The water company in Lexington, KY, is for sale. However, its owner (RWE/American Water, the third largest water corporation in the world) refuses to sell it to one potential buyer – the users.

Lexington utilities were sold to RWE in January 2002. Dissatisfied with company performance and private ownership, Bluegrass FLOW, or Bluegrass For Local Ownership of Water, and LUV, Let Us Vote Lexington, began organizing to regain local control. Other local groups including Kentuckians for the Commonwealth and the Sierra Club also joined the movement for local control.

Led by former Kentucky Governor Ned Breathitt, Jr. (who passed away on Oct. 13, 2003) and other prominent Lexingtonians, the groups have organized phone banks, neighborhood walks and rallies to build support for local ownership. However, Kentucky American water has been spending big to battle their efforts every step of the way.

In 2003, Bluegrass FLOW persuaded the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council to begin the process of bringing the water system under local, public control. However, soon after the proceedings began, RWE helped elect new council members sympathetic to the company, who ended the move towards local ownership.

Not easily silenced, in the summer of 2005, LUV volunteers collected over 26,000 signatures to get the issue on the ballot in November. RWE sued in an attempt to stop residents from voting on control of their water. Though the vote was cancelled, absentee ballots already received went 77-22 in favor of local ownership. No wonder the water company wanted to cancel the election!

RWE dropped the case against Lexington in early 2006, allowing the issue to go on the ballot in November 2006, when it would be one of many other issues on the ballot, including new council members and a new mayors. Pouring at least $2.71 million into stopping the movement for local control — and sending the CEO of American Water, Don Correll, to knock on doors asking for votes — the water company defeated the ballot measure on Nov. 7, 2006. Local analysis of the vote conceded that American Water’s well-financed ability to stoke popular sentiment against the use of eminent domain helped the company steer the issue away from local ownership to defeat the referendum.

“The extraordinary amount of money that Kentucky American had to throw into it helped frame the issue as 'Are you for or against condemnation ... and eminent domain?’” rather than local ownership, Alan Stein, president of minor league baseball team the Lexington Legends and husband of state Rep. Kathy Stein (she supports Bluegrass FLOW), told the Lexington Herald-Leader after the vote.

But proving that the book has not yet closed on this issue, a majority of council members were voted in on a platform of supporting local ownership of water. Bluegrass FLOW continues to monitor Kentucky-American Water and work with members of the County Council.