Politics

National Geo: Water Shutoffs Show Detroit's Ineptitude, Generosity and Innovation

August 22, 2014, 10:07 AM

National Geographic brings the Detroit water crisis to its international audience in an article that summarizes the municipal ineptitude and human misery behind the emergency, but also the hope and innovation -- and even the history of water shutoffs in Detroit.

Bill Mitchell writes:

Nearly 19,500 Detroiters have had their water service interrupted since March 1. The Water and Sewerage Department, under pressure to reduce more than $90 million in bad debt, ordered shutoffs for customers who owed at least $150 or had fallen at least two months behind on their bills. The decision to take such drastic measures, done with little warning, ignited a controversy that prompted protests and arrests, more bad publicity for the struggling city, global dismay, and a warning from the United Nations...

...Now, although Detroit was founded on a river, draws its name from a French word for "strait," and lies between two of the Great Lakes, water has become scarce for some of its poorest residents. With more than 40 percent of Detroiters living in poverty, the highest big-city rate in the nation, scraping together the money for something as basic as water can be a struggle unfamiliar to most American households.

Neighbors across the street and people across the nation—and even across the border in Canada—stepped in to help, in some cases creating organizations to assist residents who were not being helped by their own city.

Mitchell, a former Free Press reporter and editor and a founder of Detroit143, the new startup that covers southwest Detroit, discovered that city officials have dealt with bill-paying problems for much of its history.

As the city entered its second century in the early 1800s, the population of 2,000 was still getting its water in buckets and barrels hauled from the Detroit River by hand and two-wheeled carts. Horse-powered pumps and pipes made of hollowed-out logs took their place.

It wasn't too long after the city began delivering water to people's homes that it also started turning it off. This ad appeared in Detroit newspapers on April 10, 1845:

PAY YOUR WATER TAXES—Every man and woman who does not pay up by Monday … will be reported to the Council, and the water in every case shut off. I am not joking.
— Morgan Bates, City Collector


Read more:  National Geographic


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