Role of Community Influencers & Using Fiscal Solvency cont…
Comparisons
The Water Department
Consider the Detroit Water Department’s actions in March 2014. Kevyn Orr, the Emergency Manager appointed by
Governor Snyder planned to shut off the water of 1/3 of the city resident’s water. The CDC, Homeland Security, the
Department of Agriculture and the EPA all agree that clean water and sanitation is a bio-security measure because the
removal of clean water and sanitation has a positive relationship with the spread of bacterial infections. The spread of
bacterial infections leads to increases in sepsis, pneumonia, e. coli, and salmonella, all which Wayne County experienced in the
spring, summer and fall of 2014.
Orr did not shut off water to vacant homes first. Billions of gallons of treated water were wasted. Nor were the many
commercial accounts owing tens of thousands of dollars threatened. Instead of collecting from the large commercial accounts,
residents owing $150 were targeted. Many of these residents were put on payment plan contracts to pay more than 50% of
their monthly income for 24 months. These plans put the books in order. A year later, only a small fraction of residents has
been successful staying on these plans. The DWSD is still in a deficit. Meanwhile, the DWSD is heading towards
regionalization and may be privatized.
Right now, water sits in the basements of many abandoned schools. The Water department shut residential customers off at
the curb, but according to a Detroit News calculation, the City wastes $400,000 in water per day to abandoned properties!
The purpose of this comparison of DWSD to the Detroit Public Schools is simply the wisdom to believe the Governor’s
appointed experts believed that poor families can afford to pay 50% of their income to one utility for 24 months because they
are out of touch with reality –or- because they care about Detroiters, -or- because there were no other alternatives to save
money or because they wished to privatize the Department. Does the water department receive Federal grants? If so, perhaps
they should not discriminate against poor minority families. I digress.
The answer is that the Governor’s team, including Orr was negotiating with a private company to buy the department. If the
goal of Snyder’s appointment of Emergency Management over Detroit Water was fiscal solvency, that did not happen. What
happened was that Orr advertised an invitation to bid on the department. Do they care about the human rights of poor
African Americans?
One of the Governor’s supporters stated residents without water should go to the river for water and toilet.
To have tens of thousands of black people drinking unfiltered river water, and using it to bathe and defecate is a public health
threat. Even today, July 29, 2015, we see a huge water puddle coming from the abandoned flooded Walgreen’s which has not
been shut off. Residents without water must cross over or go around this puddle to get to the Water Department to have their
services turned on. The United Nations called these policies of Governor Snyder and EM Orr, a Human Rights Violation.
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