'Third World' conditions in US city as poor cut off from water supply

[pmaitra]

'Third World' conditions in US city as poor cut off from water supply

14 December 2011 | BBC News

Wall Street banks stand to lose millions of dollars from the financial collapse of Jefferson County, Alabama.


But the real victims of the biggest municipal bankruptcy in American history may be the county's poorest residents - forced to bathe in bottled water and use portable toilets after being cut off from the mains supply.


A new sewer system, which has been under construction since 1996, was meant to cost about $300m - but the cost soared to more than $3.1bn due to construction problems, rampant political corruption and a series of debt and derivative deals that went sour.


For many years, the soaring sewer rates bill hit the poorest parts of the county hardest, as better-off people in the suburbs installed septic tanks at their properties.


Sheila Tyson, a community activist in the deprived West End area of Birmingham, told the BBC how her community has been affected.

Source and Video: BBC News - 'Third World' conditions in US city as poor cut off from water supply

 

[W.G.Ewald]

For some time now BBC and Brit newspapers do more reporting, usually negative, about the USA than about their own country. I'm sure there is some logical reason for it.

 

[The Messiah]

For some time now BBC and Brit newspapers do more reporting, usually negative, about the USA than about their own country. I'm sure there is some logical reason for it.

BBC has been negatively reporting India for decades now and also the other major newspapers.

 

[pmaitra]

For some time now BBC and Brit newspapers do more reporting, usually negative, about the USA than about their own country. I'm sure there is some logical reason for it.

BBC has been negatively reporting India for decades now and also the other major newspapers.

If you don't have this holier than thou attitude, you are not British. They like to pretend to be philanthropists and still haven't gotten over the shock of having lost their empire.

 

[asianobserve]

Some imgaes from New York in the 1970s:

 

[pmaitra]

^^

NYC isn't significantly better now.

North Carolina is a dream place, very clean, nice and courteous people, pedestrians and motorists who follow the rules and lots and lots of greenery, forests, landscaping, meadows, brooks, hills.

 

[agentperry]

when you go up you become clean, when you go down, you are untouchable.
cleanliness coming from those who's queen bathed less than a dozen times in her whole life.
from a country that had plague killing whole of the continent that too at the time of rise and global rule.
from a country that still dont wash hand after toilet( 87% is the figure. blackwater you still interested in brit girls offering you some time)

 

[W.G.Ewald]

But the real victims of the biggest municipal bankruptcy in American history may be the county's poorest residents - forced to bathe in bottled water and use portable toilets after being cut off from the mains supply.


A new sewer system, which has been under construction since 1996, was meant to cost about $300m - but the cost soared to more than $3.1bn due to construction problems, rampant political corruption and a series of debt and derivative deals that went sour.


For many years, the soaring sewer rates bill hit the poorest parts of the county hardest, as better-off people in the suburbs installed septic tanks at their properties.

Wastewater treatment plants are built with US EPA federal grant money. I don't see why Jefferson County backruptcy has anything to do with it. But I don't have time to refute every bogus story from BBC.