Southern Towns Try Just Killing Off All the Browns

So the places that committed treason in defense of slavery and are still proud of it are now denying basic human rights to non-whites.  Big surprise.

Think Progress:

Sixteen localities in six southern states have been restricting access to basic utility services, including gas, water, and electricity, according to nonprofit advocacy organization Project South, which sent letters to the cities Monday demanding an end to discriminatory practices like requiring U.S.-issued photo identification and social security numbers in order to receive public services.

Project South asserted that Latinx immigrants in various cities in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas, who cannot provide social security numbers and IDs have been overwhelmingly impacted by the restrictions, which have left countless residents without the basic utilities needed to live.

Not because they're not paying their bills.  Just because they are not White, and don't give me that "illegal immigrant" bullshit.  Show me Just. One. public official who is full-blooded Native American. 'Cause everybody who is NOT full-blooded Native American is a fucking immigrant.

The practice of requiring photo ID and social security numbers is not mandated by local or state law. It also violates federal laws, including the Privacy Act of 1974, which forbids the denial of government services on the basis of a person’s refusal to share their social security number, as well as the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits policies that discriminate on the basis of a number of factors, including race.

“Access to water and utilities is a human right, It’s a fundamental human right,” Shahshahani added, pointing to the fact that the United Nations Human Rights Council and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognize access to basic utilities as linked to the right to life and human dignity. “Every human being should have access to water regardless of their immigration background.”

The Next Luxury Only the RIch Can Afford is Water

Back in the 1980s, when there were tens of millions fewer people living in the Colorado River Basin, drought in the Midwest at the same time as high water levels in the Great Lakes got people talking about diverting water from the Great Lakes to the Midwest and Southwest.

At the time, Canada (which has equal rights to the Great Lakes) and the then-powerful Congress members of the Great Lakes states thundered "NO!" and that was it.

But today, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York have far less population and power than they did 30 years ago - and far, FAR less than the boom states of California, Arizona, Utah and Colorado.

I seriously doubt a push from the Southwest to steal Great Lakes water could be stopped.

As for Canada, how about this for a deal? Canada grants its Great Lakes water rights to the Southwestern U.S. in return for the right to build a dozen Keystone Pipelines right through anyplace they want.

From Zandar:

The once mighty Colorado River is nothing more than a muddy stream these days as millions of folks in southwestern states depend on it for drinking water. But climate change and population growth have put a critical strain on the river, and water rights are turning into the next great battleground between the states.

The once broad and blue river has in many places dwindled to a murky brown trickle. Reservoirs have shrunk to less than half their capacities, the canyon walls around them ringed with white mineral deposits where water once lapped. Seeking to stretch their allotments of the river, regional water agencies are recycling sewage effluent, offering rebates to tear up grass lawns and subsidizing less thirsty appliances from dishwashers to shower heads.

But many experts believe the current drought is only the harbinger of a new, drier era in which the Colorado’s flow will be substantially and permanently diminished.

Faced with the shortage, federal authorities this year will for the first time decrease the amount of water that flows into Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir, from Lake Powell 180 miles upstream. That will reduce even more the level of Lake Mead, a crucial source of water for cities from Las Vegas to Los Angeles and for millions of acres of farmland.

SNIP

The labyrinthine rules by which the seven Colorado states share the river’s water are rife with potential points of conflict. And while some states have made huge strides in conserving water — and even reducing the amount they consume — they have yet to chart a united path through shortages that could last years or even decades.

“There is no planning for a continuation of the drought we’ve had,” said one expert on the Colorado’s woes, who asked not to be identified to preserve his relationship with state officials. “There’s always been within the current planning an embedded hope that somehow, things would return to something more like normal.”

Massive drought fueled by climate change is the new "normal". Maybe when enough red states in the Mountain West and Midwest are suffering from crippling drought, the GOP legislatures that run them will do something, especially when food prices shoot up across the country as farmland bakes in the sun with no irrigation.

Nope. They'll just steamroll right over the Rust Belt, cut a tar sands deal with Canada and dust off those '80s plans to divert the largest freshwater source in the world to the desert.

Not that that will save them.

Privatizing the Stuff of Life

You can live without almost all the formerly public goods that Big Corporation now demands you pay them for: electricity, transportation, phone service, television/internet, consumer goods and even education.

You can't live without water and air. Now the motherfuckers want to find out how much you're willing to pay for the privilege of living another day.

Nicole Belle at Crooks and Liars:

Amidst the fast and furious tweets of often contradictory information regarding the manhunt for the Boston Marathon bomber, this little gem caught my eye: "Nestlé CEO wants to privatize water". Now at first I thought that the headline was merely a grabber to talk about the booming bottled water industry, but then I watched the video and realized, no this guy really thinks that it is a great virtue to be able to privatize water in the future.

Activists accuse Nestlé, the leading seller of bottled water – which accounted for nearly 8% of its total 2011 sales of 83.6bn Swiss francs (£58bn) – of being more interested in lining its own pockets through a back-door privatisation of countries' water supplies, than in saving the planet.

Last year, a documentary film, Bottled Life, accused Nestlé of extracting ground water for its bottled brands at the expense of local communities, often in poor countries. While the company refused to take part in the film, it did post online a rebuttal of the allegations.

SNIP

There's no question that global climate change and the population boom has resulted in vital resources like water being in short supply. But listen to this guy fly his Ayn Rand freak flag and ask yourself, does this sound like he's interested in protecting a resource for impoverished populations or looking to make a buck?

How long before they start charging for air?

Eat or Heat? Kentucky Gives Profitable Utilities Another Rate Increase

Private utility companies really are the absolute worst. They get monopolies so they don't have to compete on either price or service; they buy weak regulation from state legislators so the Public Service Commission is essentially required to give them rate increases; and their "customers" are really hostages, whose only "choice" is to pay the monthly ransom or go without water and electricity.

At least with public utility companies, you can vote with motherfuckers out.

The Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC) today accepted a settlement granting revenue adjustments that increase the base electric rates for customers of Kentucky Utilities Co. (KU) and the base electric and natural gas rates for customers of Louisville Gas and Electric Co. (LG&E).

The revenue adjustments are at levels agreed to by the two utilities, the Kentucky Office of Attorney General and other parties to the utilities’ rate cases, among them the Kentucky Industrial Utility Customers Inc. (KIUC), Kroger Co., the Kentucky School Boards Association and advocates for low-income consumers.

Uh, no. If they signed off on this abomination, they are not "advocates for low-income consumers." They are parties to the ass-fucking of low-income consumers.

In orders issued today, the PSC said that accepting the settlement is in the public interest because they result in a rates “consistent with those justified by our traditional rate-making analysis.” The PSC found that the rates in the settlement are fair, just and reasonable. The new rates take effect on Jan. 1, 2013.

KU, by the way, is a giant money tree for its non-Kentucky parent corporation.

Under the settlement agreement, the average monthly bill for a typical KU residential customer will increase by $5.16 (5.6 percent). A typical LG&E residential electric customer will see the average monthly bill increase by $4.25 (5 percent). The average monthly bill for an LG&E residential natural gas customer will increase by $5.57, a figure that includes a new surcharge for infrastructure improvements but does not take into account any fluctuations in the price of natural gas itself.

Five percent hike? In a year when inflation has been under two percent but unemployment over eight percent? A five percent hike for people who already have literally nothing left at the end of the month after paying rent and buying food and medicine? Why not 500 percent? The result for working people is the same.

But that's nothing compared to this little time bomb:

... does not take into account any fluctuations in the price of natural gas itself.

Translation: We'll hike your rates 10 percent, or 50 percent, or 100 percent whenever a new yacht catches our eye or just because it's fun to fuck with the poors and you can't stop us.

Because nobody knows the real price of natural gas any more than anybody knows the real price behind the roller-coaster changes at your local gas station.

But it's not like they didn't warn us.

Officials of the state's utility companies told lawmakers (in June 2011) that all Kentucky customers can expect average rate increases of 20 percent during the next five years.

John Voyles Jr., a vice president of Louisville Gas & Electric and Kentucky Utilities, told a legislative committee that a host of new Environmental Protection Agency regulations will mean upgrades and changes to the state's coal-fired power plants, resulting in increased costs to customers.

Voyles said power companies are looking at an "unprecedented number of proposed regulations" in the next four years that will require changes to comply with pollution standards.

Those would be the "unprecedented number of proposed regulations" that:

•  are the absolute bare minimum necessary to prevent thousands of premature deaths caused by air pollution from those coal-fired plants.
• will never take effect because the utility companies will use the millions of dollars they steal from ratepayers to bribe congress to block those regulations.

One lonely voice in the Kentucky General Assembly asked the right question.

But Sen. Ray Jones, D-Pikeville, questioned why statutes allow the companies to recover both capital and operating costs from customers for changes made to comply with regulations. That means they can still make a profit and pass all of the costs on to the customers.

Don't worry that Sen. Jones will make life difficult for the utilities.  Either he'll accept the bribes the utilities offer him, or his next election opponent will.

The private water companies are if anything even more arrogant and greedy.

Beth Musgrave at the Herald:

A rate increase requested Friday by Kentucky American Water would add an average of $5.76 to residential bills each month, raising the typical payment about 17.6 percent, from $32.75 to $38.51.

This from a German-owned company that has been stealing land and money from Central Kentuckians and conning the PSC for decades. I think their motto is:

"You can live without electricity or heat, but not without water. Pay us or die."

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/12/28/2457737/kentucky-american-water-requests.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2011/06/03/1761624/kentucky-utility-bills-expected.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2011/06/03/1761624/kentucky-utility-bills-expected.html#storylink=cpy

New Normal in Kentucky: Water Restrictions

It's so bad, Lexington banned fireworks over the Fourth of July holiday. And we're still two months away from peak dry season.

From the press release:

As a result of continuing high temperatures and limited rainfall, the Energy and Environment Cabinet today announced a water shortage watch for 27 counties in Kentucky. Citizens living in these areas should closely monitor local news sources for notification from water suppliers on reducing demands for water.

A Water Shortage Watch is issued when drought conditions have the potential to threaten the normal availability of drinking water supply sources. Officials at the Kentucky Division of Water (DOW) study rainfall amounts, reservoir levels, streamflows, the Palmer Drought Index and the Drought Monitor when determining drought status.

All Kentuckians should increase their awareness of the current drought situation and prepare to make adjustments to their water use.

The following counties, listed by Drought Management Area (DMA), meet the criteria to be included in the water watch:

Barren River DMA – Monroe, Simpson, Warren

Buffalo Trace DMA – Fleming, Robertson

Bluegrass DMA – Anderson, Bourbon, Clark, Estill, Fayette, Franklin, Garrard, Harrison, Jessamine, Lincoln, Madison, Mercer, Nicholas, Scott, Woodford

Cumberland Valley DMA – Whitley

Green River DMA – Webster

Kentucky River DMA – Lee, Owsley

Northern Kentucky DMA – Owen, Pendleton

Pennyrile DMA – Crittenden

High temperatures combined with precipitation deficits frequently create surges in the demand for water, often exceeding a water supplier’s ability to meet that demand. Many communities in the Water Shortage Watch areas have issued local water advisories in response to unusually high demands and reduced raw water supplies. Citizens in the Water Shortage Watch areas should be prepared to reduce water use upon request by their local water supplier.

In areas not included in this Water Shortage Watch, water supply sources remain at acceptable levels, but capacity issues associated with high temperatures and dry conditions have prompted local water advisories in several counties. Citizens across the Commonwealth should heed local water suppliers’ requests for water conservation when local advisories are issued.

In all areas of Kentucky, self-supplied individuals on wells or other small sources should avoid excessive water use and report losses of water supply to their county health department.

State climatologist Stuart Foster said “the combined impact of dry conditions and extremely hot temperatures at this time is causing a one-two punch.”

“An exceptionally dry June throughout the state coupled with some record-high temperatures over the past week have caused drought conditions to intensify and spread eastward to cover most of Kentucky,” said Foster. “The current situation is reminiscent of 1988, while there are some indications that persistence of the current hot and dry pattern that would trigger comparisons to droughts from the 1930s.”

Agriculture has been particularly hard hit in western Kentucky counties.

“The timing of the drought on corn has already and will continue to reduce yields significantly,” said University of Kentucky Agricultural Meteorologist Tom Priddy. “Doubled-cropped soybeans are having a difficult time with germination. Ponds are running low for irrigation purposes and watering of livestock. Western and central locations may be near the point where rain would provide little benefit for corn and soybean growth, development and yield.”

DOW Drought Coordinator Bill Caldwell said public water suppliers play a vital role in helping drought specialists monitor the drought’s progression.

“Water suppliers in the 27-county watch area and throughout the state should closely monitor their supply sources and notify the Division of Water if water shortages occur,” said Caldwell.

Visit the Division of Water website at http://water.ky.gov/wa/Pages/Drought.aspx for information about current drought conditions in Kentucky and water conservation measures. Visit this page to obtain information about how to contact your local health department:  http://chfs.ky.gov/dph/LinkstoLocalHealthDepartments.htm.

The Insatiable Thirst Of Fossil Fuels

The next the big wars aren't going to be over oil; they're going to be over water.

If the last drop of petroleum disappeared tomorrow, life would suddenly become extremely difficult (could you walk to work every day?) but people would not start dying by the millions very quickly.

If we lose access to clean drinking water, people will start dying by the millions very quickly.

So why are we letting fossil-fuel-burning plants ruin 40 percent of our freshwater supplies?

Kevin Drum:

From Brad Plumer:

In the United States, coal, gas and nuclear plants account for roughly 40 percent of the nation’s freshwater use, drawing from rivers and lakes to prevent their turbines from overheating.

I did not know that. That's as much as the entire agricultural sector uses. Personal use accounts for about 14% of total freshwater consumption in the United States.

No Alternatives to Water

Well of course the filthy rich parasites think they can escape pollution by buying bottled water, and for a little while that will work. But drinkable water is even more finite than oil, and infinitely more valuable. You think the oil wars are bad? Wait until we have to attack Canada for its water.

Susie Madrak at Crooks and Liars:

It's fascinating to me that our elected officials have decided that the national deficit is an urgent crisis, and yet destroying our water supplies is one of those "liberal" things no one else cares about. What do they suppose they think they're going to drink when it all runs out?

The blood of anchor babies, if I had to guess.

WASHINGTON — Oil and gas companies injected hundreds of millions of gallons of hazardous or carcinogenic chemicals into wells in more than 13 states from 2005 to 2009, according to an investigation by Congressional Democrats.

The chemicals were used by companies during a drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking, which involves the high-pressure injection of a mixture of water, sand and chemical additives into rock formations deep underground. The process, which is being used to tap into large reserves of natural gas around the country, opens fissures in the rock to stimulate the release of oil and gas.

Hydrofracking has attracted increased scrutiny from lawmakers and environmentalists in part because of fears that the chemicals used during the process can contaminate underground sources of drinking water.

“Questions about the safety of hydraulic fracturing persist, which are compounded by the secrecy surrounding the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing fluids,” said the report, which was written by Representatives Henry A. Waxman of California, Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts and Diana DeGette of Colorado.

The report, which is to be released on Monday, also faulted companies for at times “injecting fluids containing chemicals that they themselves cannot identify.”

The inquiry over hydrofracking, which was initiated by the House Energy and Commerce Committee when Mr. Waxman led it last year, also found that 14 of the nation’s most active hydraulic fracturing companies used 866 million gallons of hydraulic fracturing products — not including water. More than 650 of these products contained chemicals that are known or possible human carcinogens, regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act, or are listed as hazardous air pollutants, the report said.