privitizing your water

EVLIVING.COM … Phoenix Opens Sixth Water Treatment Plant ... May 08 , 2007 by Editor … excerpted .
Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, Vice Mayor Dave Siebert, and Councilmember Claude Mattox celebrated the opening of the Lake Pleasant Water Treatment Plant at a brief ceremony Monday. The new plant will provide high quality, reliable drinking water to Phoenix customers for decades to come.According to Mayor Gordon, “Phoenix has taken a leadership role in the water treatment industry by building the Lake Pleasant Plant, which features an array of advanced technologies to treat the water to meet or surpass a multitude of regulatory requirements.”The new plant incorporates the most modern, multi-barrier treatment technology, which also will help control taste and odor.“One of the great benefits of this plant is the ability to provide an additional water source for all Phoenix customers,” said Phoenix City Councilmember Claude Mattox, who chairs the city’s Land Use and Environmental and Natural Resources Subcommittee. “Lake Pleasant can supplement the city’s other five water treatment plants and ensure that water keeps flowing to Phoenix taps.”Initial capacity of the Lake Pleasant Plant is 80 mgd (million gallons per day) with the ability to expand to 320 mgd.Extensive use of indigenous materials connects the natural and human environments at the Lake Pleasant Plant. Native plants were preserved during construction and replanted to help the water treatment plant blend into the surrounding environment.The project required the coordination of more than a dozen government agencies, including the Arizona State Land Department, Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Arizona Department of Environmental Quality and Maricopa County. It also is the first water treatment plant where Phoenix partnered with American Water to design, construct and operate the facility.

This action by your Phoenix City Council permits “corporate” America to “privatize” the source and treatment of your water. . . . !

And this agreement, like many was entered into, with the smooth layer of “butter” to sanitize it as meeting all the provisions of open-meeting laws, and legal disclosure to the citizens of Phoenix.

This agreement, however, does not provide for any “third” party oversight by “we” – that’s you and/or me – and in fact we were excluded from the negotiating table.

Why, because “we” choose to believe they have the authority or power and “we” do not. The reality is the reverse, “we” – that’s you and me – possess all the power, “we” have been educated to believe and see it differently.

Interestingly one needs to read this entire excerpt to find the salient notation this facility is owned, controlled, operated (for profit) by “corporate” investor owned interest$.

Governmental agencies noted in this article are puppets of “corporations” and subject to their vested interests.

I don’t see your name (John Q. Public/Arizona Citizens) on the list as players in this project. Why not . . .?

“We” – that’s you and me – do not believe we are entitled or authorized to have input into this or any project affecting our air or our water. The reality is “we” hold the power and grant it to government to serve and protect our interest, not the interests of “corporation$” “We” will have a seat at this and all negotiating tables only when “we” collectively choose to exercise the power that genuinely resides with us.

The choice is solely and individually yours to exercise.