NPR: A Water Crisis Is Growing In A Place You'd Least Expect It

[China]

A Water Crisis Is Growing In A Place You'd Least Expect It

 

For months, Rev. Falicia Campbell kept a secret from her congregation, her friends and even her adult children. It was a secret she was ashamed to divulge: She was living without running water.

 

Like a growing number of Americans, the 63-year-old Chicago resident couldn't afford to pay her rising water bills. She inherited her mother's house in Englewood, a poor neighborhood on the city's South Side, and last year received a $5,000 bill.

 

Campbell is partially blind and lives on a fixed income from disability payments. She dedicates most of her time to helping her community. Her church includes a resource center that provides food and shelter for poor and homeless people.

 

She couldn't pay off her water debt, and in August her water was turned off. The Chicago water department offered her a payment plan but required a more than $1,700 deposit before restoring her water. She didn't have it.

 

Here she was living a few miles from Lake Michigan, one of the largest sources of fresh water in the world, and she didn't have running water in her house. Without it, her daily life became a struggle.

 

Campbell is a victim of a growing American water crisis. In cities across the country, the cost of water has spiked in recent years, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to perilously endure weeks or even months without an essential resource.

 

The crisis is especially acute where you would least expect it – the Great Lakes, the region of the country with the most abundant fresh water.

 

A nine-month investigation by APM Reports examined the cost of water in six large cities near the Great Lakes – Chicago, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Detroit, Buffalo and Duluth – over the past 10 years and found that rates have risen alarmingly fast. In Chicago, the cost of water for the average family of four nearly tripled between 2007 and 2018. Cleveland's rates more than doubled – to $1,317 per year for an average family of four. And families in Detroit paid an astounding $1,151 annually. By contrast, that same average family living in Phoenix, which pipes in much of its water from 300 miles away and has been called the least-sustainable city in the country, paid about two-thirds less.

 

Many cities have been forced to raise rates to deal with decrepit infrastructure – leaking, cracking water pipes that in some places date to the 19th century. With the federal government allocating less money for water infrastructure, most cities have foisted the bill on to their customers, especially those who can least afford it.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[TheGreatBuzz]

The thought of having a water bill is completely foreign to me.  Guess that is one more reason I'll never live in a city.

[China]

After reading the article, it is more of an infrastructure problem (the cost of replacing old infrastructure) than a water crisis.

[bearrock]

Is it infrastructure week yet?  I was hoping infrastructure investment could finally get done under GOP presidenct and Congress, but alas, no dice apparently.

[twa]

59 minutes ago, China said:

After reading the article, it is more of an infrastructure problem (the cost of replacing old infrastructure) than a water crisis.

 

yep and one partly driven by the clean water acts.......green ain't free