While the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department has been busy hiring private contractors to shut off over 300,000 poor people’s water in the midst of this summer, many are asking why. The Great Lakes constitute 20% of the entire world’s freshwater. Water could not be more abundant near Detroit.
Now, activists from around the world are calling the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department’s shut offs a violation of basic human rights.
Many activists have joined together and have lodged a formal complaints with the United Nations.
The report that was filed last Wednesday with the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation, says that that the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department has attempted “to sweeten the pot for a private investor” to take over Detroit’s heavily-indebted water and sewer system. This, they allege, is part of Detroit’s broader filing for bankruptcy.
Since March of this year, nearly 50 percent of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department’s 323,900 accounts were delinquent. That totals $175 million in unpaid water bills.
The city claims that everybody is getting cut off who is $150 or 60 days in arrears. But some of the biggest corporate clients are the most in debt and they are not being cut off.
More Related Articles
Source Article from http://politicalblindspot.com/15th-of-the-worlds-freshwater-why-are-they-shutting-it-off-in-detroit/
Views: 0