Thousands without water in Detroit

[chilibrick]

Where Trick Trick at?

he told water "its a no fly zone".

 

[DJ]

Smh, I haven't had a monthly water bill over $22, and I got a pool. I can't understand people.

 

[melonpecan]

You know how some shit is prophetic? Like a dystopian Detroit where lawless bodies rule the streets alongside addicts? Where everything is so broken down that the only salvation is a corporation(s) to buy out simple city functions like water, light, the police department?

 

[BKF]

Water is free (there is a large river full of it), but purifying drinking water and processing wastewater cost money.

The Detroit Water Dept. (DWSD) has a huge aging infrastructure which puts out some of the best drinking water in the country, somebody has to maintain that system, maybe instead of dumping over a trillion dollars into Iraq the gubment could subsidize some of these U.S. cities.

Good luck with getting the republicans to go along with that plan. especially for the cities.

 

[cb71109]

I wonder how many of those 100 goons water is/could be affected by this?

 

[luukim]

 

[8/11Streetz]

Trick Trick taxing water now

 

[tallblacknyc]

ross: turn they water off so they couldn't shower and they didn't even know it, smelly pussy and dirty asses hope u goons enjoy dat and they didn't even know it

 

[Artist Monk]

 

[Artist Monk]

And if black folks go out and act a fool this give Obama opportunity to test all all his martial law occupying tactics...

 

[Breezy]

Smh, I haven't had a monthly water bill over $22, and I got a pool. I can't understand people.

Exactly , they said they cut it at 150$ . That's means they would have not paid for a good 8 to 9 months before they would cut it off .

 

[FLoss]

The article said Detroit's commercial clients represent just 7% percent of the delinquents but are responsible for almost half the debt. There are other factors and motives at work here, but BGOL sees it as everybody wanting free water. I swear niggas are some of the most gullible, self-hating clowns on earth.

 

[THE GRANDJURY]

Wonder how many affected spent a few hundred on some Jordans

 

[Artist Monk]

The article said Detroit's commercial clients represent just 7% percent of the delinquents but are responsible for almost half the debt. There are other factors and motives at work here, but BGOL sees it as everybody wanting free water. I swear niggas are some of the most gullible, self-hating clowns on earth.

To me and my paranoia, perfect scenario to test out the "create manic behavior in citizens then occupy and use excuse to landgrab and get them out on various "crimes".

 

[BKF]

Exactly , they said they cut it at 150$ . That's means they would have not paid for a good 8 to 9 months before they would cut it off .

Actually this is what they said.

"Everybody is getting cut off who is $150 or 60 days in arrears."

 

[BDR]

Damn shame

 

[thundercat]

So hundreds of niggas was at Rick Ross concert to fight him, but nobody shows up to demand this shit to stop.

 

[jivanbrahman]

they already got FREE cell phones.

Free baby milk

free food (stamps).


next will be free clothes, and TVs

I'll give it to her, it takes GUTS to go out in public like that.

 

[twiggy]

When it comes to shit like utilities that shit has to be paid period. No fucking games when it comes to that. I have taken back brand new shoes to get the bills paid, cancelled trips and at noodles to get that shit taken care of. When time were really bad I've even taken out payday loans to get that shit done. No Excuses.

The only way that I can see this being a surprise is if there was a sudden policy change say if you used to be able to go to $300 for water bills and now it's $150 i can understand being caught like that because that actually happened to me where I would pay water once every 3 or 4 months but I would pay the entire bill

the real complaint is the ones that were cutoff before the notices came, and those who were cutoff even if they had were cutoff if that was an issue. The main businesses owing that money need to pay up and they need to be given 10 days from the mailing date of that letter to pay up or be cut off. That's how it's done in the NOLA, shit I've even seen a McDonald's with the water cut off.

 

[The Jamaican]

What's the problem?

 

[Lord T]

Meanwhile most off these abandon houses have unlimited water gushing out into the streets. try and call them to turn that off, it aint happening.

Findings: 1 of 5 vacant buildings gushes with running water in Detroit

A long-abandoned factory floor on Detroit’s west side is 4 inches deep in gushing water. At the Belle Isle Nature Zoo, which closed 11 years ago, water still sprouts from a hole in the pavement like a fountain. And in the basement of a small abandoned church, water flowed so furiously from broken pipes that neighbors could hear what sounded like a raging river.

It’s a common problem throughout a city with more than 85,000 vacant buildings and not enough employees to handle the fallout of chronic abandonment.

Over the past six months, we inspected more than 100 vacant homes, schools, libraries churches, hospitals, factories and government buildings and found that roughly 20% still had running, leaking water. Even two vacant fire stations were flooded with water after thieves stole copper pipes.

Who pays for the running water? You do.

Detroit’s budget cuts have made it impossible for the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department to keep pace with water shutoffs for inactive or unpaid accounts. In just the past year, the department has shed more than 300 jobs. And more layoffs are anticipated in the near future.

No one knows for sure how many buildings are leaking water or how much it is costing customers. But one thing is certain: The city is woefully behind in shutting off water in thousands of vacant buildings.

The city continues to drain its population, leaving homes vacant for thieves and arsonists. Scrappers waste no time stealing metal pipes, causing gushing leaks that can go unaddressed for a decade.

We also found that homes destroyed in fires often spew out water for months before the utility is shut off.

Over the past two years, Stan Brown said he’s heard gushing water from the basement of his neighbor’s abandoned house on Garland Street and took us down the wobbly wooden stairs to show a knee-high pool of water that streamed from somewhere in the dark basement.

“Pretty disgusting, isn’t it?” Brown asked. “It’s no wonder people are leaving Detroit.”

DETROIT (AP) — Torrents of water spew from broken pipes in Detroit's Crosman School, cascading down stairs before pooling on the warped tile of what was once a basketball court.

No one knows how long the water has flowed through the moldy bowels of the massive building a few miles north of downtown, but Crosman has been closed since 2007. It's not the only empty structure where city water steadily fills dark basements or runs into the gutter, wasting money and creating safety hazards.

As Detroit goes through the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, the city's porous water system illustrates how some of its resources are still draining away even as it struggles to stabilize its finances and provide basic services.

More than 30,000 buildings stand vacant in neighborhoods hollowed out by Detroit's long population decline, vulnerable to metal scavengers who rip out pipes, leaving the water to flow. The city's water system has no way of tracking the leaks, and the water department doesn't have enough workers to check every structure.

"The water was running all last winter," said 32-year-old Delonda Kemp as she pointed to a vandalized two-story bungalow across from her home on Detroit's eastside. "You can actually hear it running." She says she reported the leak, but water officials say they have no record of it.

The city's five water treatment plants pump more than 600 million gallons of drinking water across Detroit's 139 square miles each day, billing residents for the volume used. But as more families moved away in recent years, often without notifying the utility, crews fell behind on shutting off unpaid accounts.

"Even after an initial shut-off, residents or squatters often bypass the meter and steal water," said Bill Johnson, a water department spokesman. "In other cases, once a house is vacated, vandals and strippers may steal the piping and meter which causes the water to run undetected."

Sometimes, the water can run for years.

In the former Douglass Academy on Detroit's east side, six feet of water fills a basement boiler room. In an empty house on Chalmers Street, a pulse of water spews every few seconds from the end of a vandalized pipe. It's been going for more than a year.

City officials say they have no idea how much is being lost.

It costs about $400 to produce a million gallons of drinking water and $800 for every million gallons that go through treatment facilities.

"The water is wasted on the front end, and second is we end up having to treat that water" all over again, said William Wolfson, the department's chief operating and compliance officer.

In a city with an estimated $18 billion debt, the department has a debt of about $5.9 billion. The water department has lost more than 400 jobs in the last few years, and one study has proposed cutting half of the 1,700 positions left.

While city crews have been demolishing vacant houses in sparsely populated areas, they haven't been able to keep up with the supply. Detroit, which once had 1.8 million people, is now down to about 700,000.

Scrappers swarm into houses shortly after the last person moves out. Wiring, copper and metal plumbing are hauled away for illegal sale to unscrupulous recyclers. Even a decorative outdoor fountain in downtown's popular Hart Plaza was turned off earlier this year after its copper pipes were stolen.

"They'll steal anything that's worth stealing," said 65-year-old Shirley Young, who lives next door to a stripped house on the east side.

Beyond the cost of the water, the flooding causes safety problems.

In the winter of 2009, the body of a homeless man was found frozen in the flooded elevator shaft of a vacant warehouse. He had apparently fallen in after a drug overdose. During the winter, water-covered streets become sheets of ice. During the hot months, the flooded basements attract vermin and breed insects.

Modern technology can help track leaks but that's an expense that Detroit, with a network of 100-year-old cast iron pipes, can't afford.

"The infrastructure is old. It's extremely expensive to replace pipes and extremely disruptive," said David Arison, vice president of Global Business Relations for Miya, an Israel-based firm that designs efficient systems for urban areas.

The easiest answer may be eliminating the abandoned buildings. Mayor-elect Mike Duggan, who takes over in January, has pledged a stepped-up demolition effort using additional federal funds.

Over the past six months, water department crews and contractors have whittled the backlog of reported leaks from about 350 to 33, said Samuel Smalley, assistant director of Detroit's Wastewater Operations Group. But that may not be as impressive as it sounds.

"Those are the ones that we know about," he said.

 

[LSN]

ross: turn they water off so they couldn't shower and they didn't even know it, smelly pussy and dirty asses hope u goons enjoy dat and they didn't even know it

that's a real boss play right there

 

[Africanama]

Water fees should be covered by taxes, water is a necessity and no one creates or manufactures it. No one should have a $400 water bill...it's water!!

This is an enormous human rights issue.

I see some enemies coming out of the closet in this thread

That's barely a $1.00/ day.

 

[callbacc]

So hundreds of niggas was at Rick Ross concert to fight him, but nobody shows up to demand this shit to stop.

No fly zone for water

 

[michigantoga]

and one of the great lakes is right there.....
welp.......water aint free.....pay your bill....
its alot of stankin ass bitches walkin around that mufucka.
#SoColdInThaD

Maybe the city of Detroit needs to be paying their own bills. Punk ass government forever asking extensions on shit they owe... The people that run Michigan & it's cities are to be ashamed of themselves... That fucking place sucks! (Michigan in general)

 

[ballscout1]

ross: turn they water off so they couldn't shower and they didn't even know it, smelly pussy and dirty asses hope u goons enjoy dat and they didn't even know it

You don't turn a lions water off You throw the lions in the water

 

[ballscout1]

Exactly , they said they cut it at 150$ . That's means they would have not paid for a good 8 to 9 months before they would cut it off .

According to the Free Press, the average Detroit water bill is now $75 a month — much higher than the nation's average rate of about $40.

do you even pay a water bill ? seriously 22 is extremely low

 

[Lord T]

What the hell?!

To make matters worse, as a cost cutting measure, the water department stopped sending bills, expecting residents to just figure out their own bills.

It then installed “smart meters” that read backwards and many families were hit with bills in the thousands of dollars. Many of these bills were from former tenants, and many included water bills from near by abandoned houses but that didn't matter to the authorities.

 

[Database Error]

You don't turn a lions water off You throw the lions in the water

Shit

 

[woodchuck]

What the hell?!

This is insane.

 

[samh32]

Water fees should be covered by taxes, water is a necessity and no one creates or manufactures it. No one should have a $400 water bill...it's water!!

This is an enormous human rights issue.

I see some enemies coming out of the closet in this thread

Water should be free?? Man ask people in the West about fines they pay if caught watering during certain times of the day/week. The States of Georgia, Alabama, and Florida have sued each other for water rights in the Chattahoochee River for over 20 years. Clean drinkable water isn't as abundant as you think..

 

[Lord T]

This is insane.

This can't be life!

So they're saying that they can save money by no longer sending a person a bill, and that they can just calculate how much water they're using on their own?!

Then installed meters that reads the previous tenants bills and puts that on the next person?!

 

[The Jamaican]

That water waste IS a problem.

 

[woodchuck]

This can't be life!

So they're saying that they can save money by no longer sending a person a bill, and that they can just calculate how much water they're using on their own?!

Then installed meters that reads the previous tenants bills and puts that on the next person?!

I've been told by many D Towners that people knew that Kwame was doing shit, but turned a blind eye to it. They said when he got gangster with the water distribution, that's when they decided to move on him. Apparently, he who controls the water, controls the power in Detroit, and other surrounding areas.

 

[Drayonis]

Smh, I haven't had a monthly water bill over $22, and I got a pool. I can't understand people.

Your light bill is $500 dollars though.