Chris Christie just privatized New Jersey's water. Good luck with that, New Jersey.

[forest444]

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has been sitting on a bill that would cut out citizens from the decision process concerning whether or not their drinking water is privatized. Wait no longer, New Jersey. Yesterday, the Garden State’s AWOL governor signed the ironically named “Water Infrastructure Protection Act” - the irony being that it protects water from the people who drink it but not from being obliterated by private interests.

The Water Infrastructure Protection Act, which purportedly aims to address aging infrastructure, allows for fast-tracking of sales of municipal water systems to private entities. Among the sponsors of the measure, which passed the state legislature in December, was Senator Joe Kyrillos (R-Monmouth).

After the biggest environmental disaster in state history, the governor didn’t mention the environment in his budget address Tuesday and he proposes a budget that takes away funding for people impacted by Hurricane Sandy. The governor is putting $40 million toward Sandy recovery; but his cuts to programs that would benefit rebuilding efforts are six times that amount.

Indeed, Christie's strategy was to cut funding to infrastructure - and then cry about how the infrastructure is “aging.” What’s even worse is that Christie has budgeted out the environmental protections needed if New Jersey hopes to be able to keep their waters safe.

Chris Christie, long known as an opportunist and a bully, is also a corrupt politician whose interests are solely his own edification and his desires seem to revolve mostly around getting to hug wealthy NFL owners in their luxury box suites, and purchase gratuitous amounts of sweets and snacks. This is what corruption looks like.

At: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/02/05/1480426/-Chris-Christie-just-privatized-New-Jersey-s-water-Good-luck-with-that-New-Jersey?detail=email

[Laxman]

1. It's Not Quite That Simple...

and far be it for me to defend Christie, but the majority of municipalities that have "public" water systems are already getting their water from private companies. New Jersey American, United Water, Aqua America and Middlesex Water all cover most of the state. There are very large geographic areas (small in population) that get their water from their own private on-site wells. There are still a couple of small municipal water systems owned by the taxpayers, but they have largely gone by the wayside. The big exception is Newark which has huge holdings of water supplies akin to the New York City reservoir system, albeit on a somewhat smaller scale. The watershed and the water utility are/were managed separately from one another. The Newark Watershed Conservation and Development Corporation was a rat's nest of corruption (that may yet come back to haunt Corey Booker). The city's water infrastructure is in woeful condition for a city of Newark's size. Estimates are that the water system needs nearly $500 million in repairs over the next 10 years.

The bigger issue is the complete lack of investment in sewer and water infrastructure in the state. The number of existing Combined Sewer Outflows in the urban communities is scandalous. The aging water systems are disasters waiting to happen. New Jersey has not updated its water master plan in decades-a recipe for disaster in a place where development threatens the state's water supply.

In too many parts of the state, our water-supply and wastewater infrastructure have not been maintained properly for decades. We have been unwilling to force the issue, either locally or statewide. The priority has been and in many places remains keeping current costs down, no matter what the long-term costs. Let there be no doubt. Most of the costs for maintaining our water utilities will be borne by their customers. http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/16/02/07/opinion-let-flint-strike-sparks-to-address-water-supply-problems-in-nj/

This is a much larger issues than just the ownership of the utilities.