I’ve never believed privatization magically fixes things. Here’s an example why:
The Milford Water Co. was fined $50,000 yesterday and agreed to upgrade its operations after the state Department of Environmental Protection found that the company had misled regulators and had failed to conform with regulations for years leading up to last summer’s 13-day drinking water ban.
Milford residents were forced to boil their tap water or buy bottled water in August after routine tests conducted by the privately run water company found elevated levels of coliform and E. coli bacteria. State environmental officials stepped in to investigate when the water crisis dragged on for 13 days.
In a consent order released yesterday, the DEP said that in 2007 Milford Water Co. officials had reported that the town’s Congress Street water tank had been cleaned and inspected in 2006. Breaches in that tank, along with other deficiencies in the company’s distribution lines, were identified by environmental officials as the likely culprits behind last summer’s bacterial outbreak.
A review of the company’s maintenance records by the DEP revealed that no inspection had been done on the Congress Street tank in 2006 and that there was no record to indicate that an inspection had been done in the five years prior to the contamination. The DEP recommends yearly inspections.
From where I sit, giving a monopoly to a private company takes away any transparency or recourse the victimscustomers had. If this were a public utility, they would be subject to full review and heads would be rolling. Instead, they get a $50k slap on the wrist.
The truly horrible thing is they endangered the lives of the people of Milford purely to increase their profit margin.
No utilities should be in the hands of for-profit private enterprise. Not water, not electricity, not gas. Call it Socialism if you want – I don’t care about labels. These are things that government does better and cheaper than corporations do. People who complain about having to pay taxes never seem to notice how much private utilities are costing them.
Even though many self-described progressives feel the opposite.
I pay to maintain the system. Sometimes it’s cheap, sometimes you need a new $900 pressure tank and plumbing. There are options.