Water to be turned off in Detroit!

[Wrabbit2000]

Wow. I don't know what else to say. This strikes me as the ultimate text book case of following the law over the top of and right through destroying the spirit that created it all in the first place.

For those who haven't followed along with this, Detroit has been in dire straights for a long time now. It was compounded and really entered a death spiral for area economics after the virtual collapse of American car manufacturing for that area. Car producers have recovered marginally, but the area that once hosted them with pride has not shared in anything like recovery. In fact, they are facing a new and potentially lethal threat now. 3rd world sanitary conditions by the removal of potable water.

DETROIT (AP) — The judge overseeing Detroit's bankruptcy refused Monday to stop the city from shutting off water if people can't pay their bill, saying there's no right to water and the law doesn't give him the power to keep the taps open anyway.

Judge Steven Rhodes gave critics of the shutoffs a two-day hearing last week. He said their arguments were "interesting and creative" but couldn't trump the legal standard under bankruptcy law or constitutional law — or the potential harm to Detroit's perilous finances.

"Detroit cannot afford any revenue slippage," the judge said.

"It cannot be doubted that water is a necessary ingredient to sustaining life," said Rhodes, but that doesn't mean "there is an enforceable right to free and affordable water."

(emphasis added)


Is it just me or does anyone else see the highlighted sections as forming mutually exclusive priorities here? I can't believe what I am hearing for logic though, and especially from a court openly stating the dire need water represents to the basic foundation of life.

Mayor Mike Duggan responded by offering a two-year payment plan, starting with a 10 percent down payment, for people weeks behind on bills of more than $150. Roughly 30,000 customers now are enrolled.

Source

It wouldn't be fair not to include the offer for payment plans. It also wouldn't be fair to list it without reminding people that the failure to maintain payment plans on such debts as these bills have become, is what CREATED this mess. So, assigning a new version of what has proven an abject failure in the past, over a Judge's order that there is no safety net left to cover those who fail again, means worse times are likely coming, IMO.

Now I understand that utilities in this nation operate in such a way as to require profit for continued operation. It's wrong and it borders on evil in my personal opinion, where it deals with services required to sustain life (water, power, and heat). However, that is the system we have and it's what we have to deal with.

So, I can't say I have an easy answer for Detroit. I don't believe there IS one. Falling back to tweak and then repeat the failures of the past will insure new failures for the future though, and this time? They will come in an environment that has 0 margins for error or mistake. After all.....

The Human Body can sustain itself and maintain useful consciousness for a month and sometimes more without food. It depends on how one started when the interruption of food came. The Human Body can sustain life under any conditions for a week or less without potable water.

Now the people of Detroit are already under siege by crime, poverty at a level rarely ever seen in modern America and overall hopelessness that borders on true tragedy. Add the element of removing something to create a life threatening situation the people can see the "establishment" as entirely and solely to blame for? We don't have the conditions for unrest anymore. That came in past years. What that last factor adds is the 'special sauce' needed for the possibility of actual, open revolt.

When folks have nothing left in life, to include the hope of life itself? They have absolutely nothing left to lose in fighting, any longer. The Judge in this case should have considered that truth far more carefully, in my view.

[Ellirium113]

Sure cut off water to American citizens but give it away freely to countries that need relief from a natural disaster. What next? armed guards by the waterfront to ensure no one STEALS water from the lake?