Privatization of public water, sewer services systems could be fast-tracked under N.J. bill
Trenton voters were given the opportunity to sell the city’s water system to a private company in 2010. The $80 million sale was defeated in a 4-to-1 landslide.
At Tuesday’s polls, hundreds of voters in tiny Sussex Borough overwhelmingly rejected a similar sale of their public system to private hands, while Haddonfield in Camden County solidly approved selling its deteriorating system to New Jersey American Water.
But such direct public mandate on water and sewer sales may become a thing of the past, as a bill in the Legislatures allowing public entities to fast-track selling water and sewer systems that serve millions advances this fall.
The sponsors of the “Water Infrastructure Protection Act” say it’s a way to get desperately-needed investment into water systems that have been neglected to the breaking point by government owners. The bill’s opponents warn that it’s an attempt to turn private profits of public infrastructure at the expense of taxpayers – who themselves will end up paying for the purchase prices with each flush of the toilet.
https://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/11/public_would_no_longer_get_vote_on_selling_water_sewer_systems_under_advancing_nj_bill.html#incart_river
