{"content":[{"text":"THE FAILING STATUS QUO","bbox":{"left":0.058824,"top":0.071212,"width":0.25494200000000006,"height":0.019450999999999996}},{"text":"One thing is clear in Baltimore: the status quo isn’t working. The Baltimore water and sewer \n systems have struggled under city control with everything from poor water quality and chronic \n main breaks to inaccurate billing and delayed infrastructure investment.","bbox":{"left":0.058824,"top":0.106907,"width":0.8478559999999999,"height":0.049791}},{"text":"Under city control, the Baltimore water system has incurred four \n health violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act since April 2014, \n exceeding the Maximum Contaminants Levels of the Disinfectants \n Byproducts Rule each time.2","bbox":{"left":0.058824,"top":0.173573,"width":0.536192,"height":0.06645799999999999}},{"text":"“Food & Water Watch \n and Corporate \n Accountability have \n rushed into Baltimore \n to protect the failing \n status quo, putting \n residents at risk.”","bbox":{"left":0.651634,"top":0.198474,"width":0.261092,"height":0.16145299999999999}},{"text":"The city reported over 189 million gallons of sewage overﬂows \n in 2018 – enough to “ﬁll 285 Olympic sized swimming pools, or \n half the volume of the Roman Coliseum, full of raw sewage.” The \n overﬂows were blamed on inadequate infrastructure and heavy \n rains, and often caused sewage to back up into city residents’ \n homes and basements.3","bbox":{"left":0.058824,"top":0.256906,"width":0.516257,"height":0.09979199999999994}},{"text":"Overall system performance is deﬁcient, with dozens of old mains \n breaking during cold weather each winter.4 Even during warm \n weather, the system struggles: the Baltimore Department of Public Works interactive map showed 11 main \n break repairs in progress in August 2018.5 The Baltimore DPW has stated that water main breaks are “an \n ongoing, nonstop series of challenges” given the age of the infrastructure in the system.6","bbox":{"left":0.058824,"top":0.373573,"width":0.853395,"height":0.08312500000000006}},{"text":"Meanwhile, throughout 2016, 2017, and 2018, the Baltimore DPW struggled to implement a new billing system \n for the water utility, leading to thousands of incorrect bills and customer complaints.7 The city’s DPW has \n become known to ignore customer inquiries on incorrect water bills, leaving customers zero options to \n dispute billing mistakes and other problems.8","bbox":{"left":0.058824,"top":0.473573,"width":0.8798330000000001,"height":0.0664579999999999}},{"text":"In late 2020, following a nine-month investigation, the inspectors general for both the City and County of \n Baltimore found the water and sewer systems to be “dysfunctional” despite having spent more than $133 \n million over the last decade to address ongoing problems. The report points to 22,000 inoperable water \n meters that have resulted in tens of millions of dollars in lost revenues, as well as a backlog of nearly 12,000 \n open “tickets” ﬁled by customers over faulty meter readings – 8,195 of which have been open for more than a \n year. The city’s director of public works told the Baltimore Sun he was unaware of the backlog.9","bbox":{"left":0.058824,"top":0.556907,"width":0.8777670000000001,"height":0.09979099999999996}},{"text":"SEPARATING FACT FROM IDEOLOGICAL FICTION","bbox":{"left":0.058824,"top":0.672727,"width":0.469888,"height":0.019450999999999996}},{"text":"Shouldn’t activists work to improve water systems for the benefit of residents? Instead, groups \n like Food & Water Watch (FWW) and Corporate Accountability have rushed into Baltimore to protect \n the status quo that is failing city residents.","bbox":{"left":0.058824,"top":0.708422,"width":0.879383,"height":0.04979100000000003}},{"text":"These groups have pushed three falsehoods against professional water solutions in Baltimore:","bbox":{"left":0.058824,"top":0.775088,"width":0.7595890000000001,"height":0.016457999999999973}},{"text":"1) CLAIM: Water rates would spike under water company operations.10","bbox":{"left":0.078431,"top":0.808422,"width":0.612351,"height":0.016457999999999973}},{"text":"FACTS: FWW and other anti-private ideological groups push a bogus narrative that rate increases \n are a water company phenomenon, when in fact rates reﬂect infrastructure investment. The data \n clearly shows that rates are going up across the country – for systems owned and operated by water \n companies as well as those owned and operated by local governments – by about 7% a year as \n necessary infrastructure upgrades are being made.11","bbox":{"left":0.098039,"top":0.841755,"width":0.81315,"height":0.0831249999999999}},{"text":"www.TruthFromTheTap.com","bbox":{"left":0.364599,"top":0.973977,"width":0.27276500000000004,"height":0.017955000000000054}}],"images_bbox":[],"images_bbox_not_text_overlap":[]}