'The issue of whether water should be a commodity or part of the commons raises the question of what kind of future we want.'
© US Uncut
Detroit residents on Thursday launched a direct action to halt the city's mass shut-off of water to thousands of households, physically blocking a private corporation from turning off the tap.
Carrying a banner that read "Stop the Water Shut-offs," ten city residents nonviolently obstructed the entrance to Homrich Inc. - the private company that was handed a $5.6 million deal from the city to shut off water services to residences that are behind on their bills, according to the protest organizers. They were surrounded during the civil disobedience by a crowd of over 40 supporters chanting "If the water don't flow, the trucks don't go."
The protesters held the entrance for more than an hour and a half before all ten were arrested, Bill Wylie-Kellermann, a Detroit pastor who was among the arrestees, told
Common Dreams. "We feel that it's really time to intensify and escalate the resistance to the water shutoffs and emergency management," Wylie-Kellermann declared.
The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) announced in June that it is escalating its disconnections of water services to residences that have fallen behind on their bills to 3,000 a month. In a city devastated by unemployment and foreclosure crises,
nearly half of all residents are unable to pay, and the city's
continual increase in water rates is not helping. Thousands of people have already had their water turned off, including many who were disconnected long before this June escalation, and tens of thousands more are next.
Concerned organizations
say that the shut-offs have so far unleashed a human rights crisis that devastates low-income communities of color. UN experts agree: in response to a
complaint from a coalition of organizations, a UN panel
condemned the city last month for violating the "human right to water," with the UN expert on the right to adequate housing warning the shut-offs "may be discriminatory" against African Americans.
Sarah Coffey of the
People's Water Board and Water Rights Hotline put it succinctly to in an interview with
Common Dreams: "The only reason they are getting away with this is because this is a majority black city."
According to Coffey, the disconnections are likely part of a plan, driven by emergency manager Kevyn Orr, to get rid of bad debt in order to privatize the DWSD. Orr's rush to declare bankruptcy for the city, impose austerity, and gut public services including schools - all backed by republican Governor Rick Snyder - has left many residents convinced the water shut-offs are just one more step in a plan to displace Detroit communities and gentrify the city.Coffey said that the Thursday morning protest was met with a "spirit of solidarity" from supporters yet violence from the police, who injured two of the arrestees, who hail from organizations including the People's Water Board,
Michigan Welfare Rights,
Detroiters Resisting Emergency Management, and the
Detroit Water Brigade. All of those arrested have since been released.
This is not the first protest of its kind in Detroit. Wylie-Kellermann credited Charity Hicks, long-time Detroit organizer for food, water, and racial justice, for 'sparking' the protest and said the action was "in her honor." Hicks, who
passed away this week, was
arrested this spring for resisting the shut-off of her home's water.
Wylie-Kellermann said he is hopeful mass protests will grow from here, including a J
uly 18 rally expected by organizers to draw thousands of people from across the state and country. "We are hoping this is really just the first step in a series of nonviolent direct actions that intensify and broaden the resistance," he said.
According to Coffey, the outcome of the struggle for the "human right to water" has broad implications because "Wall Street is using Detroit to create a blueprint for future cities." Coffey added, "The issue of whether water should be a commodity or part of the commons raises the question of what kind of future we want."
The Detroit Water Brigade released a video of the Thursday's protest:
Reader Comments
"Sarah Coffey of the People's Water Board and Water Rights Hotline put it succinctly to in an interview with Common Dreams: 'The only reason they are getting away with this is because this is a majority black city.'"
The reason it is a majority black city is because under Democratic and Union control the taxes and high wages extorted from the auto industry both the industry and many white workers left for greener pastures. The Democrat in power keep increasing the pension of their employees until they had to declare bankruptcy.
But back in 2011 “House Bill 4112 would effectively strip the city of Detroit of its authority over the Detroit Water and Sewage Department,” Santana said. “I want everyone to be very clear that I am 100 percent against any takeover of our water system. The water system dates back to 1827. Detroit has supplied affordable and clean water to 127 communities throughout Southeast Michigan over the span of 183 years.”
Detroit's black Democratic politicians fought this, and had the bill killed for they say it as a cash cow becouse it provided water not just to Detroit but to 127 neighboring Southeastern Michigan communities throughout Wayne, Oakland, Macomb St. Clair, Lapeer, Genesee, Washtenaw and Monroe counties. However, as events worked out they are losing this once reliable sources of revenue, the contracts of those communities for the city's water supply.
For example the city of Flint has joined with Genesee County and others to build a $300 million pipeline parallel to an existing one to get water directly from the lake, cutting out the Motor City. For Detroit, Flint's decision means losing its second-biggest customer and drying out an already-depleted revenue sheet has forced it to do something to collect all the pass due bills and their bills have to be paid, like its payroll with more than 1,700 employees, though a federal judge in November approved a plan calling for creditors to reduce the county's roughly $3 billion debt from sewer construction by about half and for the county to issue nearly $1.8 billion in new debt while raising sewer rates annually, that money has to be raised from those who use the water it provides.
have taken that 5 million applied it toward bills and kept the water on. Jerks.