[Peace-discuss] Tuesday Water referendum

[Bob Illyes]

To answer to your question, John, the water company had a bunch of 
employees at the Champaign Township meeting to block the discussion, which 
was a pity since there is much to discuss.

Briefly, Illinois American Water has a legal monopoly and therefore must be 
regulated if it is to operate in the public interest. It was bought in 2003 
by RWE, Germany's largest electricity producer. The claim that a 60% 
increase in water rates is necessary to cover the cost of a new water 
treatment plant is preposterous. It seems more likely that the weak dollar 
is causing RWE to not get the sort of return on its investment that it 
would like. This was their error in buying a foreign water company, and it 
makes no sense that we should bail them out. Monopoly utilities are a very, 
very safe investment, but should probably not be owned by foreign companies 
because of the sort of issue described above.

In my opinion, the least damage would be done if RWE scaled down its 
request to the size required by local water production. They won't want to 
sell right now because they couldn't get their money back if they were paid 
in dollars what the local water system is worth. But that conversation was 
killed at the meeting, and will have to be taken up again later.

Bob