Recent coverage about hexavalent chromium (also known as chromium 6) in some of our nation’s water supplies vilified the wrong institutions: our municipal water utilities. The real culprits are the industries that dump this and other pollutants into our drinking water sources, and the elected officials who are short-shortsightedly failing to fund our drinking and waste water systems.

I repeat: tap water and the public agencies that provide it are not the enemy.

A vital resource, tap water is sometimes taken for granted until something goes wrong. Unfortunately, this lax attention often starts at the federal level, where not enough money is allocated for modernizing and maintaining public drinking water systems, and a blind eye is often turned to the ways in which industries are allowed to exploit and pollute them. READ FULL POST

Can you imagine having your water billed by Chevron or Exxon? All right, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch. But we often talk about water becoming the new oil in this century and, right now, there are a few big companies jockeying for position to take over public resources like water. Would you tolerate a monopoly takeover of your tap water?

It’s actually been happening for a while now, only it’s not always making headlines. Financial institutions like J.P. Morgan and the Carlyle Group are trying to buy up water companies and the already large water corporations like Aqua America, Inc., and American Water are collaborating to expand their stronghold in key markets. All of these private entities are positioning themselves to heartily profit from the commodification of water. READ FULL POST