While much of America focused on the problems in Flint, Michigan this past year, little attention was given to the state’s largest metropolitan area and their own potential water crisis.
As early as Monday, Detroit’s Department of Water and Sewage is prepared to begin shutting off the water to 23,000 commercial and residential customers who’ve defaulted on their payments despite a broad water assistance program designed to help distressed customers work out payment plans, which resulted in hundreds of people lining up Saturday for a Water Assistance Fair.
The Motor City’s woes first gained national exposure back in October 2014 when the United Nations issued a report urging leaders to restore water services to citizens. During that time, the Water and Sewage Department had disconnected water services from households which had not paid bills for two months and dramatically sped up the process in early June of that year, with the number of disconnections rising to around 3,000 customers per week.
As a result, some 27,000 households had their water services disconnected at that point.
http://https://youtu.be/FGqDcZoNoD4
Two United Nations experts, Catarina de Alburquerque (Special Rapporteur on the human right to water and sanitation), and Leila Fahra, (Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing), both expressed concern regarding the unprecedented scale of water shut-offs taking place in the city where the most vulnerable and poorest of the city’s population were being disproportionately affected.
The Special Rapporteurs also noted that measures taken by authorities had not been of assistance to those who were chronically poor and faced water shut-offs. More specifically, the city failed to maintain any data on how many people had been living without tap water after disconnection and for how long.
Fortunately, amid strong efforts by local activists and national and international allies, the city’s emergency manager in July 2014 returned control of the Detroit Water and Sewage Department to the mayor and city council.
Residents hoped city officials would enact an affordability plan that capped a household’s water bills on the basis of income.
There was no guarantee for them, however, that this hand-off would be permanent or that it would result in affordable access to water, since Mayor Mike Duggan has a history of supporting privatization.
In 2015, the city again began cutting services by giving customers 10 business days to make arrangements to pay their bill or have their service cut off. This latest crackdown raised fears of a growing public health crisis. Thousands already were living in southeast Michigan without running water, according to the Sierra Club.
Now it’s 2016 and the same problem continues to plague the poorest of these communities. While the Republican governor deserves criticism for his handling of the Flint disaster, the Democratic mayor of Detroit should face similar judgement for his lack of commitment to finding a long-term solution to his city’s water issues.
The fact that both situations are causing harm to citizens’ physical and mental well-being demands more than just speeches and finger pointing.
Featured Image via Google Images available under a Creative Commons Attribution license
