In this article from the Asbury Park Press (by Dustin Racioppi) today, you can read about the abrupt request for voluntary water rationing in Monmouth County. Did you realize that the population here has risen substantially in the last 100 years? Who knew? :
APP reports on water rationing
MARTHA REEVES AND THE VANDELLAS (Martha, we forgive you, because you are hot!)
Oh come on, this is just wrong on so many levels! This is the same company/corporation that left an Irene damaged/unrepaired sewer pipe spanning a reservoir so it could break for good during Sandy! It’s been a very wet Winter and Spring and we can look forward to restrictions? To borrow from the Bard, ‘Something is rotten in Monmouth’.
I believe government should be stronger in areas where the private for-profit sector has not proven to deliver goods to all the people — like water and electricity — but less active in areas where government just gets in the way. Here, government needs to be more active. The private sector can’t seem to handle these important public services. Time for more government action — in this particular area.
Should I laugh or cry? It has rained a lot this spring, including recently, and it has been unusally cool. We had a wet winter too. There is simply no way that there is any shortage of water. Further, my water rate fee has increased by OVER 120% in the last 11 years. I now pay more than double what I did for the SAME WATER SERVICE.
Where did these massive rate increases go? Where did all the water from the winter and spring go?
My hypothesis: The water company is incompetent and wasteful. They have squandered (or given to shareholders) their massive rate increases (probably >$ 1 billion) and have little to show for it. They want to conserve water now because they know that sometime this summer their poorly maintained system will fail and they want to cover their posteriors.