Milwaukee Selling Water Birthright

Cain would be proud of Milwaukee! Finally someone else is selling their birthright! The beer that made Milwaukee famous - you want someone else to own the water you make beer with?

clipped from www.inthesetimes.com Activists in Milwaukee fight to keep their city’s water system in public hands. Sewer Socialism Down the Drain? Public water, one of the most important legacies of Milwaukee’s Socialist Party, which led the city almost continuously from 1910 to 1960, is now under attack from those who see a chance to convert this fundamental resource into a profit stream via privatization. Norquist and the city brought in United Water, a subsidiary of French-owned multinational Suez Environnement, promising cost savings and major benefits. Unfortunately, United Water cut staff by one-third, cut back on quality control and unleashed numerous discharges of millions of gallons of untreated sewage into Lake Michigan. The city terminated its contract with United Water but kept the system in private hands and recently turned the sewage system over to another French firm, Veolia.