“It shouldn’t take a crisis like the spread of coronavirus to restore people’s right to drinking water.” By Andrea Germanos, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 3-9-2020 Progressives heaped praise on grassroots activists in Detroit on Monday after the Michigan city announced, amid the spread of the coronavirus, it was temporarily restoring water services to […]
“Civil and political rights must encompass the human right to water, which is increasingly under threat by corporations that seek to use and abuse our water supplies for profit.” By Andrea Germanos, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 1-14-2019 When it comes to ensuring the human right to clean water, the United States has a long way […]
A recent study predicts that in the next five years, more than one-third of Americans will not be able to afford their water. By Zenobia Jeffries. Published 4-11-2017 by YES! Magazine Each day, Catherine Caldwell hauls three gallons of bottled water to her bathroom and two to her kitchen. She and her family use the water […]
Six months ago, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) announced that it would start shutting off services to households and businesses with delinquent accounts. We’ve written occasionally about what’s been happening between the DWSD and the people of Detroit, and we thought that we knew the background leading up to the shutoffs. However, we appear to […]
By now, everybody’s probably heard of how thousands of homes in Detroit who were behind on their water bills have had their water shut off. If you follow us, you’re probably more informed than most on the matter, as we’ve run three pieces recently on the DWSD and how the shutoffs are impacting Detroit residents. As […]
We’ve talked about the water crisis in Detroit before; first when a coalition of activists filed an appeal with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation over the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD)’s cutting of water and sewer services to thousands of households, and again when a United Nations team […]
Meanwhile, research suggests Flint crisis ‘is not an isolated incident of poor public policies endangering the health of residents living in economically distressed communities.’ By Andrea Germanos and Deirdre Fulton, staff writers for Common Dreams. Published 1-22-2016 Experts are voicing strong disagreement with Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, who on Friday tried to argue that the […]
When I read about some group appealing to the United Nations to correct a human rights violation, my natural tendency is to think that it’s about something happening in some other country than the U.S. But, a story that appeared yesterday taught me once again not to make assumptions. On June 18, a coalition of activists […]