Over the weekend, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton condemned as immoral the recklessness and neglect of the Republican administration of Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder that resulted in the brain-damaging lead contamination of drinking water in the majority African American city of Flint.
Calling it like it is should finally bring to a halt an equally reckless proposal across the lake by Wisconsin Republicans to increase privatization of state water systems and reduce public protection of clean, affordable drinking water in our own cities.
In January, Assembly Republicans passed a water privatization bill by a voice vote as if it were routine, non-controversial legislative business.
It didn’t take long for environmentalists and consumer advocates to realize it was a dangerous change, making it easier for private companies to acquire municipal water systems, raise prices to increase their profits and limit public access to one of the necessities of human life.
Of course, passing the bill on a voice vote also makes it more difficult later to identify exactly who supported such a potentially disastrous change.
For the record, the bill now before the state Senate is sponsored by Republican state Sen. Frank Lasee of De Pere and co-sponsored in the Assembly by Republicans Joel Kleefisch (R-Oconomowoc), Joe Sanfelippo (R-West Allis), Tyler August (R-Lake Geneva), David Murphy (R-Greenville), Daniel Knodl (R-Germantown) and Ken Skowronski (R-Franklin) and lone Democratic Rep. Josh Zepnick of Milwaukee.
There are two other disturbing details about the bill that should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the current ethically challenged Republican legislative leadership.
One is that the bill was largely written by Aqua America, a private company that could reap huge profits from the law the same way Republicans allowed Gogebic Taconite to write its own mining regulations when the Walker administration was promoting an environmentally destructive open pit iron mine in Northern Wisconsin.
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The other is that the chief Wisconsin lobbyist for Aqua America is Steven Foti, the former Republican majority leader of the Assembly who was convicted in 2006 in the legislative caucus scandal. Foti served 60 days in jail for misusing public funds to pay state employees to work on Republican campaigns.
Another important thing to know about Aqua America is it has faced a long list of consumer and state complaints across the country after it has taken over public water systems, according to Food and Water Watch, a nonprofit environmental protection organization that tracks water safety across the country.
After Aqua acquired public water utilities in Pennsylvania, it increased water rates 397% from $153 to $707. In Florida, citizen opposition ultimately drove Aqua out of the state. Food and Water Watch reported Aqua charged counties twice as much as public systems and had serious water quality problems. Customers described Aqua’s water as “smelly, discolored, contaminated and undrinkable.”
Other companies privatizing municipal water systems have faced similar complaints of increasing rates and deteriorating water quality.
Indianapolis had to pay $29 million to terminate a long-term contract with Veolia because of widespread citizen complaints. Atlanta residents “were forced to boil their water after insufficient treatment by United Water led to orange and brown water spewing from residential taps,” according to Corporate Accountability International, a Boston-based nonprofit.
Milwaukee Water Privatization Failed
Food and Water Watch has alerted Wisconsin previously about the dangers of privatizing the water of life. In 2009, the group helped organize opposition to a foolish proposal promoted by the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce to consider an unbelievably long-term private water contract running as long as 99 years.
Comptroller Wally Morics claimed such a sell-off could bring half a billion dollars in revenue to the city upfront, which needless to say politicians would have figured out ways to spend long before a century was up.
Mayor Tom Barrett and the Common Council ultimately rejected the idea that never should have been taken seriously.
But ever since Gov. Scott Walker and Republicans seized total control of state government, they’ve been hell bent on repealing political reforms that have given Wisconsin a progressive reputation nationally.
You know, good government practices invented here such as merit hiring under civil service and independent government watchdogs policing corruption.
The ultimate dream of Wisconsin Republicans is to return to the days of unregulated industrial profiteering and government corruption that gave rise to many of our state’s most important democratic reforms in the first place.
The final straw was the rampant corruption in the early 1900s under Milwaukee Mayor David Rose, who profited from houses of prostitution half a block from City Hall that he publicly championed for turning Milwaukee into a lively city.
It helped usher in squeaky clean, nationally recognized good government under Democratic Socialist Milwaukee mayors and progressive Republican Gov. “Fighting Bob” La Follette.
The last thing we should ever consider repealing are public protections for safe, clean, affordable drinking water at a time when we see it threatened around the country by negligent politicians and private profiteering.
