Detroit's Water War: a tap shut-off that could impact 300,000 people
Source: The Guardian
"It was six in the morning when city contractors showed up unannounced at Charity Hicks' house.
Since spring, up to 3000 Detroit households per week have been getting their water shut-off – for owing as little as $150 or two months in bills. Now it was the turn of Charity's block – and the contractor wouldn't stand to wait an hour for her pregnant neighbour to fill up some jugs.
"Where's your water termination notice?" Charity demanded, after staggering to the contractor's truck. A widely-respected African-American community leader, she has been at the forefront of campaigns to ensure Detroiters' right to public, accessible water.
The contractor's answer was to drive away, knocking Charity over and injuring her leg. Two white policemen soon arrived – not to take her report, but to arrest her. Mocking Charity for questioning the water shut-offs, they brought her to jail, where she spent two days before being released without charge.
Welcome to Detroit's water war – in which upward of 150,000 customers, late on bills that have increased 119 percent in the last decade, are now threatened with shut-offs. Local activists estimate this could impact nearly half of Detroit's mostly poor and black population – between 200,000 and 300,000 people.
"There are people who can't cook, can't clean, people coming off surgery who can't wash. This is an affront to human dignity," Charity said in an interview with Kate Levy. To make matters worse, children risk being taken by welfare authorities from any home without running water.
Denying water to thousands, as a sweltering summer approaches, might be bad enough in itself. But these shut-offs are no mere exercise in cost-recovery.
The official rationale for the water shut-downs – the Detroit Water Department's need to recoup millions – collapses on inspection. Detroit's high-end golf club, the Red Wing's hockey arena, the Ford football stadium, and more than half of the city's commercial and industrial users are also owing – a sum totalling $30 million. But no contractors have showed up on their doorstep."
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2014/jun/25/detroits-water-war-a-tap-shut-off-that-could-impact-300000-people
When will the United Nations Step In? Michigan is surrounded by the LARGEST BODY of Water in the entire United States of America. By land mass, the State's Water Accessibility is only matched by Ocean fronts. Darn shame as the temperatures in later June/Early July to come are averaging 80-90 degrees a day, plus smoking humidity, folks are living without water.
Crying shame. Oh, and please don't tell me this is a case of folks just choosing not to pay their bills as the water rates on average over a 10 year period has SKYROCKET 119% plus another 8.7% increase approved by Detroit City Council just last month.
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The official rationale for the water shut-downs – the Detroit Water Department's need to recoup millions – collapses on inspection. Detroit's high-end golf club, the Red Wing's hockey arena, the Ford football stadium, and more than half of the city's commercial and industrial users are also owing – a sum totalling $30 million. But no contractors have showed up on their doorstep.
The targetting of Detroit families is about something else. It is a ruthless case of the shock doctrine – the exploitation of natural or unnatural shocks of crisis to push through pro-corporate policies that couldn't happen in any other circumstance.
"GENEVA (25 June 2014) – Three UN experts* on the human rights to water and sanitation, adequate housing, and extreme poverty and human rights expressed concern Wednesday about reports of widespread water disconnections in the US city of Detroit of households unable to pay water bills. “Disconnection of water services because of failure to pay due to lack of means constitutes a violation of the human right to water and other international human rights,” the experts said.
“Disconnections due to non-payment are only permissible if it can be shown that the resident is able to pay but is not paying. In other words, when there is genuine inability to pay, human rights simply forbids disconnections,” said Catarina de Albuquerque, the expert on the human right to water and sanitation.
The experts have been informed that a large-scale water shut-off for non-payment is happening in the City of Detroit, Michigan. The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department has been disconnecting water services from households which have not paid bills for two months, and has accelerated the process since early June, with the number of disconnections rising to around 3,000 customers per week. As a result, some 30,000 households are expected to be disconnected from water services over the next few months.
Because of a high poverty rate and a high unemployment rate, relatively expensive water bills in Detroit are unaffordable for a significant portion of the population.
Leilani Farha, the expert on the right to adequate housing, expressed concern that children are being removed by social services from their families and homes because, without access to water, their housing is no longer considered adequate. “If these water disconnections disproportionately affect African Americans they may be discriminatory, in violation of treaties the US has ratified,” Farha added.
“When I conducted an official country mission to the US in 2011, I encouraged the US Government to adopt a federal minimum standard on affordability for water and sanitation and a standard to provide protection against disconnections for vulnerable groups and people living in poverty. I also urged the Government to ensure due process guarantees in relation to water disconnection,” said de Albuquerque, renewing her call to the federal Government to take action.
According to international human rights law, it is the State’s obligation to provide urgent measures, including financial assistance, to ensure access to essential water and sanitation. “The households which suffered unjustified disconnections must be immediately reconnected,” the experts said."
Read More: http://detroitwaterbrigade.org/un-response-detroit-disconnecting-water-people-pay-affront-human-rights-say-un-experts/
And yes -- believe it or not, Detroit is in the United States of America.
and dominated (Both Newspapers -- The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press are owned by one Corporate Master -- Garrett) are covering this important story:
"A coalition of welfare rights groups is appealing to the United Nations to assist Detroit residents in battling the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department over water shut-offs for delinquent bills.
In an eight-page report submitted this month to the Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation, the groups including the Detroit People’s Water Board, Michigan Welfare Rights Organization and Blue Planet Project say they are “outraged” about the alleged violation of human rights to water and are calling on authorities to restore service and stop further cutoffs.
The groups are calling the situation a “massive human rights atrocity” and pleading with the federal and state government to work with the bankrupt city to establish a fair and sustainable rate structure.
“The case of water cutoffs in the City of Detroit speaks to the deep racial divides and intractable economic and social inequality in access to services within the United States,” the report says, adding the shut-offs are a “last-ditch attempt” to make up for lost revenue.
“The burden of paying for city services has fallen onto the residents who have stayed within the economically depressed city, most of whom are African-American.”
Water department officials deny the allegations.
“The accusation that they’re making that we are targeting poor customers in massive shut-offs is not true,” said Curtrise Garner, a department spokeswoman. “We are seeking payments for our delinquent water and sewerage accounts. It’s consistent but it’s not massive.”
In March, the utility announced it was starting a campaign to target tens of thousands of Detroiters with balances more than $150 overdue or more than two months behind on their payments. Of the nearly 324,000 Detroit water and sewerage accounts, half are overdue.
Darryl Latimer, the department’s deputy director, said in March the department was preparing for up to 3,000 shut-offs a week, employing up to 20 additional contractor crews.
The company put out 46,000 shut-off notices this spring. But shut-offs, so far, have totaled about 4,500, Garner said Tuesday. The goal is to get people to begin paying their overdue accounts, she added.
Last week, the City Council approved an 8.7 percent hike in water and sewer rates for Detroit customers.
The 6-2 approval is expected to aid the ailing water system in covering capital costs. The rate is higher than the average of 4 percent for the systems suburban customers and result, in part, from the increasing number of uncollected bills, the water department has said."
From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140624/METRO01/306240106#ixzz35iRLHpxu
Yet the customers they are cutting off are indeed Poor and no follow up question to quote was asked by the Corporate Owned Lock, Stock and Barrel Detroit Media.... 
The protest was great and Chris Hayes aired this story on MSNBC this evening 
We can't feed homeless people, but boy have we got BALLPARKS!!!! 
As people are forced out of their homes due to lack of water, Snyder cronies buy them up on the cheap. 
