Deep Questions Arise Over Portland's Corporate Water Takeover

[marmar]

Deep Questions Arise Over Portland's Corporate Water Takeover

Wednesday, 07 January 2015 09:22
By Victoria Collier, Truthout | News Analysis


A simmering water war is about to come to a boil over the fate of historic, well-loved public reservoirs in Portland, Oregon. At the heart of the controversy is a breakdown in public trust that reflects the dangers of corporate-led water privatization schemes in the United States and around the world.

In an emotionally charged public meeting on November 18, 2014, Portland residents bombarded two of their city commissioners with questions about what they believe is a cronyism-driven plan to kill the elegant, gravity-fed, open water reservoir system that has reliably served their city safe, clean drinking water for more than 100 years.

The plan to disconnect the five Mt. Tabor and Mt. Washington reservoirs and replace them with costly covered reservoirs was triggered by a 2006 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ruling - called LT2 - mandating the protection of public water against a lethal parasite, Cryptosporidium.

.....(snip).....

Meanwhile, the City of Portland is racing to move forward with its development project, even while under fire of increasingly uncomfortable allegations.

Most troubling are charges of decades of revolving-door cronyism surrounding Joe Glicker, a vice president of CH2M Hill, the company awarded the contracts to build the new covered reservoirs for Portland. Not only was Glicker a former chief engineer of the Portland Water Bureau (PWB), he also worked as a core consultant with the EPA to write the very LT2 rules that now require these massive "emergency" water infrastructure projects. It's a conflict of interest that has local water rights advocates' heads spinning and steaming all at once. ........................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/28390-deep-questions-arise-over-portland-s-corporate-water-takeover

[marmar]

1. Shameless self-kick

[former9thward]

2. Grew up in Portland.

Best water I have ever tasted and I have lived in several major cities. This EPA regulation is a solution looking for a problem. The Portland water is clean and there have been no problems. That said, Portland has done some silly things in recent years. A couple times they have drained entire reservoirs because some mope was seen pissing in the reservoir. There is NO public health science behind that. Birds and animals piss and shit in there all the time. There is no problem with that because of the enormous amount of water and it is treated before it gets to the tap.

Has anybody drank out of a mountain stream? Guess what? No end of fish, birds and animals pissing and shitting in those. Yet, you don't get sick. Amazing! By foolishly draining the reservoirs the water department has fed into the stupid theory these reservoirs must be covered. A total waste of money. Although I still visit Portland once a year I have been out of there for a long time so I don't know about the corporate stuff.

[djean111]

3. I do believe that ALEC-like groups have got public utilities all over the United States in their

sights. And foreign groups - or any corporation having an office outside of the United States - may be able to privatize utilities and do what they want as far as price-gouging and deferred or tax-payer paid maintenance, due to agreements like the TPP and TTIP.

[HereSince1628]

4. Cryptosporidium is filterable...seems good filtering would be cheaper

Notwithstanding the historic epidemic outbreak in Milwaukee resulted from mistakes in maintenance of filter beds...resulting in 69 deaths of people, most of whom were immune-compromised in one way or another.

Cryptosporidium is very common in its occurrence and it infects intestines of deer as well as livestock...between 44-60% of WI dairy-farmers, who rather closely work with cattle manure, show sero-positivity indicating an infection history.

No one talks about it as being especially lethal to farmers.

[xchrom]

5. du rec.