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Why water is becoming unaffordable

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Children from Detroit, Flint and other Michigan cities march last year against unaffordable water shutoffs to low income families. This crisis continues, raises public health concerns, and will eventually affect us all. We have to stop the drive by corporate-government to privitize our water. Water must be owned publicly and distributed to all who need it.
PHOTO/VALERIE JEAN

 
“If water rates continue rising at projected amounts, the number of U.S. households unable to afford water could triple in five years, to nearly 36 percent, finds new research by a Michigan State University scholar.” This process is actually moving forward quite rapidly as corporations wage an all out effort to privatize—that is, privately own—the public’s water. We are seeing the outcome of corporate influence over public resources throughout the country. The whole city of Flint was poisoned by an unelected governor-appointed corporate dictator who changed the water to a polluted source to set the basis for its privitization. The people of Appalachia are dying of cancer from the toxic water and air resulting from the corporate drive for profit of the coal industry. Thousands protested the DAPL pipeline that threatened the water and land at Standing Rock. Now we are seeing the full scale unleashing of the energy corporations and environmental regulations throughout the country. Our only hope is to build a powerful movement that demands that the government work for the people, not the corporations. The government must guarantee clean, safe, affordable water and energy for everyone as a basic human right.

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