayReleaseContent.aspx?ACCT=104&STORY=/ww...

The discussion has not yet been widely publicized, but the City of Milwaukee is exploring the possibility of privatizing its water system. There’s a contingent of city leaders that wonders whether leasing the utility could help Milwaukee address its deep budget problems. Then there are critics, who don’t like the fact that the process of purifying and distributing drinking water is on the table. WUWM’s Marge Pitrof reports.

The idea of possibly hiring a private company to run Milwaukee Water Works came from City Comptroller Wally Morics. There are three general options. One is allowing a private company to run the day-to-day operations, rather than having city workers do the job. A second option is leasing the system, and a third is an outright sale. Morics favors a long-term lease. He says it might be the only way the city can avoid laying off hundreds of workers and address a deficit that could balloon to $90 million.

Morics estimates that the market value of Milwaukee’s water system is a half-billion dollars. If the city would get that much, he says it could create an endowment generating $30 to $40 million a year to help pay bills. Peter McAvoy is not convinced Milwaukee could get hundreds of millions of dollars for its water infrastructure, unless the city sells the system or agrees to a long lease, say 99 years. He finds both options unacceptable. McAvoy is Vice President of Environmental Health at the 16th Street Community Health Center.

“We would lose control if the city is actually contemplating the selling the apparatus to get the water out of Lake Michigan, to treat it, to distribute it, because if they’re talking about either a wholesale sale or a long term lease, you lose control of that. That would really concern me, I mean we’re talking about water, we’re not talking about a garage or a bridge,” McAvoy says.
By Marge Pitrof
http://www.wuwm.com/programs/news/view_news.php?articleid=4606

If there were ever a good reason to help get water to villages, this may be it. In the Kamuli District in southeastern Uganda, women have to travel particularly long distances to gather water now that water scarcity has hit the region. The problem is that requirement clashes with some cultural issues, namely that husbands attribute the women being gone so long with love affairs and other indiscretions, and that leads straight into domestic violence.

Jaymi Heimbuch,
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/05/water-crisis-leading-to-wife-abu...