ON THE LIGHTER SIDE.

Portland State sociologist.  Need I say more?  "Dependence on Bottled Water Worsens Social Inequality."  That link goes to audio.  The transcript offers about what you'd expect.

As a sociologist, I study the causes and the social and environmental effects of the rapid growth of bottled-water consumption in the U.S. and beyond.

Studies show that low-income, Black, and Latino households in the U.S. distrust their tap water more – and consume more bottled water– than do white and upper-income households.

The vast majority of U.S. tap water in fact meets all safety standards. Only 7 to 8 percent of water systems experience any health-related violations in an average year, but those systems disproportionately serve low-income communities and residents of color. Meeting a family’s full drinking and cooking needs with bottled water can cost thousands of dollars per year—vastly more than tap water—thus widening economic and racial inequality.

One major cause of U.S. tap water problems is a 45-year disinvestment trend. Federal spending on water infrastructure has fallen nearly 80 percent in real terms since the late 1970s–pushing the fiscal burden onto cities and states, and leading to deferred maintenance and aging pipes.

Many critics argue the federal government needs to reinvest in public water infrastructure. One current Congressional proposal to do so is the WATER Act, which would allocate $35 billion per year to improve water systems—an amount that is less than the $46 billion Americans spent last year to buy bottled water.

The sociologist concentrates on failures of local water authorities in Flint, Michigan and Jackson, Mississippi, neither of those communities known to have sewer socialists in their governments.  "The point of a price system is precisely to enable people to calculate the valuations on water."

Nor am I confident in the ability of Uncle Sugar to do the job any better.  "I know I sound like a broken record sometimes, but maybe there would be fewer things broken by government if government didn't sic its Wise Experts on people in the first place."  Additionally, if Uncle Sugar buys Flint or Jackson or anyplace else new water mains without making provisions to maintain them, while the local governments don't think like sewer socialists and price the water and sewer service, the day will come when those mains wear out, and there's no money to replace them until some future Congress acts, and the story of widening economic and racial inequality will go on and on.

Where infrastructure assets are valuable, market tests exist to price them.