Press Releases: Water Utility

Media Statement: The looming sequestration cuts will have a profound effect on one of our very most important resources—water. Municipal water supplies already face severe budget challenges, underfunded to the tune of about $30 billion a year.

Media Statement: Nassau County’s selection of United Water to run its sewer system is one that the county will ultimately regret. Just ask the community of Gary, Indiana, where United Water Services is currently facing felony charges for violating the Clean Water Act and conspiring to defraud the federal government by misrepresenting the way it complies with wastewater treatment standards.

Media Statement: “Yesterday’s ministerial statement, while shrouded in happy language about the right to water, was a step backwards for water justice and the UN process that has begun to enforce the human right to water. The forum document, like the forum itself, is illegitimate because it presupposes that corporations have a role in democratic water governance, when nothing could be further from the truth. The entire event itself is a corporate tradeshow parading as a multilateral forum.

Media Statement: We commend New Jersey Senator Dawn Marie Addiego, Assemblyman Scott Rudder and Assemblyman Chris Brown for introducing bi-partisan legislation to oppose New Jersey American Water’s unnecessary and costly rate hike for its customers. The concurrent resolutions demands that the Ratepayer Advocate, an independent State agency, seek water rate decreases to the tune of $45 on behalf of consumers rather than the $99 million increase proposed by NJ American Water.

Solving the tragedy of almost 900 million people around the globe lacking access to safe water, and 2.6 billion lacking access to sanitation requires innovative solutions to fixing inadequate and underfunded infrastructure. A new report released today by the national consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch highlights how public-public partnerships have successfully and inexpensively provided these critical resources to communities around the globe.

“President Obama’s budget for fiscal year 2013 delivers yet another blow to our nation’s critical drinking and clean water resources, and further undermines the EPA’s ability to ensure that all Americans have access to safe, clean, affordable water.

Media Statement: Today the U.S. House of Representatives is expected to approve a fiscal year 2012 omnibus appropriations bill that would cut a combined $101 million from the State Revolving Funds (SRFs), the mechanism by which the federal government dispenses funds for the upkeep of our tap water and sewage systems.

Press Release: New analysis by national consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch finds that Illinois’s largest private water utilities are earning profits of as much as $18 million dollars a year, while raising rates for consumers by as much as 23 percent