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I have previously tweeted papers on the coming affordability crises for municipal water & energy. What we're seeing in Texas is only the tip of the iceberg. We're facing more widespread immiseration as potable water & gas/electric become more costly as infrastructure ages.
Racial & ethnic inequities in plumbing access in the U.S.:
Dietz & Meehan (2019) "Rather, plumbing incompleteness is spatially clustered in certain regions of the country and is clearly racialized..." https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2018.1530587
Dietz & Meehan (2019) "Rather, plumbing incompleteness is spatially clustered in certain regions of the country and is clearly racialized..." https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2018.1530587
Mack & Wrase (2017): “If water rates rise at projected amounts over the next five years, conservative projections estimate that the percentage of U.S. households who will find water bills unaffordable could triple from 11.9% to 35.6%..." 1/2 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0169488
"...This is a concern due to the cascading economic impacts associated with widespread affordability issues; these issues mean that utility providers could have fewer customers over which to spread the large fixed costs of water service.” 2/2 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0169488
We're seeing this problem arise in rustbelt cities, that are losing population [& thus a) their tax base and b) a population to spread the costs of infrastructure maintenance across]. And this is layered atop the effects of legacy pollution from now-gone or dwindled industries.
"Community water systems reliant on groundwater, serving smaller populations, located in the Southwest, and serving Hispanic communities were more likely to continue exceeding the arsenic MCL, raising environmental justice concerns." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33295795/
So, communities of color may end up paying MORE for water that is contaminated #EnvironmentalJustice https://twitter.com/Arrianna_Planey/status/1362501092253315072?s=20
