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PITTSBURGH, Pa.—In a state where far more people get their drinking water from private companies than the national average, Pittsburgh voters will decide this month whether to ensure their water and sewer service remains publicly owned and operated.
The referendum, on the ballot as part of the May 20 mayoral primary elections, would amend the city charter so Pittsburgh Water could not be sold.
State laws that incentivize privatization help explain why one in three Pennsylvanians are served by private water companies, compared to around one in 10 across the country, according to the advocacy group Food & Water Watch. On average, private water companies charge 59 percent more for water service than public systems, the group found in a 2021 analysis that compared large systems—and the difference was even higher in Pennsylvania.
“The harms of privatization are many,” said Mary Grant, Public Water for All campaign director at Food and Water Watch. “The key one is that you lose local control over an asset that’s essential for public health and well being.”
All nine members of the City Council voted in support of including the referendum on the May ballot. Members of the current Pittsburgh Water board have said they intend to remain publicly owned, but proponents of the ballot measure want to make sure the utility can’t change course down the road.
“We really should protect water as a public resource rather than allowing it to become a commodity for profit,” said Brooke Christy, an Equal Justice Works fellow at Fair Shake, a Pittsburgh nonprofit law firm that supports the referendum.
Privatization in the state increased significantly after 2016, when Act 12 passed—a law that allows companies to offer more money to cities for their water and sewer assets than they’re actually worth. Those increased costs can then get passed on to customers, Grant said. Systems privatized since Act 12 have won rate increases of 45 percent to 167 percent, according to testimony last year by the head of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission.
Water and sewer systems, the type of local infrastructure that most residents don’t think about unless something goes wrong, are increasingly feeling the consequences of climate change. Among the problems some communities are facing now and many more will have to grapple with in the future: flooding that overwhelms sewage systems, sea level rise encroaching on treatment plants, wildfires taking systems offline and contaminating water supplies and massive storms and hurricanes that wipe out infrastructure.
“We really should protect water as a public resource rather than allowing it to become a commodity for profit,” said Brooke Christy, an Equal Justice Works fellow at Fair Shake, a Pittsburgh nonprofit law firm that supports the referendum.
“These are increasingly difficult challenges for municipalities to deal with, and sometimes really costly,” said Neil Dhot, executive director at AquaFed, which represents 400 private water operators around the world. Dhot has seen some cities and towns choose to contract with private companies to access skilled expertise and more workers.
While Dhot doesn’t deny that costs have been shown to increase when private companies are brought in, he said that’s because they’re tasked with making upgrades that municipalities couldn’t do on their own. Building a new water treatment plant, for example, requires extra funds.
But contracting with a private company is different than a total sale of all assets—the key thing Pittsburgh activists are trying to prevent. In the latter case, a company owns and manages all operations with the goal of turning a profit. Unlike a public utility, such companies are not managed by local authorities, which residents fear will lead to rate hikes and less transparency around operations.
Water Quality a Concern
For some of the residents pressing to ensure the Pittsburgh system remains public, the concern is water quality, not just rates. In 2016, after Pittsburgh Water had contracted with water company Veolia to manage the authority for three years, around 20 percent of sites tested for lead contamination in the city exceeded safety standards.
Pittsburgh Water sued Veolia, blaming the company for changing chemicals in the water treatment plant that protect against lead corrosion. Veolia, which filed a defamation claim against the authority, said Pittsburgh Water was responsible for the chemical change and cited the city’s aging infrastructure and previous history of lead problems.
In a 2018 settlement, Veolia dropped the defamation claim and paid $5 million to Pittsburgh Water and $500,000 to a community organization that helps customers pay their water and sewer bills.
READ: The Corporate Tactics Driving Pennsylvania’s Water Wars
Gabby Gray, an organizer with the Our Water Campaign at Pittsburgh United, first learned of the lead contamination during a trip to Family Dollar in 2016.
“There was no water on the shelves,” she said. A cashier was hiding two cases of water to bring home to her kids, but agreed to sell one to Gray.
Gray has since gotten her water line replaced, but she still doesn’t drink from the tap.
She worries that if Pittsburgh Water chooses to sell, “transparency and accountability will completely vanish.” Since the lead crisis, she’s seen a significant improvement in public involvement in the water authority, including a Community Lead Response Advisory Committee and a collaborative effort to develop a Stormwater Strategic Plan. Those spaces for community advocacy, Gray fears, “would not exist if Pittsburgh Water became privatized.”
State laws that incentivize privatization help explain why one in three Pennsylvanians are served by private water companies, compared to around one in 10 across the country, according to the advocacy group Food & Water Watch.
Lead contamination is an ongoing risk in the city. Pittsburgh Water aims to replace all residential lead lines in the system by 2027. At the end of last year, the authority replaced its 12,000th lead service line.
But future replacements and maintenance will depend heavily on federal funding. The Biden-era Bipartisan Infrastructure Law earmarked $50 billion for upgrading water and sewage systems across the country. That fund is going to run out next year, “so we really need a renewed commitment to safe water for all across the country,” Food and Water Watch’s Grant said.
Massachusetts officials reported in March that they haven’t received more than $50 million in lead service line replacement grant money from EPA. The Trump administration has also proposed to slash EPA’s overall budget by more than half, including a nearly $2.5 billion cut to low-cost financing for communities’ water and sewer infrastructure.
The EPA did not answer a question from Inside Climate News about whether budget cuts will affect lead pipe replacement programs. “EPA is committed to its mission to public health and ensuring safe drinking water by providing support for states, tribes, communities and water systems across the country,” the agency said instead in an email.
Surveys from the EPA put the cost of upgrading drinking water, wastewater and stormwater systems over the next 20 years at $1.3 trillion.
“Public financing is the lowest-cost way to make these improvements to water systems,” Grant said. “At the end of the day, it’s about maintaining those public services so that they can benefit everyone, because every person deserves affordable access to water.”
