Wellesley’s Clementine Amidon this week published a blog post on HuffPost titled “A Tale of Two Cities: Bad Water in Wellesley and Flint.”
She wrote in part:
State and city governments will not let the affluent professional classes go without clean water. And rightly so. This is America, where we enjoy efficient plumbing and clean, drinkable tap water. In the words of billionaire rap mogul Jay-Z, “Water is free.” Right? Actually, wrong. It may feel free to those fortunate enough to drink designer bottled water, leaving that tap stuff for washing dishes and watering the plants. To be sure, people of all socio-economic classes expect that water from the faucet will not poison them.
In the piece, she reflects on how quickly Wellesley officials jumped on the detection of E. Coli in our water supply during August of 2014, an episode that resulted in duct-taped water foutains around town and sent residents scurrying to buy bottled water at pricy local stores. Compare that to the sickening discovery of government failure surrounding the water supply in Flint, Mich.
This is not about about affluent or less wealthy communities but about the approaches the towns and cities take when running their operations.