Desperate calls for help from the United Nations aren’t just for war-torn and developing nations anymore. The city of Detroit—a city that has been on the brink in many ways—in an effort to balance its books, has begun shutting off water access to city residents behind on their payments. While that may seem like what happens to anyone when they don’t pay their bills, Detroit is a unique case—nearly half of the 323,900 residents who use the utility are delinquent, according to the Detroit Free Press. To make matters worse, Al Jazeera America reports, Detroit’s average monthly water bill is nearly double the national average of $40. The Detroit City Council approved a 9 percent hike last week.
In response, a coalition of activist groups in the city have appealed to the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights for relief. Here’s what they’re hoping for via Think Progress:
“We are asking the UN special rapporteur to make clear to the U.S. government that it has violated the human right to water,” said Maude Barlow, the National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians and a key member of the coalition that put the report together. In addition to creating international pressure to stop the Detroit shutoffs, Barlow said, the UN’s intervention could lead to formal consequences for the United States. “If the US government does not respond appropriately this will also impact their Universal Periodic Review,” she said, “when they stand before the Human Rights Council to have their [human rights] record evaluated.”
Earlier this year, to balance the department’s $118 million debt, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department deployed crews to with the aim to cut some 3,000 residents’ access to the water supply each week as part of an effort to shut off water to more than 150,000 delinquent customers, according to the Detroit Free Press.
Detroit City Council approves 8.7% water rate increase
he Detroit City Council this morning approved new water and sewerage rates that are expected to increase Detroiters' water bills by more than $5 per month. / Eric Seals/Detroit Free Press
The Detroit City Council this approved new water and sewerage rates that are expected to increase Detroiters’ water bills by more than $5 per month.
Detroit Water and Sewerage Department officials who proposed the increase have said more money is needed to provide repairs to the aging water system. Thousands of residents who are delinquent on their bills also contributed to the funding gap, officials said.
The council held two votes to set the rates — one for water services and the second for sewerage. Each measure passed by a 6-2 vote, with Council President Pro Tem George Cushingberry Jr. and Councilwoman Mary Sheffield voting “no” both times. Councilwoman Raquel Castaneda-Lopez was absent.
The average Detroit resident currently pays $64.99 per month for water and sewer charges, according to the department’s presentation at a public hearing last week. The rate hike will increase the average monthly bill, effective July 1, to $70.67 — an 8.7% increase.
Council President Brenda Jones, who has opposed water rate increases in the past, said the system needs repairs.
■ Editorial: What we’d lose by privatizing Detroit’s water system
“I do realize that in order to get the repairs done to our system, it’s going to take a lot of money to get those repairs because our system is very old,” Jones said.
Cushingberry said he voted “no” because he hadn’t reviewed the water department’s capital improvement plan.
“I can’t vote for it at this point,” he said. “I need more time to study.”
The DWSD Board of Water Commissioners already has approved wholesale rates for its suburban customers, and individual municipalities are deciding how those rates will affect suburban residents.
The plan to increase rates comes as the water department faces public criticism for its efforts to shut off water service for delinquent customers.
The water department announced in March it was resuming efforts to shut off water service to more than 150,000 delinquent customers in order to collect about $118 million in outstanding bills. The department said it would target customers whose bills are more than two months late and would shut off about 3,000 customers a week.
In April, the department sent out about 44,200 shutoff notices and cut off water to 3,025 properties, including residential and commercial dwellings. The DWSD shut off 4,531 accounts in May.
Sheffield, who also voted against the rate increases, said she wants to see how the collection efforts play out.
“I don’t feel that residents should have to bear the burden of an increase right now,” she said.
Meanwhile, the future management of the water department is uncertain.
Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr is exploring privatization of the DWSD while negotiations continue with suburban county officials to create a regional water authority. Orr is reviewing bids to privatize the department, and the selection process is expected to be finished this month.
Black Families in Detroit Appeal for U.N. Help After City Cuts Off Water
Black Families in Detroit Appeal for U.N. Help After City Cuts Off Water
"This is the worst violation of the human right to water I have ever seen outside of the worst slums in the poorest countries in failed states of the global South,” said Maude Barlow, founder of the Blue Planet Project.
Thousands of families in Detroit, mostly black, have had their water cut off because they can't afford to pay water rates that are nearly double the average in the rest of the country.
In March, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department announced that it would shut off water service for 1,500 to 3,000 customers every week if their water bills were not paid. Clearly not understanding the root of the problem, the City Council just last week approved an 8.7-percent water rate increase.
According to the Detroit Free Press, the average water bill is $75, nearly double the average of $40 nationwide.
The DWSD says that more than 80,000 residences, in a city with a population of 680,000, are in arrears on their water bills. According to CBS, that means nearly half of Detroit families can't pay for their water.
The DWSD hasn't said how many have been cut off, but it numbers in the thousands, according to activist groups like the Blue Planet Project, which have appealed to the United Nations to step in to ease the "humanitarian crisis."
Blue Planet and several other groups have sent a letter to Catarina de Albuquerque, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation, urging the United Nations to become involved and stop the city of Detroit from continuing to shut off water.
The Detroit People’s Water Board, the Blue Planet Project, the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization and Food and Water Watch have also made appeals to the state of Michigan and the federal government.
There are thousands of families, including those with sick and elderly members, who cannot bathe, cook or even flush their toilets, Barlow said. "This is unprecedented," she added.
Fox25 in Oklahoma City reported that sources in the city claimed the reason for the 119 percent increase in rates at the root of the situation include a decline of 75 percent of federal assistance for water infrastructure since the 1970s, leading to aging infrastructure that has not been replaced, and stricter water standards that require expensive new systems and technology to meet.
So in a word, 40-plus years of liberalism.
Liberal politics have led Detroit to a poverty rate of 40 percent, a water system that is failing faster than the circulatory system in a 400-pound mayonnaise factory taste tester, and ultimately a decision to squeeze the last drop of blood out of the poor and drop the carcasses like flies in a spider's web.
And what is the solution proposed?
Have the United Nations take over an American City. ...
Let that sink in a moment.
I have great sympathy for the citizens of Detroit who have had their water turned off. I think they have been used as pawns in a game they're probably not even aware of, and they desperately need help from their fellow Americans. Whatever responsibility individuals may have for their situation, I don't believe in kicking people when they are in great need.
However it may appear that this situation is the result of a long chain of stupid behaviors on the part of Detroit officials and the voters who put them in office, something just doesn't sit right.
I can't prove it, but I believe that somebody somewhere planned for this outcome, leading finally to an excellent excuse for the U.N. to put its foot in America's door (or other aperture, if you prefer).
With the Central American invasion at our southern border, could this be the thing that leads to a different kind of invasion, starting at our northern flank?
The Obama Administration seems completely inadequate to the task of stopping the southern border crisis, if indeed it isn't the cause of it, as many suspect.
How likely is King Putt to intervene in Detroit?
Suppose for a moment that the U.N. steps in and essentially takes legal control of Detroit. What happens when it decides that the southern border looks like a humanitarian crisis it should intervene in, too?
Then imagine a protest against the U.N. inside our country being put down by some of those heavily armed police departments and federal agencies Obama has been beefing up. Any violence could be another excuse for the U.N. to take control of police assets in select cities. ...
If the U.N. sets foot in Detroit, then it's time to take all bets off the table.
Read more at http://godfatherpolitics.com/16014/black-families-detroit-appeal-u-n-help-city-cuts-water/#Ie8GhP2sch83y7Kv.99
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