Temporary Halt to Water Privatization a Good Start,
but KPOW wants the Plan Gone Permanently
 Constituents filed in to City Hall to pack out the Steering and Rules Committee Meeting to show aldermen their opposition to water privatization. |
Over 200 people demonstrated opposition to privatizing Milwaukee’s water works at a City Hall rally before Monday’s Steering and Rules committee meeting considered the issue. Mobilized by Milwaukee’s Keep Public Our Water—KPOW, the crowd sang, cheered and booed discussion of leasing the community’s water to a multinational corporation. Speakers emphasized that privatizing the city’s water system is not the way to solve the city’s financial problems.
Members of the KPOW coalition supported the City Council Committee action to put a temporary hold on privatizing Milwaukee’s drinking water as a step in the right direction. However, speakers at today’s City Hall rally were clear that this is not enough. According to KPOW Organizer Corinne Rosen, “We will continue to organize actively until a resolution is passed to permanently and definitively kill any proposal to privatize the city’s water system.”
The Milwaukee Common Council’s Steering & Rules Committee voted today, June 15th, to put on hold a proposal to hire an advisor to help the city solicit corporate bidders for a 99-year lease of the Milwaukee Water Works. While today’s action will temporarily stall the effort to privatize Milwaukee’s drinking water, aldermen have made it clear that the proposal may very well resurface, perhaps soon.
KPOW presented members of the Steering & Rules Committee with a petition, signed by over 500 people, calling on the Common Council to permanently withdraw the privatization proposal. KPOW is asking aldermen to pass a resolution to take the privatization of Milwaukee Water Works permanently off the table.
Jayme Montgomery Baker, member of Making Milwaukee Green Coalition and The Campaign Against Violence stated, “Milwaukee has an excellent system – the water is clean and inexpensive. This would change if it is owned by a multi-national corporation and our community cannot afford to be hit with large water fee hikes. This has happened in every city that privatized their water. In Indianapolis, the Veolia Corporation was sued for overcharging over 250,000 customers.”
KPOW is a large coalition of diverse Milwaukee-area organizations opposed to the privatization of our drinking water. The group includes environmental groups, neighborhood associations, faith-based organizations, civic activists, unions, youth and other concerned citizens.