Our friend and colleague from Chicago, Gary Wilson.
Commentary
By Gary Wilson
“You can’t stay in your house, turn on the water and think everything is alright. It isn’t.”
That was Maureen Taylor speaking at a recent Healing Our Waters coalition meeting in Detroit. The topic was privatization of water and its potential to impact everyone, not just thousands of poor people who have had their water shut off in Detroit.
Taylor chairs the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, a group that fights for the rights of public assistance recipients and low-income workers. Access to water is a key part of their mission.
The Michigan Messenger reported that in 2007 as many as “45,000 Detroit households suffered water shutoffs… many were homes to people who could not afford to pay their water bills.” A consequence is that families with children in a home without water may have their children sent to foster homes.
“Get off the sidelines and engage”
Outsourcing the water service to a private company has been seen as a potential solution to Detroit’s declining water revenues, though this is generally thought to lead to higher prices.
Taylor’s message to the assembled environmentalists: Get off the sidelines and engage.
She said private companies want Great Lakes “gold” (water) for profit and challenged the group to “join more aggressively in the fight against privatization.”
Water privatization is a broad term that refers to the private sector taking responsibility for sales, management and distribution of water, which has been typically the responsibility of government. Historically, the powerful Great Lakes environmental groups — National Wildlife Federation, Alliance for the Great Lakes and others — have not made water privatization a priority.
Why? Good question.
My guess is that they see it as an issue but a low priority. Or they are loathe to publicly challenge corporations. Some may even see privatization as a good thing as long as the water is clean and accessible.
Believe what you see, not what you’re told
Cameron Davis, the EPA’s point man on Great Lakes issues often says that groups in the region know how to talk to each 
other. They use a certain correct communication style that encourages collaboration which can lead to good outcomes. Nothing wrong with that.
But the downside of that style is that the message is self-moderated when at times it shouldn’t be. The tough questions don’t get asked or answered because we’re concerned about being seen as collaborative, which comes at the expense of candor.
With that in mind, Taylor is a breath of fresh air.
She has the requisite politeness when she speaks and is certainly professional. But she dispenses with non-meaning niceties and elitist phrases that sound impressive but don’t mean much. Taylor focuses on results, not process.
She gets to the point: Don’t believe what politicians, corporations or even what Taylor herself tells you. See for yourself what’s going on, then take action.
The result was arguably the most passionate and thought-provoking presentation one will see at a policy-wonkish gathering.
The most powerful and poignant part of Taylor’s talk was when she referenced Nestle’s water venture in Mecosta, Mich. After a years-long legal battle with local citizens, Nestle was allowed to take water that Taylor referred to as “our water” for their bottled water business.
She didn’t stop there, saying ‘this is one of the biggest thefts we’ve ever seen.”
Interestingly, many of the groups in her audience stayed on the sidelines while Mecosta citizens, funded by bake sales, battled Nestle in court.
Maureen Taylor protesting water shutoffs in Detroit. Photo: Michigan Welfare Rights Organization
And worse, these same groups looked the other way as the bottled water loophole was allowed to remain in the Great Lakes Compact. That loophole allows Nestle and others to ship water outside the Great Lakes basin as long as it’s in containers less than 5.7 gallons. The loophole was created for one industry, bottled water.
What remains is that in a state virtually surrounded by water, thousands of poor and low income citizens are at risk to be denied access to it because it isn’t affordable to them.
Yet a corporation is allowed to mine, sell and export water for a substantial profit.
This is wrong and it’s not more complex than that.
Access to clean water is a fundamental human right according to a United Nations resolution passed in 2010.
What will we do to protect those at risk families and kids? Taylor provides a start point.
“You can’t stay in your house, turn on the water and think everything is alright. It isn’t.”