American cities hiring private companies to manage water supplies

Across the USA, 94 percent of water systems are publicly controlled and most are owned or run by municipalities. But
privatisation is on the way.

Over the last five years, hundreds of American communities including Indianapolis, Milwaukee and Gary, Indiana., have hired private companies to manage their waterworks serving about one in 20 Americans.

The number of publicly owned systems operating under long-term contracts by private companies has increased to about 1,100 from about 400 in 1997.

The main reason for privatisation is that cities are facing enormous costs to repair aging pipes, treatment plants and other infrastructure.

Federal officials say the total cost of repairs could outstrip current spending by about $500 billion in the next 20 years.

Utilities hope that partnerships with private companies will generate savings and provide access to capital that would help them cope with such large bills.

Some federal estimates of the need for new spending on municipal water systems have reached as high as $1 trillion over the next 20 years.

Privatisation advocates are concerned that the recent collapse of a water system privatisation deal in Atlanta will be used by opponents to derail such efforts in other cities. Indeed, the interest group Public Citizen has already begun citing the incident in its opposition arguments.

However, Adrian Moore, a privatisation advocate at the Reason Institute, says that the main reason for the Atlanta collapse is that cities and private companies need to be realistic about what a partnership can achieve.

Source: Douglas Jahel, As Cities Move to Privatise Water, Atlanta Steps Back, New York Times, February 10, 2003.

For text http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/10/national/10WATE.html
For more on State and Local Issues http://www.ncpa.org/iss/sta/

FMF Policy Bulletin\11 February 2003

Publish date: 20 February 2003
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The views expressed in the article are the author’s and are not necessarily shared by the members of the Foundation. This article may be republished without prior consent but with acknowledgement to the author.

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