TFTT Report

In the run-up to the 2015 World Water Forum, the Transnational Institute, along with four other organizations, released a report titled “Our public water future: The global experience with remunicipalization.”

The authors claim their report details the “growing waves of cities and communities worldwide” that are choosing to remunicipalize their water systems. However, the report manipulates data, misrepresents facts, and clearly misunderstands fundamental elements of the private water industry in the United States.

Throughout the 131-page report, there are plenty of so-called “facts” that just don’t add up.Here is the fourth way TNI’s report gets it wrong when it comes to water system in the U.S. Read the 4 other ways in our blog.

4. THE REPORT GETS BASIC, FUNDAMENTAL FACTS ABOUT U.S. WATER PRIVATIZATION WRONG.

Inaccurate statements about private water management illustrate the authors’ fundamental lack of understanding of how the private water industry functions in the U.S. For instance, the report mistakenly identifies public-private partnerships, including concessions and lease contracts, and water privatization as “one and the same thing.” While both the public-private partnership model and private utility model (“regulated private utility”) provide local communities with important options for meeting their water needs, key differences exist between them and they are most certainly not “one and the same.”

In the majority of public-private partnerships, the public sector retains ownership of the system’s assets and hires a private company to operate the system. Where the public-private partnership model aligns with regulated private water delivery is in how they interface with municipal operations, regular reviews and approvals of water rates by a public authority, and state and federal water quality compliance requirements. And, in all of these models, the water itself remains a public good. It’s impossible to take this report seriously when it gets such basic facts wrong.