In 1989 the Thatcher government privatised the water industry. As a result it is
now in the hands of a small number of private companies. ---- In 2020 thesecompanies were reported as having paid out a staggering £57 billion in dividendsto their shareholders between 1991 and 2019, averaging £2 billion a year. Thesecompanies are being run purely for profit whilst they refrain from investing ininfrastructure, leading to massive leaks. In addition, they have failed to buildany new reservoirs in the last three decades. ---- When Thatcher privatisedwater, she wiped out the massive debt they owed before privatisation wascomplete. Since then, they have once again gone into debt by billions. They havepaid out these huge dividends to shareholders whilst massively increasing waterbills. At the same time the executives of these water companies have awardedthemselves huge bonuses.One company, Wessex Water, had to pay out £35,000 for a repair bill after itfailed to maintain a sewer main leading to a burst in a national nature reservein Dorset. In 2021 it had to report five serious water pollution incidents. Hugeislands of shit were reported by swimmers in Somerset's rivers earlier this year.One would have expected that Wessex Water would have suffered because of this.But instead, Mohammed Saddiq, the executive director of operations at WessexWater, was appointed as the new Lord-Lieutenant for Somerset!In fact water companies poured raw sewage into rivers and the sea more than200,000 times in England in 2020. According to a House of Commons report watercompanies are responsible for 36% of pollution in English rivers. Water companieswere responsible for dumping raw sewage more than 400,000 times over a period of3.1 million hours in 2020.Thames Water was compelled to admit that it loses as much as 600 million litresof water a day in leakages, almost a quarter of what it collects. Other watercompanies who have failed to reach targets for cutting back on water leakages areNorthumbrian Water, South West Water, Southern Water and Affinity Water. All inall, the water companies lose 3 billion litres a day, according to the NationalAudit Office.In the borough of Islington, in north London, on 8th August at the height of thedrought, a water main burst in Hornsey Road. Around 50 properties were damaged,four people had to be rescued, a sports centre had to be closed because offlooding, and thousands of households were left with no water. Six postal areaswere affected.Feargal Sharkey, former lead singer for the Undertones, who now campaigns aroundwater issues, tweeted: "Now you know what decades of underinvestment looks like.Hornsey Road, London, N7 at 8:30 this morning. Wouldn't that be right @thameswater."Thames Water was responsible for two separate floods in Islington due to waterleakages in 2016.Later in August, in Wolverhampton, Severn Trent Water was slow to respond to amassive leak, even though its reservoir was only 58% full. The chief executive ofSevern Trent Water, Liv Garfield, is the highest paid water boss, earning morethan £17.3 million since 2014.Instead of investing in repairs and renovation of infrastructure, the watercompanies would rather inflict hosepipe bans on ordinary people.The water companies need to be booted out of water supply which should besocialised under the control of water workers and those who it supplies. This canonly come about through a social revolution, one which is increasingly becomingan urgent necessity.https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2022/08/22/water-water-everywhere/_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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