Flint Residents Choice: Pay for Your Poison or Have Water Shut Off
I can't wrap my brain around this. I pay about $45 a month. This woman barely uses her water.
https://rewire.news/article/2017/02/14/flint-residents-choice-pay-for-poison-have-water-shut-off/
Flint Residents’ Choice: ‘Pay for Your Poison’ or Have Water Shut Off
Feb 14, 2017, 10:35am
Auditi Guha
Flint residents already pay the highest water rates in the country. Residents paid $864.32 yearly for 60,000 gallons of water in 2015, almost three times the national average.
Mary Huddleston walked into Flint City Hall on Friday to dispute a water bill that had jumped from $257 to $1,070 in a month.
“I panicked because I can’t pay this,” said the 76-year-old widow and longtime Flint, Michigan resident, one of many who has struggled since dangerous levels of lead were first found in the city’s drinking water almost three years ago.
Huddleston told Rewire she lives alone, is too old to move out of her home, and that her children and grandchildren won’t visit because of the dirty water. She takes a quick shower once a week and washes her clothes once a month. The rest of the time she depends on the bottled water the city has provided.
“I don’t feel very good about it,” she said. “And now I have this bill.”
City officials told Huddleston she was billed estimated amounts because they don’t have enough employees to do meter readings. A $914 jump is too much for a retired person, she said.
“I just think they are taking advantage of the elderly on top of everything else,” Huddleston told activists who were coincidentally rallying in the lobby that afternoon for clean water.
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https://rewire.news/article/2017/02/14/flint-residents-choice-pay-for-poison-have-water-shut-off/
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