In 1801, the city of Philadelphia became the first municipality in the United States to establish a publicly financed water system. The following year, Pittsburgh established its water system. A century later, Pennsylvania passed its first Clean Water Act. In 1971, a year before the federal Clean Water Act passed Pennsylvanians overwhelmingly ratified the Environmental Rights Amendment to their state constitution. “The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic, and esthetic values of the environment,” the Amendment states. “[A]s trustee of these resources, the commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people.”

That rich history would seem to make Pennsylvania an unlikely laboratory for water privatization schemes. And yet, privatization efforts that began in the middle of the 19th Century have spread and, since the dawn of the 21st Century, accelerated rapidly. Pennsylvania is now a key battleground in the fight over control of water resources. How did that happen?

The story is told in In the Public Interest’s new research report, “Water Wars in Pennsylvania: How Corporations Play the Long Game,” a look at the methods and manners by which those corporations first took hold of legislatures and utility commissions to pass legislation and regulations that cleared the way for taking hold of the water source.

The fact that Pennsylvania went from a commonwealth so dedicated to the protection of water that it embedded it in its constitution, to ground zero in privatization efforts, makes it both a case study and a cautionary tale. Well-capitalized corporations could approach cash-strapped municipalities eager to balance books with a big check—a one-time infusion—but the sell-offs placed these communities forever at the mercy of companies always thirsty to wring out more dollars from the deal.

But, with its stories of consumer and resident victories in a number of eastern Pennsylvania communities, “Water Wars” can also serve as a how-to, providing a path forward to those who want to halt the privatization of water and sewer systems, and keep public goods and services in public hands.

“The goal of this report,” its introduction states, “is to expose the political and acquisition strategies that private water companies employ so residents, advocates, and policymakers can successfully push back and keep their water safe, affordable, and under public control.”

We believe this report will be enlightening for anyone wishing to learn how corporations win when they play the long game, and indispensable for activists and advocates to identify those efforts and create their own strategies to defeat them. As this report shows, the advocates for the public can win, too.

 

READ THE FULL REPORT HERE