Pennsylvania community halts largest sewer privatisation deal in US history

[cbabe]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/08/pennsylvania-water-sewer-system-privatisation-fails

Pennsylvania community halts largest sewer privatisation deal in US history

A community in Pennsylvania has stopped the privatisation of its public water and sewer system, scuppering a corporate takeover that residents feared would have led to higher bills.

A $1.1bn bid by Aqua for the Bucks County Water and Sewer Authority (BCWSA) system would have been the largest sewer privatisation deal in American history. The company’s bid for the water service has already failed, but now the county commissioners have shut the door completely after siding with residents who opposed privatisation.

It’s a major victory for local and national campaigners opposed to the predatory takeover of public services like water and sewerage, as a growing number – like in Jackson, Mississippi – are buckling under climate shocks after years of neglect, institutional racism and underinvestment.

“Following years of lobbying, corporate interests have passed state laws that grease the wheels on privatisation – at the expense of households and local businesses who pick up the tab of their greed,” said Mary Grant, the right to water campaign director at Food and Water Watch (FWW), who called the Bucks victory a “rallying cry”.

“Corporate interests now seek to exploit the devastation in Black and brown communities like Baltimore and Jackson. [But] privatisation would exacerbate the harm by extracting resources and driving up water bills for communities already in an affordability crisis,” Grant said.

Local circumstances differ, but the privatisation playbook is often the same.

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